Author: Alexis

The challenges facing humanity are growing in complexity.

Collaboration is one of the ways we can respond: by bringing diverse minds together and designing conditions where they can actually work through complex problems.

In this episode, I speak with Philippe Coullomb and Charles Collingwood-Boots, co-authors of the book Collaboration by Design. They both describe their work in a similar way: designing how individuals and organizations come together to solve or navigate complex problems. Often through workshops, sometimes through smaller conversations that help people make sense of complexity.

From a client booklet to a 360-page book

The origin story of the book is practical.

They were approached by a client in Singapore who wanted a training. Philippe and Charles designed it, and created a participant deliverable: a booklet of around 100 pages. People in their network saw it and reacted with a clear message: “This is what we need. There isn’t much written about the practice.”

So they decided to turn it into a book. What they thought would take a few weeks became a year. The booklet grew into a 360-page publication, expanded topic by topic, until they forced themselves to stop adding.

Charles adds an important point: people often saw a “simple workshop” but did not understand the depth of intent and practice behind it. The book is, in part, a way to codify that depth.

The iceberg of facilitation

One of the most useful images in the conversation is the iceberg.

What we see in a workshop (facilitator, group, activities) is the tip.

Below the surface is what makes the visible part meaningful and seamless: the sponsor work, the design work, the political and relational work, and the careful choices that prevent predictable failure modes.

That is why Philippe and Charles resist the idea that “the facilitation in the room” is the most important part. It matters, but it depends on what happened before.

Sponsor engagement is not optional

For Philippe, the first critical step is sponsor selection.

You need the right group of sponsors who represent enough perspectives and carry enough leadership to co-design the session. Selecting them is not trivial.

Then comes the engagement work: a series of conversations that clarify context, objectives, and constraints. Mechanically it sounds simple. In practice it is tricky, because those conversations surface contradictions, ambiguities, and stakeholder dynamics that sponsors may ignore or hope to avoid.

As Philippe puts it: whatever you identify, you must make explicit and address. If you bury it, you will pay for it later.

Context setting is part of the craft

Once the workshop begins, Charles places primacy on participant engagement.

The goal is to create the conditions that allow people to explore, challenge, ask questions, and make sense together. That starts with context setting: participants need to understand why they are there, what the sponsors expect from them, what the journey is, and what role the facilitator will play.

This is also where facilitation includes coaching sponsors. Sponsors do not always know how to open a workshop well. Helping them find the right posture and tone is part of the job.

A workshop can feel dull for simple reasons: people are unsure what they are doing, activities feel disconnected, and no one explains why the perspectives in the room matter. Context setting fixes that.

Virtual is similar, but harder

Both Philippe and Charles are clear: the core principles stay the same online.

Sponsorship still matters.
Design still matters.
The right questions still matter.

But virtual collaboration often loses intensity. It takes more effort, more time, and often a larger delivery team than people assume. Philippe challenges a common belief: that digital delivery should be leaner than physical delivery. In his experience, it is not.

There is also the relationship to content. In person, the physical act of drawing on a whiteboard makes iteration easy and creates shared energy. Online tools can approximate that, but the dynamic changes, and adoption becomes a real hurdle.

Charles adds a sharp design point: you cannot design a virtual workshop the same way you design an in-person one. Energy, attention, and cognitive load are different. Online also creates more barriers to engagement: camera off, mute on, side distractions. Modules and activities need to be adapted to that reality.

Hybrid is the hard mode

Hybrid workshops introduce another layer of complexity.

Charles calls it plainly: hybrid is very, very challenging. Tech becomes central, not peripheral. You need reliable audio, video, and collaboration tooling that supports cross-platform engagement, not two separate experiences.

Philippe adds a vivid example: even a delivery team of seven collaboration professionals (five together, one remote, one remote) naturally formed “5 + 1 + 1.” The on-site group did not put enough effort into the digital channels, because their in-room collaboration felt easier. If that happens among experts, imagine what happens across multiple participant groups.

The takeaway is simple: the technology may exist, but most clients underestimate what it takes to set it up well at scale.

Space is a facilitation lever, not logistics

When we speak about collaboration, we often reduce space to logistics.

Philippe and Charles argue the opposite. Space is part of the design. It shapes the quality of attention, the mood, and the seriousness of the work.

Charles describes space as an enabler of both effectiveness and experience. Philippe highlights a common client trap: putting space in the same bucket as catering and transport. But you cannot lock people in a windowless hotel room and expect them to invent an exciting future.

There are universal attributes that matter: daylight, plants, space, line of sight. And then there is the next level: choosing a location and a space that is meaningful for the purpose of the workshop, so the environment reinforces the intent. When you have that alignment, the event gains wholeness.

The workshop is a moment, not the end

A workshop is not a purpose in itself. It serves something else.

Charles describes facilitation as walking a tightrope between the plan and the reality of the participant group. A great facilitator is not executing a script. They are responding to a living system: sensing energy, listening closely, and adapting in real time.

This is where the delivery team becomes essential. If the agenda needs reshaping, you need support to pivot fast.

And after the workshop, the real question becomes: who will do what with what emerged?

Philippe describes two categories of follow-through:

• tangible outcomes: decisions, artifacts, documents that enable action
• intangible outcomes: momentum, alignment, leadership energy, relationships that need to be nurtured

Some sponsors will naturally leverage the workshop’s potential. Some will not. Part of the facilitator’s responsibility is to assess that and help sponsors maximize the value created.

Closing thought

This episode is a reminder that meaningful collaboration is designed.

It is not only a workshop agenda. It is sponsor selection, context setting, facilitation craft, space as an enabler, and thoughtful follow-through that turns a moment into momentum.

Here is the link to find the book Collaboration by Design. The book is available in English and French.

Listen to the episode:

You can listen to this episode on your favorite platform: Anchor, Spotify, Breaker, Google, Apple…

Here is the transcript of the episode:

Alexis

This is Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership, I am Alexis Monville. The challenges facing humanity are growing in complexity. Collaboration is offering us to tackle more complexity by getting diverse minds to work together. How to gather people to facilitate successful collaborations?

Philippe Coullomb and Charles Collingwood-Boots design the way individuals come together to create innovative and sustainable outcomes to address complex issues.

Alexis

Hello Philip and Charles. That’s great to have you on the show.

Philippe

Hello.

Charles

It’s great to be here.

Alexis

So Philip. Ah, let’s start with you. What is your role and how would you describe it to someone. You just met.

Philippe

If I only I knew after all these years. I sort of defined myself as a collaborative designer. So in a nutshell my role is to design Collaborative Journeys to solve complex problems or make complex decisions in a multi-stakeholder context and most of the time it takes the form of workshops but not only.

Alexis

Thank you. Your turn Charles same question: What is your role and how would you describe it to someone you just met?

Charles

So I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing but I have the same challenge as Philippe but if I come from a so similar background the way I describe my role is: I design the way individuals and organizations come together to solve or navigate complex problems and just like Philippe a lot of the time that involves workshops but sometimes it’s designing simple conversations to make sense of complex problems.

Alexis

it’s really interesting, I’m excited about that conversation! Can you tell me what was the pivotal moment that led you to write the book collaboration by design?

Philippe

It’s actually a funny story. We got approached by a client in Singapore who wanted a training so we designed the training and we thought that we needed deliverable for the training. And that it would be great if the deliverable was co-written with the participants. So we produced a sort of booklet or 100 pages booklet ah primarily aiming for the participants to that training and then everyone else in our in our network who saw that booklet. Said look. It’s amazing. We really need something like that. There’s nothing written about the practice, could you make that available and while we couldn’t because this was a client artifact we thought okay we have something pretty good. Let’s put in a few weeks of work to make it a little bit better and let’s turn that into a book. And then of course Charles and I being who we are we thought it was a few weeks and it ended up being a year. We turned a hundred pages booklet into a 360 pages book and every time we would touch a topic we would come with a list of 10 things we believed, that had to be described or illustrated and then we went on and on and on until someday we thought, Okay we have to stop here. We cannot keep adding so initially it started from basically making a prototype and people around us loving it and asking us for more.

Alexis

That’s really beautiful. That’s really serving the needs of people!

Charles

And maybe just add on to that. People often didn’t fully understand the way that we did things and the intent behind it so to some extent it was about trying to codify what people saw as a simple workshop. But in a way that really drew out the depth of practice and procedure that sat behind it.

Alexis

Excellent. So when I think of facilitating successful collaborations I picture the facilitation that happened during the gathering would you say it is the most important aspect.

Philippe

You want a good child.

Charles

Yeah, So my perspective it’s one part of it and certainly a great deal of emphasis needs to be placed on the Workshop. You know the manifestation of all the work but certainly it’s not I wouldn’t say the most important. For me, It’s the process leading up to it. It’s the work with the sponsor or the owner of the problem or indeed the solution that you’re trying to work towards and really unpacking with them and facilitating the process by which they come to understand the problem. And then starting to design from there. So The facilitation at the front of the room is an aspect but I wouldn’t say it’s the most important.

Philippe

To build on that at the beginning of the Book, we take the analogy of the iceberg and I think it’s quite telling what you see, the part of the workshop that you see which is a facilitator a group and a set of activities is on the visible side, the tip of the iceberg. And under that is a lot of pre-work and a lot of background work to make the experience meaningful and the delivery seamless.

Alexis

So, what happens before the gathering is really important. You spoke about engaging the sponsors. Can you tell us a little bit about what it means? What are you doing when you are engaging the sponsors?

Philippe

Yeah, sure. The first thing is to select the sponsors and make sure that you’re working with the right group of people that represent enough perspective that together show enough leadership so that you have the right conversation partners to co-design the session.

Philippe

And that’s not a small task selecting the right group. When you have them, the process is both quite straightforward and quite complex. Quite straightforward because all you can do is have a series of conversations so you schedule a number of conversations through which you will unpack the context clarify the objectives and then progressively develop convictions on what to do and how to do it in the workshop and quite complex because through those conversations you usually uncover a whole lot of contradictions ambiguities, complex stakeholder dynamics that either the client is not aware of or is aware of but closing a blind eye on and you cannot afford to just bury that under the carpet. Whatever you identify you have to address you have to make explicit and then address, otherwise you’ll pay the price later so that’s it, a straightforward process in terms of mechanics but conversations that are quite tricky.

Alexis

And that’s what will really change the dynamic during the gathering. So, when I read the book, to be honest, I realized some of the things that happened to me during some workshops or meetings, clearly, I realized that it was linked to that preparation before the meeting. So during the gathering now that you’ve engaged the sponsors and you designed the gathering. What is really important to you?

Charles

Obviously through that preparation you’ve developed an understanding of the client of the problem and enough of an understanding around the content to navigate the conversation. But for me, the primacy is engagement with the participant group. Creating the right conditions at the start of the workshop that enable an open conversation. A freedom for the participants to explore to challenge to ask questions to make sense. For me, it’s important to really set the right context up front and your position as part of that group in navigating and facilitating them through the journey that you’ve set out in the agenda.

Alexis

So setting the context that’s part of what the facilitator will do and part of what the sponsors will do.

Charles

Correct. Your role as a facilitator in that moment in that time needs to be clear. People need to understand what they can expect of you. The role that you will part play and you need to establish yourself in that position across the course of the workshop. But equally the drivers behind the workshop the work that they’re doing the expectation of the sponsors on the participant group to engage in the best way possible to get the best outcome is a key part to so setting that conversation or the dialogue up front with the sponsors and the group is all part of setting the right scene or creating the right conditions for participants to engage because we’ve all been through those workshops where it’s a very sort of dull and dreary experience where you’re not really sure what you’re there to do and.

Charles

Sometimes the activities are a little bit disconnected or you’re not too sure what they’re about, so enabling the participants to be confident in the journey that they’re about to embark on even if it’s a little bit unknown and confident in you as a facilitator to lead that and why they’re there. And why their perspective is important.

Philippe

And the even for the part that is on the Sponsor’s Shoulder. We do have a role to play. It’s not always natural for the sponsors to know how to properly set the context for such a workshop. So we need to coach them through that, to make sure that they adopt the right posture and convey the right messages sometimes it will be evident to them sometimes not and we need to check if it is and if it’s not we need to help them find the right tone.

Alexis

Okay, that’s simple, I Love it. With the pandemic, a lot of things had to happen remotely virtually and when I picture facilitation or collaboration I think of people in your room. What are the main principles to observe when you design and facilitate a virtual gathering? What are the things that are changing with all the things that are the same? Philip, do you want to start?

Philippe

Well, I’m not I’m not sure I want to because I’m not a huge fan of virtual collaboration. But I guess like all of us have done, I’ve done a fair bit and I think what doesn’t change is the absolute imperative to get the sponsorship right and to get the design right. So, however, you deliver the experience, making sure that you’re looking into the right questions in the right way is an imperative and you follow the exact same process to achieve that. The main difference is in the intensity of the experience and in the interaction with the content. I didn’t experience yet the same intensity of interactions between participants digitally and it takes a lot more effort to get to intense interactions aid thought and time to get to intense interactions digitally than it takes physically so you need to take that into account when planning the time scheduling the time of your different activities and sizing the delivery team it does take work we have for whatever reason that image that a digital delivery should be leaner than a physical delivery and I don’t think it is and content-wise there’s a completely different way to relate to content to relate to ideas.

Philippe

So in the physical world, we have whiteboards and there’s this sort of physical connection to the idea and we draw something It’s extremely easy to iterate. Everyone’s engaged. You can feed from everyone’s energy. This doesn’t happen online and again the digital collaboration tools like Mural, Google Jamboard all of these, offer the possibility to collaborate on the same objects and, but the dynamic is slightly different so you need to take that into account again in your design and of course, there’s the adoption of the tools that can be a real nightmare. No one needs an explanation to grab a marker and use a whiteboard. The adoption of a Mural board as simple as it may seem to some of us can can be a big huddle to others.

Alexis

Oh yes.

Charles

The big thing from my experience is you cannot design a virtual workshop through the same means as you would an in-person workshop. The demands of  energy of mind space are completely different in person than it is virtually. in addition, there’s a hundred, here’s a myriad of more barriers that people can create for themselves that create a limitation to engage. The simple act of putting yourself on a mute or taking your camera off. All these things create a distraction from each other in the content in the workshop. So the way you design needs to be very different the activities modules or tasks that you put in place need to be different. They don’t have the same effect in person as they do virtual. Now I would guess sort of one of the upsides of covid is the fact that the tools at our disposal are getting much better. And they’re becoming more effective in driving greater engagement on participants through these workshops and some of the micro improvements in the tools themselves and the functionality are getting better. So, much like Philippe I will take an in-person workshop over virtual any day. However, the nature of our work and I guess the nature of work more broadly sees a more distributed participant group quite often and the demand from the client or the expectation for the client is for us to support a virtual session. So we need to lean into it more we need to develop a greater skill around virtual but also hybrid workshops. You know where you have some virtual and some in-person that’s at a whole another layer of challenge and complexity. But yeah, again, more for us to learn and adapt our craft in pursuit of meaningful collaboration in multiple contexts.

Alexis

Tell me more about that hybrid setup where people are either joining in the room or joining remotely I Assume that with some people coming back to the office and some wanting to stay home it will happen more often and what other things to take into account when it’s hybrid?

Charles

I guess the first thing is it’s really hard. It is very very challenging. So that my experience is the role of technology in support of cross-platform engagement. The platform I mean those virtually in those in the room. The way you design and configure the discussions needs to be carefully considered, it is very easy just to default well those online are one group or have one type of discussion and those in the room have a different one. To ensure that you get a cross-pollination of thinking and perspective you need to weave the two together. A lot of the time that’s enabled by good tech that you have in the room. So either the polycom multi-directional mics and cameras to support in breakout in the room and virtual breakout discussion. There’s sort of different bots or sort of sort of mobile virtual participant devices that you can get these days but again the technical support and prowess required to manage that it is really important because otherwise there’s isn’t another potential fault or fault line in the work that can really derail the conversation and make things more distracting they need to be.

Philippe

I would totally emphasize the point on tech, you can totally have 4 people in a room and 1 person remote that completely works. But then if you have a workshop of 50 people and you have 10 groups like that in parallel. What is the technological ability of the client or the event to have ah ten spaces in a row a seamless audio input seamless audio output seamless video inputs seamless video outputs and seamless and digital collaboration boards. So, the technology exists but the setup it takes for thirty fifty or one hundred people to collaborate effectively in an hybrid mode. Most clients are not willing to put in the price. The main challenge is the continuity or the integrity of the experience. People in the room are in a different energy from people at home. they do not feed from the group they do not get that sense of momentum they do not feed from that and I have an example that illustrates that I did a session, I think maybe was 2 three weeks ago and it was just at the level of the team we were a team of seven delivering the session. 5 team members were colocated in Italy and I was the lead facilitator from Malaysia and the graphic facilitator was in the UK so team of 7 but in reality, we really felt that it was 5 plus one plus one the 5 people in the room delivering the workshop had a quality of collaboration that did not extend to the other two that were in different locations and even worse because they had that quality of on-site collaboration. They were not putting as much effort as they should have in the digital communication challenge channels that we had put in place with the Uk and with Malaysia so this is at the level of a team of professionals who are experts at collaboration. So imagine if you replicate that in 5 7 ten groups in parallel with people who are not professionals of collaboration.

Alexis

Yeah, I can totally empathize with that I remember switching from one team to the other and one team was already at ease with all the electronic tools and they were already. They had a way of working when they were using chat channel for the team, using that as a back channel for all their conversation within the room when the meeting happened. I switched to a team where the habits of that team were really different. They were using one on one back Channels. And so I knew there was something happening. because I could see their face changing and they could see people speaking about things that had not been discussed before and it took me some time to realize that just that habit of having one on one back Channel using text messages or chat was really hurting the dynamic of the team and it took me really a long time to realize that, so I can imagine just the use of the technology or the ability to use it could be a big problem to deal with.

Philippe

Yeah.

Alexis

I really wanted to cover that part of hybrid or remote meetings because that’s part of our reality as Charles mentioned but I agree with both of you I would prefer for in-person interactions all the time. I agree with that dynamic. Do you believe that companies will realize that and invest more in off-sites to get to the perfect space to ensure a good collaboration. Do you feel the space is also important when you are in person?

Charles

Ah, 100%! I think the space is a key facilitation lever that needs to be designed just as much as the agenda because it enables meaningful effectiveness and pleasant experience for those in the room. To the point around do I think clients or organizations are looking will revert back to in-person I think so not necessarily because they understand the value of in-person collaboration. But. Simple fact that as a community as a society. We’ve been so disconnected from each other this simple act of being in the room which was once probably overlooked, people will understand just how good it is having human interaction human connection, so I do think that’s going to be a key consideration and the speed at which our clients sort of go. Yes let’s all be in the one room together and we’ll fly people out or invest it in that way. I think that’s good. We’re gonna see a return to that. That being said, the fact that we’ve been collaborating virtually inverted commas in collaborating engaging virtually effectively across covid people who see it as equally as a means to just work continue to work that way. So yeah I think there’s a balance. We need to strike there.

Philippe

And regarding space. Yeah, of course, I couldn’t agree more with what Charles said and I think one of the things that makes it particularly challenging is that for us space is part of the design exercise. So we know how much choosing and setting up the right space for the job is absolutely essential often in the head of our clients space falls in the logistics bucket so it will fall in the same type of consideration as scattering as transport and so on so they usually don’t instinctively realize that space matters and that no you cannot ask people to look themselves up in a windowless room of an average hotel in the suburbs of a city and then from that place invent an exciting future for the next five years there’s a profound dissonance and while it seems obvious to us, it’s not always obvious to our clients. So there is a challenge for us to help the clients realize that space is in service of the business intent as is in service of the objectives of the session.

Alexis

Yeah, it’s interesting it reminded me, I had the chance to organize a gathering of something like 300 people in Boston and I was lucky to work with someone in the event teams that was really engaged in trying to make the experience really good and she found a space that was incredible because it was at the top of the building and the room had windows on both sides and the first person who entered the room said but how will we present anything? But she she used the screen that was a LED screen so we had a perfect presentation, perfect visibility of the content in a room with window all around. That was absolutely an amazing experience and compared to all the things we had before in those ballrooms in hotels where you are in the dark for the full day that was absolutely amazing. So it’s an interesting small thing about space to dig into. 

Philippe

And actually to build on that, of course, there are some universal minimum attributes that you would want from a space for workshops. You want a lot of daylight you want plants, you want space, you want line of sight so you can always see through the entire room and feel the energy through the entire room. Those attributes regardless of what you’re going to do you want people to be at their best create a space that’s conducive of that. But then the next layer and we seldom have that opportunity. But when we do. It’s absolutely amazing is First, you define the objectives and the high-level design and then you find a space that is meaningful in relation to the design and then the space becomes that and it’s when I say space. It’s space and location the choice of the city or the choice of the neighborhood or the country or the type of building. Then everything about the space is in service of the intention and that’s when you have a sense your event starts getting a sense of wholeness where everything speaks and everything about as you experience where you are what you eat What you see what you feel is in service of ah of a specific goal And when you have that luxury. It’s just amazing.

Alexis

Wow! So that’s totally different than going back to the office and having a meeting. Okay, perfect. So let’s say we did it. We engaged the sponsors properly. We designed the perfect agenda we find the perfect location the perfect space. The gathering is done. Ah so we’re done or what’s next?

Charles

Well then we begin? So the workshop itself is almost like walking a tightrope between what you plan to do and the reality of that plan in the face of the participant group. There’s only so much you can develop ah in terms of insight or perspective. The real test is when the people you’re designing for engage with that agenda and sometimes the agenda fits well and the conversation goes just as you had imagined only it’s more richer and has greater depth because of the different perspectives that are being fed in. Other times, not so many other times what you thought to believe what you thought to be true isn’t and you need to adjust and pivot as you go, so your connection to the content your connection to the agenda your connection to the energy needs to be extremely close. you need to sense What’s going on, you need to feel what’s going on. You need to listen and all the while it’s this balancing of that tightrope between what you had planned to do, what you’re hearing and what potential impact or shift that might need to happen. Sometimes it’s a small thing you change the language in some assignments or some activities other times it requires a reshuffling or reshaping of the agenda itself. So the facilitation isn’t just a simple act of following a script. The agenda it’s being acutely present in the group in what’s being said and constantly testing and refining as you go and my perspective is That’s what really differentiates between a workshop that has an agenda and you’re simply executing on the agenda and a workshop that is responding to the living system or the living participant group and as a result gets the right outcome based on on the desire and ambition that emerges from the group. So it’s it’s it’s never over even when it’s all you know everyone sort of had their celebratory drinks and head off into the world wherever they might be going to.. There’s always sort of more to be done because the reality is the workshop is just a moment in time and something needs to happen. With all the hard work and content that emerges from those workshops. So yeah, the preparation is just that it prepares you for the moment. But your role as a facilitator is a demanding one if you do it well, but also very rewarding one in the end.

Philippe

And that’s when having a team take all its meaning because to be able to do what Charles is saying you need to be supported by a team that has the agility to pivot. if the changes you make are marginal you might be fine on your own. But if you’re realizing that you need an entire shift of the agenda. There’s not a chance you can do that without a team and that also explains why and again it takes time to convince sponsors about that, why your workshop for 40 participants can have a team of 4, 5, 6 because you’re basically you’re buying the creativity and the agility to pivot and respond to everything you sense from the group.

Alexis

Excellent and what comes after the gathering you mentioned just before the booklet that was the origin of the book. So I assume that there’s something important that comes after the workshop after the gathering.

Philippe

Well, the workshop is never a purpose in itself. A workshop is in service of something else. So you have to ask your question. Do you have to ask yourself the question, how do I feed back the outcome of the workshop into whatever is coming next. Usually what’s coming next is some form of action because the outcome of the workshop needs to be implemented. It can be part of a project a program part of a strategic direction but actions have to be taken so at the end of the workshop. You  simply ask yourself. Who is going to do what with what came out and as a result, what are the most useful artifacts that we need to produce to enable them to facilitate their work going forward sometimes it’s going to be super sleek things with a communications purpose. Sometimes it’s going to be pretty rough documents because they’re going to be iterated the next day by the same people, but it’s all a matter of creating what’s the most useful that’s for the outcome part for documenting the outcome part then, of course, there’s also the same way we’ve been working responses to prepare them to the session. We need to work on responses to help them fully leverage the potential they’ve created so of course part of that potential is tangible outcomes. We made the decisions x y z we produced outcome x y z and of course, this is valuable. But there’s also questions around leadership momentum alignments more intangible outcomes and these need to be nurtured by the sponsors and again some sponsors will do that naturally some will not. You need to assess that as a facilitator. And if they don’t do that. Naturally, you need to find ways to help them. Um, help them do it in the best possible way to maximize the value for them.

Alexis

Philippe Coullomb and Charles Collingwood-Boots are the authors of the fantastic book Collaboration by Design. I highly recommend to all of you. Thank you Charles and Philip for having joined me today on the podcast and having written that book. Thank you.

Philippe

Thank you very much.

Charles

Thank you very much.

Portia Tung is an Executive and Personal Coach, an Executive Agile Coach, a play researcher, and a keynote speaker. In this episode of Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership, we explore something many workplaces still misunderstand: the gift of play.

Portia offers a definition of leadership that stays with you:

“Leadership is helping others to be the best of themselves.”
— Portia Tung

And she makes a strong case that play is not a distraction from serious work. It’s one of the ways we become more creative, more connected, and more human.

A simple one-to-one that changes everything

Portia wrote The Dream Team Nightmare, a novel where your decisions determine the outcome. Inside that book, she shared a one-to-one exercise that I’ve reused countless times since.

Portia calls it a ping pong or table tennis introduction:

• pair up
• each person asks three questions
• take turns, one question at a time
• one rule: you can always ask for a different question

It’s an icebreaker, a warm-up, and a trust-building tool. The rule looks small, but it changes everything. It creates safety for the asker and the answerer, and it frees people to be honest.

It also reveals something surprising: people rarely mirror the same question back. Instead, they bring their own curiosity, and the relationship becomes real.

Play is serious, and it’s safe

Portia’s play research brings a key idea: true play is safe play, fair play, and being a good sport.

And that means play requires courage. If you show up with a mask at work, people won’t play. If you show up as yourself, you invite others to do the same.

This is where play becomes a leadership practice, not a “fun activity.”

Work and play are not opposites

Portia challenges an old assumption: that play is what we do after work, and work is what we do before we earn the right to relax.

She draws from Dr. Stuart Brown’s work and explains that:

• work gives purpose and helps build competence
• play supports creativity, learning, and human development
• we need both to be whole

Separating “serious work” from “human connection” is one of the reasons people feel they need to hold their breath all day… and only become themselves after two glasses of wine.

How to introduce play in serious environments

A practical highlight of the episode is Portia’s approach to introducing play in workplaces that might resist it.

She often avoids the word “game” at first. Instead she offers:

• a simulation
• with clear goals and acceptance criteria
• and a real invitation: participate as much as you choose

It’s not hiding play. It’s respecting adults and giving them choice.

She also references tools like the XP Game to help teams see how they behave during delivery, without preaching.

The 5 Rs of playful leaders

Portia noticed something about change agents, even when they have no formal authority. The people who help transformations move tend to share five traits:

• Resourceful
• Respectful
• Responsible
• Resilient
• Real

Those are the leaders people trust, the ones who can invite others into experimentation without forcing them.

Leadership beyond ego and title

Portia shares how uncomfortable she was for years with leadership, mostly because she saw too much leadership-as-ego.

Her “working assumptions” evolved into something simpler and stronger:

• leadership is personal
• leadership is being authentic
• leadership is raising your hand first when you make a mistake
• leadership is helping others become their best

And transformation doesn’t happen through a methodology machine. It happens one person at a time, enabling themselves.

Where Portia gets her energy

Near the end, Portia shares a checklist she uses to choose engagements. It starts close to home, then widens:

1. Is it good for me?
2. Is it good for my daughter?
3. Is it good for my family?
4. Will it make the world a better place?

It’s a grounded way to protect energy, stay aligned, and still do ambitious work.

References mentioned in the episode

The Four Seasons of Play (Portia’s events) to the episode here:

The Dream Team Nightmare

Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart M. Brown Jr.

The XP Game

The Deming Red Bead Experiment

Here is the transcript of the episode

Alexis:

Hey Portia. How are you? And can you tell us a bit more about you and your background?

Portia Tung:

Salut, Alexis. Delighted to be here today. I at work as an executive coach and executive agile coach, as well as a play researcher. And I’m doing very well under the circumstances that we’re all under at the moment.

Alexis:

I’m doing very well under the circumstances, you need to tell me a little bit more about that. What changed in your work with working with people and teams?

Portia Tung:

I presume we’re referring to the pandemic and how my work has changed. And I think what’s been fascinating is with everyone going online, that we’ve actually changed the way we interact with each other, but more fundamentally the way we perceive and treat each other. And one of the things I’ve noticed is that certainly in the people I interact with, there’s a lot less shaming of not knowing how to do technical stuff online, but much more supportive and nurturing ways of interacting with one another. And I think in many ways that’s been a gift from COVID, Alexis.

Alexis:

Wow. It’s an interesting thing to notice. Before the pandemic, would you say that majority of your time was working face to face with people and teams or you were already working online?

Portia Tung:

I would say it was a mix because of the different organizations work in and they range in terms of trust. I would do some of my work online, so remotely, but also face-to-face, but I would say it was predominantly face-to-face.

Alexis:

I need to switch nearly all of the sudden to full online, or are you back to do some face-to-face now?

Portia Tung:

Oh, still all online. And Alexis, like I said, it’s been a gift. And what I mean is it’s been a real challenge of how to share my passion and energy and knowledge and experience through this online medium, which people have been so critical and possibly weary or afraid of. And in my experience, when you are able to bring your true, authentic self to work and to your family and to those around you, the medium isn’t so important.

Alexis:

We need to go deeper into that. But speaking of gifts, you offered me a gift a few years back, you don’t know that. The gift was a book. You wrote a book, The Dream Team Nightmare. And for me, it was already a fantastic book. I think I tried to ride all the different options that you have in the book, because it’s an interesting story. And there’s one thing that I still have with me all the time. It’s the way that the heroin is meeting with people one-on-one and your way of doing one-on-ones to discover someone else, it’s something that I, since then, I’m sharing that with a lot of people around me. I’m doing it and I’m showing it and I love it. So it’s really gift and that’s that gift of how to create a relationship. Can you tell us a little bit how it works, how the idea come to you and how it really works?

Portia Tung:

Sure. So it works as both an icebreaker between people who’ve never met before, but also as a warmup exercise for people who already know a bit about each other, but maybe not as well as they assume. So it’s a game of table tennis is the way I call it, but without the table and without the ball. And the idea is you come in a pair and each person gets to ask one another three questions.

Portia Tung:

So in a pair and each person gets to ask the other person three questions and they take turns, right? So they swap around. So the first person will ask one question, and then the second person will ask their first question. And so it goes. So, a bit like ping pong, table tennis. That’s the way I explain it. And there is only one rule to this game that I suggest, which is we each reserve the right to ask for a different question.

Portia Tung:

And then, so we start and I invite them to say, well, who would like to start? And they might say, oh, you go first. Or they might choose to go first. And it’s a lot of fun of what gets revealed about the relationship and about each other as we play with this introduction.

Alexis:

I was always surprised with the questions people are asking. The easy thing is if I ask you the question, what would be your dream job that you will do or your dream activity if you were not doing what you are doing right now?

Portia Tung:

That’s what I’m doing now, Alexis.

Alexis:

This is a beautiful answer.

Portia Tung:

And I think it’s really interesting, the importance of setting intention. But my latest intention, I’ll circle back to the question is to live my dream. I think for dreams to come true, you have to live them. And so by living them, they become real. And you know what the secret to it is, you have to remember to be present because you can’t live your dream if you’re not in the present and that’s why it can not become real.

Alexis:

Oh, whoa. There’s a lot to unpack with that.

Portia Tung:

And Alexis, I love, I just love French cinema and I’m sure there’s some kind of film in that, but I will answer your question, which is what would I be doing if I could do my dream job as it were. And it is what I’m doing now, spending time meeting remarkable, playful leaders who are trying to make the workplace and indeed the world a better place through their passion and through nurturing people. And that’s what I do in organizations working mostly with senior leadership now, and those teams there, but also on occasion with agile teams as well, working on delivery.

Alexis:

Excellent. And with the way of doing it in the ping pong way, I always assumed at the beginning that when I start by asking you a question, the person in front of me will just return the same question and in reality it nearly never happened that way. They always have a different question, which I found is so enriching and so surprising though that I already love that fact. What would be your question?

Portia Tung:

To you?

Alexis:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Portia Tung:

What is your favorite place to be on this planet?

Alexis:

Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. I never thought of it this way. There’s a lot of places that are so beautiful. There’s a lot of places that I would like to visit, but I feel that I’m very well where I am now. I think it’s more the people I am with. I have to admit, I would love to meet more people and to travel a little bit. That’s probably being in the same place for more than one year now. I think I love where I am now.

Portia Tung:

You love where you are now. That’s an incredible answer, Alexis.

Alexis:

It’s funny. I never thought of it this way.

Portia Tung:

If understand correctly, then that means you are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Alexis:

Yeah. And at the same time when I say that, I’m thinking, there’s so many options and probably I should explore, I should ask myself the question. I had that idea of at some point wanted to live in a farm to do permaculture on to eat what the farm will produce and so on. But it’s, first of all, I know nothing about all that. Of course, I cannot do it, I need learn it first. So there’s a few obstacles in the way, but it’s always something that is for the future.

Alexis:

It’s not something for now. So I think that’s a good question to ask yourself, regularly: “am I at the right place right now?” It’s interesting. So I guess with those two questions and our answers, the people that are listing can understand how powerful it can be to just try to answer openly to a question that you don’t know in advance. And I think that’s the power of that ping pong interview that you propose. And I think it’s really a gift.

Portia Tung:

And Alexis, I think a key reason why you seem to enjoy the exercise so much and the people you play it with seem to find it so enriching is because you help create a safe environment, right? That magic rule of we each reserve the right to ask for a different question, really frees people up from the questioners point of view, but also from the person answering’s point of view. And I think that really helps create that so-called psychological safety and trust between two possible strangers.

Alexis:

It’s true. And the simple fact that you’re seeing it, that you can pass or you ask a different question, it’s a better way of phrasing it, it nearly never happens. Usually you are ready to answer any questions. There was probably once there was a question where I was really just … I felt uncomfortable to share something about that, but it happened once and I did it a lot of time and I realized that I was about to say no, ask me something else. And I finally answer anyway.

Portia Tung:

Oh, that’s lovely. And what did you discover? Did you discover something useful as a result of answering?

Alexis:

It was how people would perceive me. That was something that I did not realize that I would send that message to some people, they will see me in a certain way. I was a little bit surprised but I guess that was connected with the circumstances and the particular place we were and so on. So, that was interesting.

Portia Tung:

And, Alexis I’d like to add as well, the power and this ever so seemingly simple ice breaker slash warmup exercises that it takes real courage to actually offer it in the first place. And that’s the way I work ever since kind of really deepening my play research because true play is safe play, fair play and being a good sport. And with play, you need to show up as yourself. There’s no pretending because if you put a mask on and you’re in a different kind of Alexis or a different kind of Portia when you’re at work and it’s not really you, people won’t play.

Portia Tung:

They’ll say, oh no, that’s not for me. Let’s just move on to why we’re having this meeting. But the fact that when you offer it and people receive it, is a clear sign of your presence and your courage and of course your playfulness and that’s ever such a great superpower to have.

Alexis:

Absolutely. So you mentioned that you are working with team and leaders. You said it in a way that you want to help them achieve their goals in a way. And how do you work with them? Tell us more with how it works when you engage with teams.

Portia Tung:

For me, I think play is a mindset and it’s a set of behaviors and I don’t think they’re really opposites, but it might be because of bad marketing or misconception of what it is. And this dates back right back to the middle ages, right? At best play was perceived as a distraction back in the middle ages, and at worst it was considered something evil brought on by the devil, right?

Portia Tung:

And children would be smacked for playing when they should have been sweeping chimneys or doing other things throughout the history of humanity. So I think play has had a lot of bad press and misconception for a long time until we really looked at child development and really human development and the necessity of play. So play leads to creativity and innovation, as we can see in the creative companies amongst us like Apple and Google, but work isn’t the opposite of play.

Portia Tung:

Work is what gives us a sense of purpose and it allows us to improve our competence. And these are observations made by Dr. Stuart Brown, who was a play expert and wrote a book on play called Play. And I think that’s really important to recognize that actually play and work are not opposites, but they’re very complimentary. And without one you couldn’t really be a whole person, you need to do both together. The kind of like yin and yang.

Alexis:

So a sense of purpose and a way to be together that will unleash the creativity to serve that purpose. That’s a little bit the way you want to frame it?

Portia Tung:

Yeah. So when I work with teams and leaders, most of them will have looked me up. So they’ll know that play is my bag. So people who come to me like yourself have already, in some ways accepted an invitation and openness to be playful. So it’s not that difficult. People who might not know my play reputation and they might never know, simply perceive me probably as someone who’s quite resourceful, respectful, responsible, resilient, and real.

Portia Tung:

And those are the five Rs, I call them Alexis, the five Rs of playful people. And I actually stumbled across them because when I started playing more in organizations and taking riskier decisions in terms of how far can we go with this transformation, what I noticed is that the people around me, the true change agents and they didn’t need to be people with titles or leader in their title, they would be people who would be very responsible, very resourceful, respectful, resilient, and then they’d be real as well.

Portia Tung:

So when I discovered these five Rs, I call them, these key characteristics of playful leaders, if you like, that enables me to then go into my toolkit or treasure box, I call it my treasure trove of tools and techniques to then offer them much like the icebreaker exercise. And it’s finding the right fit with the person that you’re meeting and playing with.

Alexis:

So I guess in teams, even if someone hire you because of your playfulness in teams, some people will not see that play is part of what needs to be done. They will want to be serious. They will want to be to the point, how it works with them?

Portia Tung:

Yes. So I rarely offer play upfront. So I will say something like, well, you’ve invited me to give you some agile training, so we’ll be doing a simulation. I don’t use the word game because it might scare some people. So it’s not that I’m trying to hide it. It’s just, it’s a simulation. We have some clear goals and acceptance criteria for why we’re doing the simulation.

Portia Tung:

We’ll be able to use the simulation. My favorite one is the XP game invented by Pascal Van Cauwenberghe and Vera Peeters. And that’s a fantastic way of seeing how a team will behave and perform during an actual sprint or iteration, right? So when I offer something, I rarely call it a game. I don’t necessarily have to mention play. And it’s so funny, Alexis, I think if we talked 10 years ago, I’d be much more flamboyant and say, oh, let’s do play, get out your bags and Lego and have lots of colorful things in the room and do that right upfront in the first instance when I meet a new group. And I think it can be quite intimidating.

Portia Tung:

And in many ways, now I look back at it, it can be disrespectful if people don’t realize that it’s an option. And I think this is the key thing, right? So true play as Dr. Stuart Brown describes it is safe play, fair play and being a good sport. So in that sense, I now make sure that I say whatever we do in the next 90 minutes during the simulation, it’s an option. It’s an invitation. You decide how much you take part in and how much you sit out. But, rest assured how much you get out determines on how much you put in. And then I leave it as that. And this ability to treat people with respect and as adults is really important in play and relationships.

Alexis:

I guess it will give a lot of ways to people to really find their way to invite others in an activity that is a little bit different from what they are proposing usually. I use the word stimulation a few times too. I remember one time I played the red bead experiment, that thing that was invented by Deming to teach people statistics a little bit, and to teach them about the bad management practices.

Alexis:

And I played that with a customer and one of the workers in the game was in fact, the CEO of the company. And that was interesting because of course that worker wanted to do great in front of her team. And of course the game is strict against her, so the worker cannot be good. That’s nearly impossible. That would be pure luck. And so I was playing the manager and the manager is ready harsh the game. And so I was ready harsh with her, and at some point I said, “We will poorly stop the simulation there,” because she told me something like, oh, you know what, I will break your face.

Alexis:

And I said, “Maybe we need to pause the game for a second,” but she’s really into it. And now we need to cool down a little bit, but that was really interesting how powerful it was. And it changed the relationship in the team and it changed the way she was reacting to some surprises in the work we were doing. So it was really powerful. So I really loved it. I was maybe a little bit more careful with the way I was introducing it in other teams.

Portia Tung:

Well, Alexis, risky play, there’s an element of play, right? Because without taking risks, why would you bother? Where would be the fun in something that’s 100% safe? That would just be boring, right? So it’s great you took a risk and that this leader when offered the chance to grow and reflect, took the opportunity, and that’s a great gift to offer. And this is the thing about play, I guess in some ways, it’s a tool that’s so powerful that you really need to take care of how you handle it and what happens, not when it backfires, but what happens when you are under-prepared yourself? Because I had a similar incident playing the XP game where I happen to have a business analyst in one of the teams, she was a real business analyst in real life.

Portia Tung:

And during one of the rounds, they hadn’t gathered the requirements at all. So when I was the product owner and I declined and said, “No, that hasn’t passed the acceptance criteria. You’re going to have to rework that.” She threw the user story back at me. And it was fascinating because she was part of a third party working for the organization that I worked in as a permanent member of staff, which made me realize, oh gosh, if people behave in this way, right, to their client, what is it like in real life?

Portia Tung:

And this is the power of play, right? When we get into play, we become ourselves. Our minds are curious. And so actually, thanks to kind of neuroscience we recognize now when you are curious, because your mind is open, because it can’t be any other way, it cannot be critical as well. And so you start flowing 100% as yourself. And if you are maybe super competitive, because that’s your thing, then that will come out. And so it’s about really creating a safe environment where people can be their true selves, learn from it and not feel judged by others.

Alexis:

And I feel it’s much more powerful. Usually the way we were organizing or of day when we had the face-to-face meetings, it’s you are in the meeting room working already or looking at presentation, engaged in discussions, really serious, and then at the end of the day, you are going to play a bowling or whatever, or game or something that is really pure distraction. And then you have dinner or the opposite.

Alexis:

It was interesting to see that people are saying, but that part of the meeting, when we are done with the meeting at the end of the day, we are going out, we are having dinner, having a drink, playing a game, that distraction part is really great to build bonds in the team. It’s really the team building part.

Alexis:

And I was trying to tell them, can we bring a little bit of that in our day because why not? Why not building those bonds? Why are you not building those relationships? Why not being ourselves in the day? Why do we have to separate both? And it’s sometimes a little bit difficult, but do you think we can do to help to foster that, to create more that space in the day?

Portia Tung:

That’s a great question, Alexis. I think it’s important to reflect on the history of humanity and where we’ve come from as well, the really bigger context of this because in Western culture, we’re so good at dividing things up, from school subjects, science and history and math, they’re all different apparently, but actually, the children know that they are more intertwined than the adults think.

Portia Tung:

And likewise it is with the socializing and the working right, in humanity’s bit to optimize where we want to be and who we want to be, we kind of cut out the fun because we think that’s extra. But if you look at child development, it’s absolutely essential for physical development, cognitive development, social development and emotional development. And if we don’t really look at people and teams as a whole in this way, the result is yes, we compartmentalize everything, we will have fun between six and eight o’clock. And only in the evenings, only after we’ve had a glass of wine with our colleagues and then we can be ourselves, right?

Portia Tung:

And that always makes me giggle because it’s a bit like, you have to hold your breath throughout the day until that two glasses of wine, which is a very unreasonable ask. And I think that’s also why children find it so difficult to be amongst unplayful adults because they have to hold the breath and not be themselves. And that’s not the way for healthy living. So what I tend to do is encourage play through modeling that playful mindset and behaviors. So from the moment I meet people, we do the icebreaker exercise you’ve enjoyed. I write my emails in a playful way. I sign them off as wishing you a playful week.

Portia Tung:

And I know some people might find that offensive, but that’s not my intent. And it is a genuinely good wish. So I am really, I guess, thoughtful if you like about the way I approach people and express myself. And in that way, people are very quick to then say, oh, I’m glad you said that because I stayed up all night the other night playing chess and I had such a great time. And often I’m like, oh, they’re a chess player. And that’s why they were so tired at the standup. Now I understand.

Portia Tung:

And I think that’s really about what it is. When we are a playful leader, we bring our full selves to work. We are prepared to take risks. And the biggest risk of all is to look in the mirror and acknowledge what is in front of us.

Alexis:

Oh yes. Absolutely. That brings me to a question about leadership. I strongly believe that leadership is not about title. It could be for people that are really people manager of course, but also for individual contributors, it’s not really about titles or your role. What are your beliefs about leadership? What does being a leader mean to you?

Portia Tung:

So I would say I wouldn’t call them beliefs. I can share some stories and maybe describe as working assumptions so they can change, working assumptions about leadership. When I reflect back about my relationship with leadership, Alexis, I would say I’ve been uncomfortable with it, probably for most of my working life and so much so I would shy away from it. And I think in the first six, eight years of my working life, when I started off as a Java developer and then, moved into development management and then, agile coaching, I remember thinking this leadership stuff isn’t for me, why are people so bothered about the titles?

Portia Tung:

This is about getting the right things done and doing them right. It’s as simple as that. And because of the differences in our understanding of leadership, mine is much more aligned with yours, it really put me off and I would spend so much time reading books, from Tom Peters and all of this stuff and Warren Bennis and in the end I stopped reading them because I was like, well, hang on a minute, in the textbooks, it says to be a good leader is to eat last like Simon Sinek and all of this stuff.

Portia Tung:

And the leaders around me weren’t doing that. They were too preoccupied with what other people’s saw in the reflection in the mirror than what actually needed to be done. So for the first part of my working life, I was really put off leadership. And it’s only really until the last few years when I got more and more into the play research, I said to myself, what is it that I’m so afraid about leadership that I don’t want to associate myself with it?

Portia Tung:

And I realized it is about people who put their ego first and put themselves first rather than the greater good. So I changed the game and came up with this idea of playful leadership. And for me, that concept means being your authentic self. So when you make a mistake, you’re the first one to raise your hand. And if you haven’t had the presence of mind to spot it in time to raise your hand first, then I thank the person who points it out quickly.

Portia Tung:

I know these sound like such simple things, but they’re very difficult to do in the environments that we find ourselves in. And when I reflect back on, I’d say my golden moment as a leader, it’s when I was at school. I remember when I was 17 and the head teacher said to me, “So Portia, we’d like to make you an offer.”

Portia Tung:

And I was like, “What’s the offer?” And she said, “We’d like to make you head girl,” the person who would represent the school because I was in the oldest year at my school and I said, “Oh, that’d be great.” And I was ready to snaffle it up and embrace it. She said, “It comes with some conditions.” And I said, “Oh, what’s that then?” And she said, “You have to promise us that you will not sacrifice your grades in order to take this role too seriously in doing the best for the school.” And she said, “We’ve talked about it with all the teachers and they feel that’s the biggest concern. And if you are unable to do that, you cannot have the head girl-ship.”

Portia Tung:

I was like, oh God, they know me so well. So I made sure I studied hard enough, but maybe not quite as hard as I could’ve. And I had such a great time being a head girl. And when they offered it, Alexis, it wasn’t because of the title I wanted, it was because I thought, phew, I can stop hiding all the good things I want to do and was doing for the school in my spare time, because I felt it was such an enriching thing to be part of a community and helping other people become best versions of themselves.

Portia Tung:

And I think that’s what put me off in the workplace. When I started work, I felt so cheated, Alexis. I was like, this is nothing like what school and university said that leadership would be, what am I doing here? And it’s not until I really embraced my playful self and started taking risks and say, no, actually I’m not going to be that kind of leader that people seem to model and revere.

Portia Tung:

It’s not just about the money that can not be the only measure of a human being success, that I changed the game and then I played it my way. And I think that’s really the key for me. That’s what leadership is. And where I’ve come to with the thinking now is my focus is on personal leadership, leadership coaching with individual leaders. One-to-one because that’s how we create change, right? We don’t just wheel in an agile machine that then gives off a beautiful floral scent. And then everyone goes, oh, we’re ready to do agile, and everything will be optimized. That’s not how change happens, right? Change happens with one person at a time and it’s them enabling themselves.

Alexis:

Yes, absolutely. One person at a time and they are enabling themselves. I love what you said about helping others to be the best of themselves, the best version of themselves. How do you find that energy for yourself?

Portia Tung:

Oh, you as such fun questions, Alexis? Well, I have a checklist. So I realized that when I became a mom eight years ago, my brain was unable to contain a lot of information and make good decisions in real time. So I came up with a checklist and as I observed looking at my work in progress and seeing how much I had on my plate, as a mom and a working mom as well, I realized I needed a set of criteria by which I made decisions in my life.

Portia Tung:

And I have different sets of criteria, ranging from personal values to the day-to-day. But the checklist I’d like to share with you is this, in the top of the checklist is number one, is it good for me? Whenever I make any decision, is it good for me? If it’s no good for me then it’s off the list and I’m not doing it.

Portia Tung:

The second item is, is it good for my daughter? So obviously, if it’s quite stressful as an engagement, and that means I’m going to come home a little bit more negative and grumpy than I would otherwise, is it good for my daughter? Well, if it fails that test, then that goes out the window. Then the third one is, is it good for my family? So I think about my husband, my daughter and me, so the whole family and if it fails that, then it goes out the door.

Portia Tung:

There was the fourth one, actually, since we were friends and which is, will it make the world a better place? And if it passes that test after the first three, then I’ll go, yeah, I’m definitely doing it. And I think for me, it’s become like a shopping list of criteria. When I started looking for clients and ways of creating change, that’s how I shop around for the engagements that I’m able to take part in, because I think it’s so important to have a fair exchange, right?

Portia Tung:

I want to be the best version I am when I rock up and work with my clients and teams. And that is the balance of exchange. And in return, together we maximize the return on investment for their effort and time.

Alexis:

I think it’s really a beautiful way to end that conversation for today. I would love to have more conversation with you and I hope they will make the world a better place really seriously. Thank you very much Portia up for that conversation today.

Portia Tung:

Thank you, Alexis. Mille Mercis.

Alexis:

Thank you for listening to this episode of Le Podcast. Go to blog-blog-alexis.monville.com for the references mentioned in the episode, and to find more help, to increase your impact on such section at work, drop a comment or an email with your feedback, or just to say hello, and until next time to find better ways of changing your team.

Photo by Ben