I have a special treat for you today! I am interviewing not one, but TWO fabulous guests today – Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres. I would like to thank former guest and colleague Heather Eck, intuitive artist, for introducing us. Heather knows what she’s doing!

Jackie and Cheri have made part of their life’s work on communicating well. As someone who has had to learn how to communicate more clearly, without hidden meaning or agenda, and even someone who is still learning to own their needs and wants and not fawn or people please, Jackie and Cheri’s information and techniques were eye-opening to me.

During our discussion, Jackie, Cheri, and I chatted about:

1. What the story is behind their partnership and joint work on healthy and positive communications
2. What is a conversation worth having?
3. What is appreciative inquiry?
4. What is the difference between a critical conversation and a depreciative one?
5. If we slide to a depreciative conversation (hello, criticism or other negative conversations), how do we pull ourselves out it?
6. How do we tune in and be mindful of our resting-body mindset?
7. What does appreciative inquiry have to do with the nervous system?

If you are seeking ways to communicate in a healthier and more productive way in your personal and professional relationships, this podcast and their book, Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement, is for you!

Brave Conversations Start Here: Appreciative Inquiry with Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres

Hey everyone! How are you doing out there? 

Well friends and podcast listeners, I have met another sister from another mister in my guest today, Dr. Kasi Lacey! I met Dr. Kasi at the Thrive in ’25 Conference last summer, and I was like, Dr. Kasi is my person! When we chatted, I really resonated with what she was saying and so much of our corporate war stories were similar, even though Dr. Kasi and I come from different industries. It simply goes to show you that it doesn’t really matter the industry. What matters is that we share our stories so that women do not feel alone. When I met Dr. Kasi, I know I felt seen. 

Like my work with Brave Women at Work, Dr. Kasi focuses a big portion of her work on lifting women up so they can build confidence and advocate for themselves. Once I found that out, I knew she had to be on the show.

During our discussion, Dr. Kasi and I chatted about:

1. Confidence is a skill we can build; it’s not something we have or don’t have.
2. How resilience, grit, and clarity have key roles in building confidence in any area of your life.
3. How boundaries go hand in hand with confidence building
4. We chatted about how Dr. Kasi loves being on stage, and it wasn’t something she set out to do.
5. Her upcoming book, The Confidence Comeback: The Psychology of Reclaiming Your Power, Voice, and Leadership
6. And we also touched on her course: Break Free from Self-Doubt

Important Links

• • • • • • • Hello@bravewomenatwork.com
            • Brave Women at Work on Apple Podcasts
            • Brave Women at Work on Spotify
            • Brave Women at Work website
            • Conversations worth having Website
            • Conversations Worth Having, Second Edition: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement

About Cheri Torres

As founder and CEO of Collaborative by Design, co-founder and executive officer for CWH Institute Inc, and co-founder of The Sami Project for conscious leadership, Cheri is passionate about supporting growth and meaningful purpose for people and organizations. She sees her role as a catalyst for positive change, encouraging people to recognize their leadership potential as an integral part of natural systems. The practices she shares have enabled thousands of leaders and teams around the world to develop their ability to intentionally fuel high performance, engagement, and a sense of belonging through effective communication, inclusive strategic planning, and culture transformation.

 

 

About Jackie Stavros

Jacqueline (Jackie) Stavros’ passion is working with others to create purpose and meaningful results for positive change. She is recognized for her creation of SOAR, a positive approach to strategic thinking, planning, conversations, and leading. She is professor and management consultant in the College of Business and Information Technology at Lawrence Technological University. She teaches one of the most popular courses, Principles of Management, where the students learn how to best manage themselves and others. She is one of the Faculty Athletic Representatives at LTU, where she enjoys working with student athletes to empower them to navigate and advocate for themselves. She inspires them with lifework not homework. She has co-authored many articles and books with two recent: Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement (www.cwh.today) and Learning to SOAR: Creating Strategy that Inspires Innovation and Engagement (soar-strategy.com). She has worked across all sectors and in over 25 countries using Appreciative Inquiry (AI) to affect the lives of thousands of people and hundreds of organizations improve capacity to thrive and increase performance.

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the Brave Women at Work Podcast. This is your host, Jen Pestikas. I’m glad you’re here.  Hey everyone. How are you doing out there? I have to share that I have a special treat for you today. I am interviewing not one but two fabulous guest today, a trio, if you will, Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres, and of course me in that trio. I would like to thank former guest and colleague Heather Eck, who is an intuitive artist and she’s just amazing for introducing us.  Heather knows what’s up. She knows what to do here, and she knew that Jackie, Cheri, and I would get along famously.  Thank you, Heather. Jackie and Cheri have made it part of their life’s work on communicating well and driving great engagement. As someone who has had to learn how to communicate more clearly without hidden meaning or some underlying undertone or agenda, and even someone in myself who is still learning to own my needs and wants and not fawn or people please Jackie and Cheri’s information and techniques were truly eye-opening for me. During our conversation, Jackie, Cheri and I talked about the story behind their partnership in joint work on healthy and positive communications. What is a conversation worth having, just like the title of their book, what is Appreciative Inquiry? What is the difference between a critical conversation and a depreciative one?  What happens when we slide to a depreciative conversation? I’m putting in air quotes here, hello, criticize criticism, shame blame, any of those other negative components to conversation. We’ve all been part of and how we can pull ourselves and the conversation in the other direction. How do we tune in and be mindful of our resting body mindset?  And what is even a resting body mindset? And what does appreciative inquiry have to do with the nervous system? If you are seeking ways to communicate in a healthier and more productive way in your personal and professional relationships, this podcast and their book Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement is for you. Here is a bit more about Jackie and Cheri. Jackie Stavros’ passion is working with others to create purpose and meaningful results for positive change. She is recognized for her creation of SOAR in all caps. A positive approach to strategic thinking, planning, conversations, and leading. She is professor and management consultant in the College of Business and Information Technology at Lawrence Technological University. She teaches one of the most popular courses, Principles of Management, where the students learn how to best manage themselves and others. She is one of the faculty athletic representatives at LTU where she enjoys working with student athletes to empower them to navigate and advocate for themselves.  She inspires them with life, work, not homework. She has co-authored many articles and books with two recent conversations worth having using Appreciative Inquiry to feel productive and meaningful engagement. And learning to SOAR, creating strategy that inspires innovation and engagement. She has worked across all sectors and in over 25 countries using appreciative inquiry to affect the lives of thousands of people and hundreds of organizations to improve capacity to thrive and increase performance.  And then Cheri Torres. As the founder and CEO of Collaborative by Design, co-founder and executive officer of CWH Institute, Inc and co-founder of the Sami Project for Conscious Leadership. Cheri is passionate about supporting growth in meaningful purpose for people and organizations. She sees her role as a catalyst for positive change, encouraging people to recognize their leadership potential as an integral part of natural systems. The practices she shares have enabled thousands of leaders and teams around the world to develop their ability to intentionally fuel high performance engagement and a sense of belonging through effective communication, inclusive strategic planning, and cultural transformation. 

If the Brave Woman at Work Podcast has helped you personally or professionally share it with a friend, a family member, or a colleague, as the shows hit every Thursday morning. And I would be honored and humbled and inspired if you join me every week.  You can do that by hitting the subscribe. I think it’s a plus button in Apple Podcasts.  And of course those ratings and reviews, they matter. I wish they didn’t, but they do darn it. But if you can leave a rating and review, I would appreciate it. It’s great to see those as they come in. You can do that again in Apple Podcasts, and if you have supported the podcast in any way by sharing it, leaving a review, thank you for making my day. I’m also excited to share that the Brave Woman at Work Lessons in Authenticity ebook is coming out soon at time of the launch of this podcast.

It’s coming out in April of 2026 and if you follow me on LinkedIn, and if you don’t, why not come and follow me on LinkedIn, come and join the community either under Brave Woman at Work or my name Jennifer Pestikas. You can just connect with me, I’m there mainly on my socials. Come follow me on LinkedIn and I will be posting the link to get the book in late April of 2026. Then finally, I’ve had some folks that are already reaching out on Brave Woman at Work. The next book, it’s gonna be the sixth one, Lessons in Abundance, and it’s gonna be the sixth one in the anthology series. This will probably be, we will have taken 50 to 60 authors through by this point and it’s amazing that the community is growing. If you have a story in your heart, if you want to be an author and you’re like, I could never do that, or it’s someday, which I’ve mentioned on the show before, just contact me.  I promise I don’t bite. You can connect me on LinkedIn, you can send me a DM there in LinkedIn.  You can contact me at hello@bravewomenatwork.com. I’ll go through the whole process with you and we’ll see if it’s a fit and if it’s not, it’s totally okay. We can have you on a waiting list for the future or if it’s not a fit, it’s not a fit, right. It’s worth exploring though if it’s in your heart and you’d like to be an author.  All right. Let’s welcome Jackie and Cheri to the show.  

Hello Jackie. Hello Cheri. Welcome to Brave Woman at Work. How are you today?  

Thank you much, Jen. It’s a pleasure to be here and very excited to talk with you.  Oh yes, ladies, I was diving in your book. I’m just pumped.  

I am a communication nerd and I was a double foreign language major that’s a fun fact. Wow. What languages. And please don’t test me French and Spanish but it’s been a long time, but I’ve always loved words and communication and things like that.  Anytime I can geek out with experts in this area, I’m super, super pumped. Who wants to start? Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your background stories, how you’ve come into this partnership and co-authorship and all of this wonderful work you’re doing together. 

Sure I’ll get started and then Cheri can hop on in. My career started and I’m checking in from Brighton, Michigan in the automotive industry, high tech for many years working closely with senior leaders, on new product launches, very business focus. And I also worked with entrepreneurs through the small business development center network. And one of the CEOs I worked for told me I needed to get better at the human side of organizations.  How do you manage people? How do you work with people? And he introduced me to this doctorate program. It was called a Doctorate of Management at Case Western Reserve University. And in the second semester I had a course on qualitative ways of knowing appreciative inquiry. That’s how I got on the bandwagon of what appreciative inquiry is. My dissertation centered around the appreciative inquiry and capacity building. I graduated and right after 9/11 another year, I met Cheri Torres at an event and I think it was in Baltimore, and we were really passionate about what we’re gonna share with you. We know it works in organizations, there’s much research out there, and our passion was how do you bring this life to everybody in daily life, no matter who they are, anytime, anywhere. And we had our first attempt in 2004 with a book called Dynamic Relationships, and we came back together about a decade later and thought what does a second edition look like? And that’s where I work, evolved into conversations worth having. It’s been with Cheri, a journey of curiosity, really deep trust, really putting ourselves out there and having intentions to bring the power of appreciative inquiry into daily living.  And that’s how we landed into conversations worth having. That’s compressed, but that’s my story with Cheri.  

Yeah. Cheri, now I’m flipping it to you. What is your story with Jackie? 

Prior to meeting Jackie, I did a variety of professions. And when I look back on them there was a thread going through everything, which was my interest and passion around facilitating people’s ability to tap into their full potential. I started out with working one-on-one, then with teams and leadership, I did outdoor experiential learning in and out of programs to deepen my own awareness. I got a degree, a master’s degree in transpersonal psychology and an MBA and then found a program in collaborative learning at the University of Tennessee and got a PhD in that. All the while was during that time I was working teaching teamwork and leadership development using outdoor experiential learning. And a colleague and I designed and developed a portable low ropes course, which we patented and the way we had been doing training in the woods was all very proactive. Instead of asking people, why did you fall off the beam there, we would ask people, what did you do? When we tried to translate that style of facilitating into training program for our portable low ropes course. We had a hard time making what was implicitly known by us into something explicit.  We focused on what was working. We focused on when people were successful. How do you do more of that? But trying to train somebody to see that way was really difficult. Until we went to a workshop by someone who had just attended David Cooper Writer’s First Training in Appreciative Inquiry. And he was just on fire and he talked to us about, positive image, positive action, which is all Cooper Writer’s research behind appreciative inquiry. And then there was this 4G process which mapped perfectly to Kope’s Learning cycle. We left excited about here’s all the research, here’s the explicit way to look at fostering development, fostering people to be at their best by focusing on what’s working and by discovering when we’re at our best in a team, what are we doing? 

What an interesting, yeah, what an interesting combination of skills that you guys bring and personality styles and just backgrounds to the table. Just out of curiosity, ’cause I can tell the knowledge and experience run deep I’m putting you guys on the spot. What is the number of combined years of experience and academia or corporate or both that you both have? What would be the combined number of years? Oh, it’s well over a hundred. And I would also say there was a time period at the University of Lawrence Tech and we always brought Cheri in to teach our non-traditional and traditional students what she was just describing and we had much fun with her experiential learning.  

 

Yeah, I’ve not heard of that. I’m like, low ropes course. Yes, please. Course I’d like, of course. I don’t know if I’d be able to get up like, but I think I’d have some fun doing it. All of this has come into this beautiful body of work and I’m gonna bounce around a little based on where we are.  You keep talking about appreciative inquiry. Before we dive deeper, I think we have to start there.  Who wants to tell me about what that means? What does appreciative inquiry mean and why should our listeners care?

I’m gonna build on what Cheri just said, that think of appreciative inquiry is a discovery or search into the best of you.  Could look at the best of what was, what is. What’s possible. And by the word appreciative, if you looked it up in the dictionary or if you asked chat, it would come back that it means to appreciate go up in value. And we look at it that I value others, I value the situation. When you begin to ask questions you are genuinely asking questions you don’t know the answer to.  You’re very curious. As Cheri was given examples of questions like, what or how and it’s an experience above the line in a very appreciative space with people. If I could add just a little bit to that, in the very beginning with Cooper Rider’s research into this, they stumbled upon the recognition that the question you ask and what you’re focusing on is fateful. They went into the Cleveland Clinic asking questions to try to find dissertation topics. And of course, a dissertation’s looking for a problem to solve in organizational behavior. They asked questions about the problems leaders were having, what did teams need? And when the data came back, Cooper writers major professor said, there’s gotta be something wrong with this data. The Cleveland Clinic is one of the best in the country. And this data looks like this is a very dysfunctional organization. And that caused them to look at the questions that they had asked and they were all deficit based questions. We moved towards what we’re asking questions to, they went back with a different set of questions.  And it looked like a totally different organization. When are you at your best? What makes Cleveland Clinic one of the best in the country? What are the key leadership styles that bring people together? And what Cooper Rider did then was focus on that for his dissertation. This idea that what we study, what we explore, the conversations we have, move us to what’s next. And appreciative inquiry says, inquire into what is a value and what’s going to be a value. To the organization, to yourself, to the relationship. 

That’s good. Just before we go into your book again, Conversations Worth Having; Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement.  We’re gonna go into that next. But you said something about a deficit based inquiry or a depreciative inquiry, what would be an example?  Like we’ve hit hard on appreciative. What would be an example of a deficit based or a depreciative inquiry?

Let’s take the word communications. We know you love that topic. I do. Yes.  I could ask you a question. Tell me how communications is on your team.  I don’t know if you’re gonna go positive. How great it is. I don’t know if you’ll be apathetic about it or go negative because I asked you a really open-ended question and if I asked you a question, tell me why your communication doesn’t work on this team. We’re gonna drill down and become experts on everything we do bad about communication. When it doesn’t work, we start blaming and judging and it just sucks the life outta you, those conversations. Usually when you bring people together to have a conversation about communication, you’re going to want to move in a direction about, tell me about a time when communication has worked well here. Tell me about where we communicate well with other departments. And what you want to do is, as Cheri said, faithful, you wanna go and ask questions into what would make you a.  Continuously connective communication system. That’s where we’re gonna spend our energy. Not everything that we’re doing wrong. Appreciative inquiry doesn’t ignore poor communications. The problem, it begins to look at it from a unique, an appreciative, valuing perspective of, what do we want more of to happen here? 

I have a million questions. I’m like where do I go? Where do I go? I’m gonna stick to some of my questions and then we’ll weave in some ’cause I’m just chopping at the bit for some other stuff. But we’re diving into your book and you guys obviously have deep wisdom, experience academia behind you, and you have a science backed framework, which I know that appreciative inquiry is part. Tell us about the framework and then we’re gonna pick apart pieces of it as we go. 

Okay. The framework is really simple.  It is two practices. Ask generative questions. And use a positive frame, which basically means talk about what you want and study what you don’t want.  That’s the positive frame. And ask questions that will make the invisible visible what assumptions are we making here? Or, what do you think about this?  Where do you think we should go? What information do you have that I don’t have Those are the kinds of things that we often don’t speak about, but when we bring them out, it widens our view.  They’re also questions that help us create shared understanding. What’s your point of view? How do you perceive this? How do you think this is going to impact you and your work?  Here’s how it’s gonna impact me and my work. Generative questions also can generate new knowledge. Questions like, how did you do this at your previous organization? What did you do that work that we can bring in?  Or where. Where is this actually working in our organization? Who’s not dealing with this problem? What can we go learn from them to bring to our team that will help us solve this problem? Because when you just inquire into the problem, you learn a whole lot about the problem, but you don’t learn how to solve that problem.  You have to figure that out. But when you inquire into what works, you learn a whole lot about what works and you can grow that. And then the last piece around, generative questions is, are the possibility questions, how might we, and what if, those kinds of questions. The one additional part of the framework is what helps you be able to use those two practices, and that’s tuning in.  If you’re triggered by something, we often are thinking narrows. Our vision narrows, we pull back. It’s harder to connect and it’s harder to access those. Authentic, open, curiosity based questions or to focus on the outcome. The first thing if you’re triggered or you’re Jackie mentioned below the line, if you’re about to have that deficit based conversation is to tune in and it’s a simple mindfulness practice of just pause.  Which stops the triggering. Take a deep breath or two and then get curious.  What don’t I know what just happened for me? And that opens you back up.

I have a question. I just put out a social media post and did a podcast, a solo show at the beginning of the year about, and I’m not. Putting my words on you, but I think there is a relationship here. The idea of loud power and quiet power. And I think this could be appreciative or depreciative actually is in a different frame. In 2025, I found myself feeling I’m the intrapreneur of my organization and I found myself like. Pushing, using a lot of energy to get outcomes, and what I’m learning is maybe I don’t have to, maybe I can tune in and save energy and understand the organization rather than trying to push my agenda or my expectations around the organizations.  Maybe I need to come to accept. What the organization’s expectations are for itself. How do you think this relates to what you guys are talking about? 

for me, I think what you’re talking about it’s really important. And I wanna immediately, I wanna know more about what do you mean by loud power and quiet power?  What is the difference? What if you can sum it up Loud power is when you are probably being more depreciative or you’re not taking the breath, you’re not tuning in, you’re just pushing your agenda. How do I get them to see, how do I get them to move?  And then quiet Power is the idea of I’m coming from a place of worthiness and understanding about myself and the organization I’ve tuned in. I don’t have to come into the conversation dukes up and armored up, like Brene Brown would say, I can come in open enough to ask appreciative questions. And the reason that I was devouring your book is I’m like. Man, I should have got this last year, at the beginning of last year.  Does that relate to what we’re talking about? Does that make sense to you? 

Yeah. I look at your logo as we’re talking here, Brave Women at Work, and what comes to my mind is you don’t have to be louder or Tougher to be brave at work. Yes. If you can tune in. The key is if you can tune in and learn to ask generative questions, which are better questions, and frame what matters, what we wanna study, then you begin to lead with that strength and humility and integrity that. You don’t have to know all the answers.  You will ask, you’ll lead with questions. You’re inclusive and you ’cause you genuinely care, Jen. I think tuning in that technique, that strategy will really help you use how to ask questions, better generative questions and positive framing. And if I could add to that, I think one of the things when we wanna come in with our own, you know, we, I have this thing and you and I know you need it.  That loud power thing. It’s often that, that kind of energy often.  Generates the energy in reverse to keep the balance. And it’s almost like that if you come in with the soft or the quiet energy of really listening to where the other person is and then asking questions that. One of the things generative questions do is they widen our view. They not only the person asking the question, but the person who’s speaking and answering the question. And what are the questions that I can ask that will allow the client or the person I’m talking to, to widen their view enough to have them say. I think I’d like to know more about what you’re offering or what you’re talking about. Because the question has made it safe for them to receive different information than what they’re currently holding. 

Coming back around to tuning in. Let’s say someone is feeling more, I’m just gonna use the term depreciative, right? They’re feeling a little bit more caged in or feeling a little bit frustrated or, whatever the situation is, whether it’s in a personal situation or with a, in a personal relationship or a work-based environment or relationship. What would be some key things we would advise people to do, to tune in? What are some things they should do? 

You’re saying somebody that’s, is in your perception is below the line Depreciative Yes.  Is below the line. If you’re really good at learning to tune in and because you’re noticing that it first begins to realize you can’t control them, but you can influence them. And you can influence them, by the way, not only asking appreciative questions, but the tone that you have, a tone that comes across that’s appreciative.  And then you begin to shape and influence. The conversation and to realize that you may ask a question and you say anybody has an answer. And they’re always the same people who can think quickly are going to answer. But what about the people that need to literally pause and write something down and think about your question is to notice, to engage people in there.  I think with the Depreciative person It’s how you’re asking them and giving them an invitation to have a conversation worth having with you. And you would say, that is a question I had. How can we tell, I just wanna get the hallmarks. How can we tell we’re in the middle of a conversation worth having?  Versus being like Uhoh, it’s going in the wrong direction. How do I restear the ship?  Because I’m sure that happens. Yeah. I think you can feel it in your body because, and this is the science behind the whole. Conversation piece and these practices is that our, and you noted earlier how important words are and that you love words.  Words are really powerful. I know Maya Angelou used to say, they stick on your walls, and wouldn’t let certain conversations in her homes, the words and the conversations we have immediately influence our neurophysiology. And when you’re, when you can feel muscles tensing in your body and yourself pulling in, those are telltale signs that you’re headed downward in your conversation below the line.  And anybody listening to this if you just. Pause for a minute or right after you, you listen to the podcast, think of the most recent conversation you’ve been in that was really below the line.  You’re like, oh, that was not a good conversation. And just recall it and see what’s going on in your body.  How you feel, where your, where you know where your body goes. What your breathing is like. And then think of a great conversation you’ve been in recently, one that was really energizing, and then feel what that’s like in your body. And most people report their, shoulders go up, their breathing gets deeper, they’re light, they’re not protecting themselves, they’re relaxed, they’re excited, they’re smiling.  They’re, yeah. Like open, they’re leaning in all those kinds of things. The body is a great compass for you to tell which way am I pulling back, crossing my arms?  That’s a key indicator. 

The words and the conversations we have immediately influence our neurophysiology. Share on X

So one of the other things you talk about, and I saw a visual in your book of that iceberg, right?  As leaders We’re often get the thing done. That’s manager versus leader versus I was taught in the school of managing to the whole person. You are managing everything about them. And the things they’re saying and not saying, but you have this beautiful visual of the resting body mindset with everything below there.  Can you talk on that? Because I think our either new leaders or even any level of leader. Or even if you’re an individual contributor, you need to know this about yourself.  Can you jump into resting body mindset? 

Yeah. The iceberg that’s in the book think about it.  You see somebody. But it’s how you see somebody below the line or below that iceberg. I don’t know if you’re dehydrated, if you had a bed night’s sleep, if someone ills in your family, if you’re worried about getting in trouble, there’s much below the line that you don’t know that is beginning to impact that body mindset that. That they’re in. That’s why I also think conversations worth having and we’re talking about some of our quick start guides, the one for resilience is it starts with the conversations that you’re having in your own mind and you asking yourself what’s going on within you, but also taking time out to ask the people on your team, or even the depreciative person, tell me what’s going on in your life.  How can I, we talk about support you? We had a conversation on helping versus supporting, but how do I support you when I say, how do I support you?  Oh, she’s supporting me and she wants to know how she can support me. 

You know what’s interesting? I say that and I’m not like, I’m awesome, but I say that to my employees all the time is I’m like, how can I best support you?  Or what feedback to me do you have for me? How can I best support you? It sounds like that would be more of we’ll allow that psychological safety we can have a conversation worth having.  And if I walk my talk, then I put more coins in that trust bank. If I actually do support them.  Is that what you’re saying there? 

Yeah. We had this, if I say, how can I help you?  You might be thinking, she thinks I need help. Oh, I see. And not say to you, how do I support you, Jen, you are realizing Jackie supports me and Jackie wants to know how can she even more support me? That mindset is she’s on my side, she’s with me. She’s wants to be there to support me, and she’s gonna offer to do something  ’cause she just asked, how do I support you? Words will either uplift you or trigger you.

And you know what’s interesting is I have a couple people in my life, they’re like, you’re parsing my words.  But I think the word choice kind of matters. It does much. Yeah.  And whether you know it or not. And coming back to appreciative inquiry and if we did, let’s just re-highlight it ’cause I think it’s really important. But one of the questions I had here is we’ve defined it, but what are the two appreciative practices?  Can we dive into that or re-highlight that one more time? 

Yeah. The two practices is generative questions.  Yes. Positive framing. And Cheri went into the details, but a generative question. If you listen to all the questions that Cheri just asked, she’s typically asking you what and how questions. That generative question is really, as she noticed, you’re broadening the screen and you’re really curious and it’s not a judgy question or question you think you know the answer to.  It’s a genuinely curious question. Those are generative questions and you need to learn how to ask them and ask them more often. My favorite one is, tell me what your wishes are. That Depreciative person can come at you, and then at the end, if you pause, we can get curious and I can say.  Tell me what your wishes are. And pick up a pen and be ready to write their wishes down that they know you care. And then positive framing. We have a tool in the book that is called The Flipping Tool.  You name it, you flip it, you frame it. That’s easy to remember. Name it, flip it, frame it. Now it’s easier than said, but then you spend time naming the problem we talked about.  It’s poor communications, awful communications. Flipping it is. If we’re gonna talk about communications and we agree that is the problem, it’s just what’s the positive opposite of a bad communication is good communication.  Now we need to go further. The framing is, imagine right now we start having great communication.  What does that look like? That’s the frame we want to study and ask really good questions around that we have.  A highly performing team that communicates well. We’re gonna drill down into what makes that high performing team that communicating well, and we begin to ask generative questions around that, and that begins positive image, positive action science we talked about it moves you in the direction just by having those conversations there. 

One of the other things that I wanted to highlight is we all know that. As leaders at work, especially even at home, you have to have tough conversations, critical conversations. And I wanted you guys to comment on, let’s say, I’m gonna give you a couple of examples. I have a teenager and she breaks some rules or gives me lip or whatever, right?  That’s gonna be a critical conversation. And then another one could be even, maybe even more serious. I don’t know if one is more serious than the other, if you have an employee that is not meeting expectations at work. And that’s hard because maybe that employee thinks that they are doing just fine and you have to steer them and go, Hey, we do need to see some improvement, or we may have to go to disciplinary action.  Ouch. How do you make sure That because when and how you approach these. ’cause I’ve messed these up, my friends, I have messed all of these up. We all have.  And there’s, you steer ’em in the wrong way and you’re like, oh crap. And then it’s too late. Or you have to, you I’ve resteered them.  Tell us about that. How can you have an appreciative, yeah, critical conversation where no one walks away bloody or defensive or versus having a pure depreciative. Because I don’t want people that are listening to be like they’re just saying that all conversations are just roses and rainbows, and they’re not, sometimes they are hard, but you can do them artfully and skillfully. Tell us the difference in how to do that.

I think the first thing before you dive into those conversations is to tune in even before you think about how am I gonna do this?  Check in with yourself. Are you in a space where you’re feeling judgmental, blaming, critical, if that’s the internal landscape. You are not gonna be able to have a conversation worth having. The first thing to do is to move into a space of what don’t, and these would be questions that I ask myself which could be applied to either the employee with that is on the verge of being thrown out, or right teenager who likewise might be on the verge of being thrown out.  What don’t I know? What  am I missing in here and what might the other person not know about me or the frame or the context?  Is there something that’s needed that we haven’t surfaced? If you get in that place yourself of being really curious enough to open up and let go of, I know what’s right.  I know. I know everything about the situation too. There’s gotta be some stuff here I’m not aware of.  I’d like to find that out. And also, what’s the outcome I’m looking for from this?  Do I just want compliance or do I want learning and growth for the employee? And I want a better relationship with my teenager and I want my teenager to be safe and follow through on commitments, whatever that is. When you’re in that place where you’re like, oh, it’s really clear the outcome I want from this. That’s what the conversation is about and I’m really clear that I don’t have the answer of how to get there.  You can go into that. Conversation by saying, here’s what I’d really like. Us to where I’d like us to get with, and you can even have the first conversation about that, there are some issues we need to talk about and I’d really like to get to the place where we have shared understanding and you have this, what you need to be able to follow through or to comply or whatever that, whatever the frame is. Is that a conversation that would be worthwhile for us to have? Is there something else you’d like to add to the outcome of this? The person has the opportunity to add to that and then be in the conversation of how do we get to that place as opposed to how do we criticize what’s wrong, name it and try to fix it. How do we move together to that shared, desired outcome? And I would add for those listening is one of the fun parts about writing this book and the journey Cheri and I set out too.  It’s not a thick academic book. It’s a practical book. The issues you just brought up, we have the stories in the book.  The exact same with the teenagers and with the worker. And in the second edition it’s just two pages. It’s one page, 1 65 and then one, we have a list of those questions that Cheri just said here are.  10 questions you can ask yourself. To help you be in a conversation worth having with yourself before you enter that with your teenager or the person that you’re gonna have to put on a performance improvement plan.  And then we have a set of, here’s some questions you would ask. The this, there’s only two practices. That you need to learn and you need to get good at it and really understand it, it becomes just a habit of who you are and how you’re being. All your conversations anywhere, anytime, any situation. What, one of the things, just to add a couple quick stories to illustrate because the situation you described with your teenager, typically the first thing we hear from people who go through our courses is they try it at home first. And the positive stories we’ve heard about the complete turnaround, relationships with teenagers are heartwarming for us. Oh, that’s awesome. That and one of the things that they, without fail, that they’ve said is there’s this realization that I go in telling and asking, why aren’t you doing this? And they have this realization that I never ask and I don’t listen.  What is it that they want? What’s going on, that compliance isn’t happening? And that just by listening and really listening with genuine curiosity to connect in a person to person way with a child, it is incredibly effective.  It works with adult children also. We had one woman whose I have much to offer my three adult children and they don’t wanna talk to me.  I’ll call and I’ll try to tell them how they can be better parents. And she went home after the first day and came back and she said, oh my goodness. I was on the phone with my kids all night. I called each one of them and all I did was ask generative questions, and one of them talked to me for 45 minutes opening up and telling me everything, they haven’t done that for years. There’s that piece of when people are feeling heard and listened to and you’re curious about where they are. As you mentioned before, it becomes a psychologically safe space for them to open up and really engage in a genuine, authentic interaction. 

Are you in a space where you're feeling judgmental, blaming, critical, if that's the internal landscape. Share on X

And I’m not gonna obviously mention names or particulars in this scenario, but I have had tough conversations where I’ve had to give someone tough feedback. And as I’m learning these skills and now with your book even more and can’t wait for your other, like the coursework and things like that. I’ve realized that we can actually end a tough conversation or a critical conversation and be friendly.  Or be productive, which is encouraging. Even if we’re at an impasse.  It’s not like this painful impasse. It’s Hey, we agree to disagree. This is where I am.  This is where you are. Would you like to pick this up in our next, one-on-one or our next meeting?  But it’s never where it’s combative. And the one thing that I’d like to highlight and underscore and highlight and underscore is that you don’t get taught this you’re a great individual producer, you get put into management or leadership and then you grow in your career. But no one tells you the whole idea of the tuning in first to make sure that you are in a place to have these conversations. Also in parenting, I don’t know if it’s in the books, maybe I need to get new books.  But I grew up with Boomer parents, right? You will do what I’m gonna tell you until you are in my house, and therefore you will do what I say until you’re 18.  And after that, you can make your own decision. Like complete silencing of kids, right? A whole generation.  Gen X completely silence. I don’t know, but. I’m learning with my kids, it’s just not possible. Like I won’t have a relationship with my daughters my 14-year-old if I don’t listen to her, if that makes sense.  

Yeah, absolutely. And there’s a great story in the book about the daughter who quit college and came home, and that was one of our favorite stories we wrote in the second edition, is the dad thought he had the frame right. In the book, we say how his frame blew up and when the frame blew up, he’s I wanna do over conversation.  I wanna try this again. And then he had a shared framework with her that totally changed the conversation.  And where she was going in life and where he was going to as the father.

That’s really great.  Yeah, I love that. And that must make you feel joyful. Like in the work, it does work that you do that you’re like, yes, this is working, this is, doing right by people. Going back around to the depreciative, you said like with that example, his framework blew up. If we can tell as we’re getting more skilled, we’re sliding.  I’ve had this happen. I’m sliding to depreciative, we’re going below the line. I’m like, uh oh. Oh. Oh. Is there any way to pull it up, mid-conversation or is it better to just end the conversation? Not abruptly, leave the room, but when you’re starting to slide below line, your body is feeling tense, you’re observing them get tense or defensive.  Can you bring it up? What do you do to bring it up if you can? 

And now it’s doing tuning in without calling it, tuning in. If you are bringing me down, and I know I’m below the line, ’cause I’m aware I need to say to you, Jen.  All right, time out. Let’s take a break. I’m not in a good place to talk about this right now. Just let me take a break on this and you can ask for what we call like a do-over conversation or if that person’s imploding that you’re talking to and you’re not the one that’s imploding, if you just say to the person, all right let’s just pause, take a deep breath and let’s do this conversation over.  We talk about the do over example. I’m actually by me telling you to pause and breathe, I’m resetting your body mindset because I’ve given you those commands that I’m starting to bring you up to that line. And the question I’m gonna ask you next should definitely have you in, she is appreciating, she’s listening, she’s asking me.  Good. And you have to be consistent with your behaviors when you’re practicing this that they know this is really genuine in who you are. I think another thing that if you’re. You’re recognizing you’re starting to get triggered and the conversation is going down. A joint pause can be really helpful. And one of the things that I think you can ask and a pause if you should, just if you can say, can we pause just for a second and. Almost like taking a step back saying, what is it we’re trying to do with our conversation?  Where do, where are we trying to get to? What is it that we both want? And it like pulls you back up out of the weeds. And can reset because if you’re trying to get to some agreed upon place or but maybe you haven’t even made that clear at the outset. I remember one of, w we have three people that are in a school system that were all trained and certified. And they were, she said they were in a meeting where they just started to spin around the problem and everybody was like arguing and somebody got.  Self-aware, conscious of the oh, look where we are. And they said, wait a minute. Let’s pause for a minute and let’s name it, what is it?  That’s the issue here. And let’s flip it and come up with what is it that we’re trying to do?  Where are we trying to go? And she said, within five minutes they were all paddling in the same direction and they had a shared solution. It’s that we get lost in without a clear where are we going? easy.  That’s good too. Get that lost. Yes. To be like, we’re focused on either the attack or being defensive below the line that we lose the common shared ground or the purpose of the conversation to begin with.  Yeah. Okay. That’s really helpful. Last one is, I would love to say that people like either reside, I’m hoping that they don’t reside in one or the other, like that they vacillate between. 

But have you had anyone come to you that says, you know what, my spouse, my boss, that, maybe just life circumstances, they’re not well or they’re in a negative head space. Like you said, the resting, biting mindset isn’t just not in a good spot. How do you deal with someone that may reside or be in the depreciative? Do you just make a, like a tough decision in that relationship or in that or could you, even with a tough cookie, I’m gonna call that person a tough cookie. Can you turn it even with someone in that regard?

 I would wanna say that is really situational. I think there are some people that they’re not interested in, collaborating forward with other people.  They are where they are and they’re not for whatever reason, they don’t want to engage and you can’t make somebody engage who doesn’t wanna engage.  Or if somebody is really abusive or there’s some pathology going on. It is better to be safe. Be safe. Take yourself out of that situation or remove that person from your situation, your safety and your sanity are important, but it’s make sure that you’ve made an effort first. You’re not like, oh, I’m out of here.  Do you wanna work on this relationship? Yeah. As long as you come to where I am that Nope, you don’t really wanna work with us.  

Yeah, exactly. The reason I’m saying this is I’m have, again, not naming situations, you know when you have in an environment where people are like, oh, nothing’s gonna change, or nothing’s ever changed before who are you gonna come in and make any changes? Or, morale is a little bit on the low side, right?  Because things have been the way they’ve always been, right? That sounds pretty depreciative to me as a whole culture. I like that you’re framing it as Hey, don’t give up. Give it a good old college try before, you throw it all out. But sometimes environments, people, places they will decide, right?  I just wanted to make sure that people here. You can do your part, right? But you also have to protect your own energy too. Like they have to engage in their own evolution in becoming to a place where they can have a conversation worth having.  Does that make sense?

Yeah and I would say talk about being a brave woman or any brave person.  Know your core values, know who you are and don’t compromise your values. In the flipping tool, flipping the script does not mean that you tolerate disrespect. It means for you to say, this isn’t working for me and here’s why and if we want to move forward together, if you want to, we’ve gotta set up some boundaries or values and it’s closing the loop to say. As Cheri said, a destructive conversation you might have to leave or get, this is where you might have to get help. Yeah. And to know you’re in that, and we’re very clear in the book, we talk about what’s an affirmative conversation worth having, even what we talked about earlier today, critical conversations. But when you’re in that square of a destructive conversation, yes, below the line, negative statements, negative energy.  Sometimes you have to walk away from it. 

Yep. Okay. That was just running through. Just you know, visually we’re running through that quadrant that you guys had in the book too, that women and all the listeners are hearing that sometimes you just do have to get out to protect your own energy, your own sanity, your own safety.  Yep. Yeah, your safety, psychological safety. Yes. Things like that. One last thing before we wrap up, and I told you ladies, I told you we could keep talking for hours and hours.  Is for your book I wanna make sure that you share that this framework, these tools, can support us not only personally, but professionally.  Is that correct? Absolutely. Okay. It has both stories. You just mentioned briefly that you might be the organization, might be morale is low and the whole place feels really toxic.  But by coming in and working with conversations worth having. You can flip even an entire culture and in that process you may discover the one or two toxic people that are creating that situation.  

Yes and you might be able to flip them being really positive, through this process.  They might be like, Hey, you know what? I need to engage. Yes.  Or there’s, another book, it’s called Energy Bus. I’m just, and it’s you either get on or off the bus, basically.  Yes. That’s me immensely.  I’m like, energetically, are they with us? Are they rowing with or are they rowing against? And maybe it is time for them energetically to get off our bus, but they’ll self-select because they’re like, this isn’t the right culture for me.  Which lightens everybody, right? 

Yes. Yeah. it’s personally, professionally and individually.  Okay. All right, good. Everyone, if you’re in between careers right now, or you’re having some issue from a personal side or you wanna improve your relationships, I just wanted to highlight that it’s personal and professional relationships, personal environments and professional environments. Ladies, maybe you do each, you do one unless you have more, and maybe you can list as many as you want within our timeframe. But what are a few ways that women can be braver at work today? 

I think being braver at work. When you’re stepping into work and you know you want to be braver at work, I would say take a deep breath and trust yourself and just if you understand these two practices we’ve get and just let the conversation unfold. I think you have to especially I think women actually, I think women and I would bet we’re really good at tuning in.  We’re more sensitive. We care, we’re compassionate, and guess what? None of that goes away.  We’re very good at that. And now conversations can help you even be this way of having conversations with having can help move you forward.  I agree with that. And then to you, Cheri. I think one way to be braver is to recognize that the energy that you bring, especially if it’s the more traditional feminine energy of understanding relationships, intuition the curiosity, the care, the compassion.  Your organization, your family, they need that and even though they might say, no, we don’t want it. No, we don’t need it, and try to push it away, that balance of energy is important and essential right now for leadership and organizations and families. And take a brave step and don’t feel like I have to be more masculine in my energy to show up.  The world needs you to be you. And bring your strength. 

And take a brave step and don't feel like I have to be more masculine in my energy to show up. The world needs you to be you. And bring your strength. Share on X

Gave me the shivers. Yes.  Gave me the shivers. Those are good. Those are good. Thank you much. Okay, wrapping us up here, how can listeners connect with you both? The book again, Conversations Worth Having Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement. Your book and all of the upcoming work online. 

Our website is cwh.today or conversationsworthhaving.today.  We have self-guided training on site. We have our foundations course, which is all the basics in 30 minutes. Five short videos and then we have deep dive bootcamps where you can practice with other people.  Jackie mentioned the resilience Quick Start Guide, we have a couple of those and we have more coming out this year. we also wanted to offer all of your listeners a 20% off coupon. If they order any of that stuff online, they just have to type in Brave Woman, women for the coupon, and they will automatically get 20% off.  Oh, that’s awesome. I gotta ask, is it women with an EN or an A N?  Let’s say it would be Brave Women at work. EN. Brave women. Brave Women. Okay. Women. Yep just say Brave Women is our code. And they would type it in all caps. Correct.  Or it doesn’t matter. It will only let them type it in at all caps.  Okay. All right, everybody we’re getting all of the details we don’t want anyone to miss that 20%. Who doesn’t wanna save a couple bucks here and there. Thank you guys for that generous offering for the listeners, and I really appreciate the work that you do and look forward to having future conversations worth having with you. 

 Thank you, Jen. Thank you much for the opportunity to bring this to your audience. 

That’s a wrap up of my discussion with Jackie and Cheri today.  I hope you found our conversation both valuable and inspiring.
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Until next time, show up, have conversations worth having, and be brave.