Michael Bungay Stanier has an extraordinary talent for distilling the complexity of human relationships into easy to remember and follow frameworks—doing so with just the right amount of Australian humor and plenty of vulnerability. Despite his remarkable success with books like The Coaching Habit, The Advice Trap, and How to Begin, Michael never comes across as one of those gurus who thinks they have all the answers. That mindset comes through perfectly in the title of his newest book, How to Work with (Almost) Anyone—not absolutely anyone, almost anyone. The book is built around five questions for building the best possible relationships which we have found to be very helpful in our working relationship.

We have grown to be friends with Michael through our repeated gatherings at the House of Beautiful Business. I know all three of us would encourage all of our listeners and readers to join us at the next House as well.

In this interview, we talk about Michael’s new book, how to use a keystone conversation to build the best possible relationship, and we even consider how to apply Michael’s frameworks to working with generative AI.

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Thanks to Jonathan Coulton for our music

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