About
Dana Stoll
Three decades in organisations: as an employee, a leader, a coach and a facilitator. And, on the side, a creative geek.
I make Unfolding, a video series on how people, teams and organisations change, and what it takes to foster that change instead of demanding it.
What I've learned
Four sentences I work by
- 1 People can't be instructed.
What a sentence does isn't decided by the sentence, but by whoever hears it. From outside there are only perturbations. That's where I start.
Rule zero · 1.0a - 2 You can't plan high performance. You can only prepare for it.
With focus, and with practice. Both have to do with letting go, and with noticing honestly what goes wrong. It's what billiards and the piano have taught me.
- 3 The direction belongs to the one who walks.
Lures and deterrents both take it away. What's left for the one who fosters is surprisingly little, and exactly the right thing: perturbing, and affirming.
The field · 1.0 - 4 Roles for a while, not diagnoses.
Nobody is a Hoarder. One is hoarding, right now. The person keeps their worth; only the movement gets a name.
Where it comes from
“I was leading five–nil in a race to seven.”
A quarter-final at the billiards table, and I was playing well; all eyes on the table. Then came the first mistake. Five games to three, then five to four. And then the one fear crept in: don't lose now, not after a lead like that. Five to six, five to seven, handshake.
I no longer wanted: I'm going to win this. I should: I mustn't lose this. Same arms, same table, and two different players, depending on which of the two forces is leading.
Skill isn't an accumulated abundance; it's a cultivated restriction. The master doesn't have more possibilities than the beginner. She has fewer: the right ones are left.
How I work
The Fosterer and the Wanderer
Two roles, not two people: the one who fosters, and the one who changes. And the roles can swap. Between them run four exchanges, each a pair of movements.
- Regard observing · showing yourself
- Exploration asking · revealing
- Connection resonance · reciprocity
- Encouragement evoking · accompanying
For those who lead · 1.0a
Five reversals
- Leadership is service to the team.
- Leading by principles: guard rails, not a steering wheel.
- From demanding to fostering.
- Should and want: half the physics.
- From the short game to the long one.
What I care about
Four values, in practice
- Stories that keep their cost. Nobody in my stories is a hero, me included, and nobody can be recognised. The endings keep their price; that's where the learning is.
- Patterns, never people. It's never the people. It's the patterns in the system that keep people stuck in the behaviour they show. That's where I look.
- Values as the motivation. For me, values are the motivation: staying true to them, and being able to go on with the work I believe in.
- The long game. Unfolding plays an infinite game. No tournament may end it: tournaments have winners, and winners stop playing.