CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE CASE HISTORIES MBA - 1979 - MEETING AN INVESTMENT BANKER … AND AN INVESTMENT BANK Many years ago, when I started my career, I worked in a commercial bank. It was perhaps one of the most prestigious and successful corporate and institutional commercial banks in the world, but it was not an investment bank. In business school, I had wanted to join an investment bank. I tried, had a number of interviews, but got no offers. So I went to the commercial bank, where it seemed I was wanted. The itch to join a “real” investment bank continued, though, and I kept thinking about how I could realise that dream. I shared my ambition with a colleague; as it happened, she had a good friend who worked in an investment bank - one of the world leaders - just down the street from our office on Wall Street in New York. My friend kindly made the introduction, and Jim and I had lunch together. It took a few tries to arrange, because of his busy schedule, but when we did meet we had a great conversation over lunch. We went to Fraunces Tavern, a historical landmark in the Wall Street area, one of the few colonial-period buildings left in lower New York. It’s the site where George Washington said goodbye to his officers at the end of the Revolutionary War in December 1783. I put my interest to Jim in a very open way, sharing my desires for the future. As I remem- ber it, I was very honest with him about my successes and failures and just laid out my hopes for him, asking his advice and guidance. I wanted to hear about his own journey and experiences. 4 8PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE He spent a long time telling me about his own journey at the firm he worked for, what it had been like to join, what the strengths and weaknesses of the firm were, the human side of working there. I wasn’t pressing him to get me a job, I was just trying to learn and understand and to connect to him as a human being. By the end of lunch, it felt like we had become friends through the conversation. Unexpectedly, he invited me to come back to the office with him after lunch. He showed me around the firm, including its then-famous and pathbreaking fixed income trading floor. He introduced me to several colleagues, including the head of investment banking. It was a wonderful and inspiring day, for which I thanked him warmly. We wrote thank you letters on paper in those days….. Jim did some sniffing around for me at this firm for concrete opportunities over the coming weeks and months. Nothing firm came of it. Some months later, I got a call from a headhunter for a job at that same firm, focused on my particular skills. I was never able to establish if that call had anything to do with the earlier meetings. Jim couldn’t confirm that it had. I still don’t know. But I interviewed, got the job, and joined the firm. It’s hard to say for sure whether and how my earlier intro- ductions and learning affected my success in the process, but I feel sure it made me more confident and more insightful in my interview conversations, and it seems clear to me that it made a difference, if only by strengthening my own manner, behaviour and confidence. Jim left the firm shortly after I joined to work elsewhere, and we have not stayed in touch over the years (my failing). But before he did leave we stayed in touch within the compa- ny, and enjoyed periodic laughs together, with a sense of warmth that arose out of his helping me find my way into his firm and the investment banking industry. 4 9PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE FOURTH YEAR, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING: FROM CONSULTING TO ELECTRIC CARS One of my favorite Conversations of Inquiry with an IIT alumnus was with a consultant in a firm in San Francisco. I reached out to him by email, and he agreed to have a 20 minute chat with me over the phone. At the start of our conversation, I asked about his experi- ence and the type of work he does. He came from an engineering background and went into consulting later. My interest in conducting Conversations of Inquiry is to discover the world beyond my academics and be curious about the endless possibilities after graduation from Illinois Tech. I told him I am generally interested to learn more about consulting, but he asked me what am I am really interested in working on the most, and my response was: electric cars and autonomous driving. He then told me that this is the perfect time to jump on it. It’s like the internet bubble in the 90’s, and it would have been crazy if you were a CS student back then and didn’t join one of the tech companies. I was really happy to hear him encouraging me to pursue what I really want to do, and after that conversation, I started to fully invest myself in learning about self-driving tech- nology and electric cars by taking machine learning classes and spending more time with my IIT Motorsports electric powertrain team. 5 0PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE A 2016 GRADUATE, ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT: THE DREAM JOB As I started my last semester at Illinois Tech I became more determined to pursue a career in consulting. Therefore, I decided to start building my network and meeting people from the industry to learn more about consulting and to get my foot in the door. I believe that the key to a successful Conversation of Inquiry is having a genuine interest in the other person’s career path, and more importantly being able to express that inter- est in an effective way. I found it extremely helpful to have a general idea about the company and the types of questions I wanted to ask. Generally, keeping it focused around the person being inter- viewed and their experience is a key to make that happen. I asked questions on previous projects, what made them successful in their role, what did they learn from their experi- ences, what do they look for in a candidate, etc, to both show my interest and gather information. I tried not to focus on getting a job, even though my ultimate goal was to get an interview or a job offer through my networking effort. It was important to me to try getting the best out of my conversations beyond just finding a job or getting referred. From my experience, the quality of information that I got from someone that works in the industry and the relationship that I established with professionals inside the compa- ny were extremely beneficial, and increased the success of my following conversations. I was able to land my dream job in consulting, after networking with people from the industry. I was referred to a consulting analyst position and received an offer from my dream company. 5 1PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE QUOTATIONS THAT INSPIRE US FOR THIS WORK When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. - Maya Angelou The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes from within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men. - Black Elk in The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. - Dr. Joyce Brothers When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. - Paolo Coelho 5 2PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same prob- lems, the same questions. - Paulo Coelho No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone's eyes. - Paulo Coelho The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said. - Peter Drucker Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. - Jimi Hendrix The reality today is that we are all interdependent and have to co-exist on this small planet. Therefore, the only sensible and intelligent way of resolving differences and clashes of inter- ests, whether between individuals or nations, is through dialogue. - The Dalai Lama There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communica- tion.... Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing. - John Dewey 5 3PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLOREWithout mutual knowledge there can be no mutual understanding; without understanding,there can be no trust and respect; without trust, there can be no peace, only the danger ofconflict. This means we have to be willing and able to familiarize ourselves with the waypeople of other cultures think and perceive the world around them, but without losing ourown standpoint in the process. - Roman Herzog, President of GermanyDialogue, one can argue, is the central activity of any university community. We candisagree passionately, but we should not demean our opponents. We should state ourconvictions, but we should listen to all, and most attentively to those who do not share ourviews. It is the responsibility of each of us to foster a conversation that engages and enlight-ens, rather than descends to mutual recrimination. - John I. Jenkins, CSC, President, University of Notre DameIf you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to himin his language, that goes to his heart. - Nelson MandelaEverything has a role to play. - Menominee hunters and fishersDialogue is the only way to end war and terror. We need practical solidarity with those whoare weaker and diplomacy from below. - Luisa Morgantini, Italian politician and peace movement leaderOnly curiosity about the fate of others, the ability to put ourselves in their shoes, and the willto enter their world through the magic of imagination, creates this shock of recognition.Without this empathy there can be no genuine dialogue, and we as individuals and nationswill remain isolated and alien, segregated and fragmented.- Azar Nafisi, Ph.D, Iranian-born writer, teacher and scholar ofEnglish literature 5 4PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time. - M. Scott Peck The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words. - Rachel Naomi Remen Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. - Rainer Maria Rilke Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. - Rainer Maria Rilke I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other. - Rainer Maria Rilke A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them - they're who they've been throughout your whole relationship. - Rainer Maria Rilke 5 5PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone. - Rainer Maria Rilke We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk. - Eleanor Roosevelt Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about. - Jalaluddin Rumi To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. - Tony Robbins If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. - Desmond Tutu My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing. - Rollo May Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person. That is natural. - Zora Neale Hurston 5 6PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE MORE VOICES FROM ILLINOIS TECH ALUMNIA \"few words\" makes it almost impossible to provide guidance after 50+ years of followingmy passion for the continual challenges of creating, innovating, maturing technology andmanaging talented people in the aerospace industry.If you do it right, you must prepare yourself for a \"wild ride\" with results ranging from abjectfailure to resounding success when your job assignment is to constantly expand the perfor-mance envelope of technology in this dynamic industry. Competence in your field of endeav-or (or major) is only a starting point. Communication skills (oral and written), desire forcontinual learning, ability to relate to co-workers/customers/peers/bosses, risk taking,accountability, and consummate technical honesty are a few of the required attributes forsuccess. - MetE, 1950As an engineering student I found that the Electrical Engineering professors who gave ourclass the \"real world\" type problems to solve were the most valuable when I entered the workforce.The \"real world\" problems many times lacked the detailed info needed to solve the problem,so we needed to make reasonable assumptions to get the approximate answers. Also, ifyour field of study is technical, I recommend that on your first one or two jobs, try to gain asmany real world technical technical skills as possible before you transition to a managementposition. Also, stay current technically by taking courses on the newest technology in yourfield.When seeking a job position, remember the three most important methods for landing thatjob are, Networking, Networking, and Networking.Keep in touch with your professors and fellow classmates and network for the job you seekthrough them. Also, network through your family and friends. You never know who mightprovide you that valuable lead to your first or next job position.- Graduate, 1962 5 7PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE Be entrepreneurial. Seek opportunities to make things happen. Be proactive. - Architecture, 1963 Have fun & be curious. Some of the best opportunities arrive by accident. I never planned on being a teacher but took the education courses at IIT because they had a better reputation than the other 'liberal arts' courses. During my senior year at IIT my high school Physics teacher left Morgan Park and I was invited to return and teach there with many of the teach- ers I had. Because of the attitude instilled in me by Prof. George Ross at IIT, I started having fun with all of the 'toys' physics teachers play with. As a result I won many local, state and national teaching awards and taught Mae Jemison who became the first African American female astronaut (STS-47). All the time I was teaching, I was having fun. I retired when the 'fun' stopped. - Physics, 1964 Do something you like doing. - Law, 1967 The Alumni Voices Project is a joint-initiative of the Office of Student Access, Success and Diversity Initiatives and Alumni Affairs. To learn more about this project and to contribute your voice to this “Conversation of Inquiry,” please contact Lisa Montgomery, Director of Inclusion, Diversity & Employer Engagement. Office: 312.567.3777 | Email: [email protected] 5 8PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE APPENDIX: A FORMAT FOR RECORDING LEARNINGS FROM COI’S You may want to create your own format for recording the learnings of each particular COI, including • Your contact’s name • Contact details • The locations and time of the meeting • Key learnings • Key actions you each agreed to • Subsequent events or subsequent learnings Some people will like to keep these records electronically, others in paper form. Some may prefer to capture COI learnings and actions in their journal. Some people find a paper record to be more human and more embodied, some people like the portability, flexibility and shareability of digital forms. Some people may want a physical space to store images, objects and artefacts collected around COI’s Another way of working is to keep all your COI learnings in one electronic space, as a sort of structured COI diary. We’re experimenting with doing this electronically via a spread- sheet or table where each line has four columns • Name • Date • Learning point (a sentence or two or a few key words; you can also include links to images, maps, videos, music, etc) • Tags 5 9PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLOREIn this way, you can quickly keep a master file of your COI learnings. Each time you havea COI, you can add one or more lines to the table. If there were several learnings fromone COI, you can make several lines, each with the person’s name and the same date.Tags allow you flexibly to reference the context of each learning point, especially if youdon’t mention the topic words directly in your note of learning. You can then use asearch function to find learning points for that topic across all your COI’s. Or you cansimply read over your whole COI diary as a sequential history.Here’s an example format (a spreadsheet version looks very similar)Name Date Learning points TagsJim S 3 Mar 1984 History of XYZ Bank, a culture of trading and risk taking, a passion for excellence, team play Inves tm entJim S 3 Mar 1984 Meeting Mr. LH, head of investment banking bankingJim S 3 Mar 1984 The importance of the trading floor contactsJim S 3 Mar 1984 Asking questions, building connectionJim S 3 Mar 1984 Lunch at Fraunces tavern Inves tm ent banking COI Venues , contexts 6 0PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE REFERENCES Burnett, W. and Evans, D. (2016). Designing your life. London: Chatto & Windus. This book captures the learnings of a highly regarded course at Stanford, helping students in many fields apply a design ethos to creating a satisfying and rewarding life. The authors recommend organising what we would call Conversations of Inquiry as a way of “prototyping” life and work strategies. The authors introduce the book in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os3vvhEKjkE Dalton, S. (2012). The 2-hour job search. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press. This book is a guide, by a leader of the placement office at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business School, to the latest insights and techniques for effective job search in our digital world. Dalton’s “informational interviews” are an important special case of Conversations of Inquiry. The author describes his methodology and approach in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CRLV4l9UtI Lewitz, O. and Neidhardt, C. (2016). Showing up. Berlin: LeanPub. This book introduces the Temenos journey of personal and collective leadership development, as invented by consultant Siraj Sirajuddin and offered internationally by the TrustTemenos Leadership Academy. The Temenos journey employs creative map- ping techniques we describe and advocate for use in Conversations of Inquiry in this ebook. Co-author Olaf Lewitz explains in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ8OgL6Jd5Q 6 1PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE Rowland, E. and Rozenthuler, S. (2016). Leading Systemic Dialogue. London: The Whole Partnership. This ebook introduces the principles of holding creative dialogues, of which COI's are a special case. The authors invite an awareness of the systemic context - what are the larger set of human relationships surrounding the people directly involved in the conver- sation. They are world leaders in working with human systems and in holding creative and powerful dialogue. Here is a link to obtain the ebook in electronic form. http://www.wholepartnership.com/ebooks/ Scharmer, C. (2009). Theory U. San Francisco, Calif. : Berrett-Koehler. This book introduces in detail an approach to collaborative, creative journeys of inquiry. Part of the author’s approach is to encourage people to listen at progressively deeper levels. We reference and advocate this approach to listening in this ebook. The author, C. Otto Scharmer, is a Senior Lecturer at MIT and the lead sponsor of one of the most widely followed online global trainings in leadership development, u.lab https://www.edx.org/course/u-lab-leading-emerging-future-mitx-15-671-1x Here is Scharmer on video explaining his approach to levels of listening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLfXpRkVZaI 6 2PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE Udall, N. (2014). Riding the Creative Rollercoaster: How Leaders Evoke Creativity, Pro- ductivity and Innovation. London: Kogan Page. This book presents an approach to innovative leadership, viewed as a continual series of journeys of inquiry, venturing over and over again into the unknown. The author, a lead- ing international consultant on creating cultures of innovation, uses the metaphor of a creative rollercoaster to describe these repeated journeys to breakthrough. In this ebook, we invite readers to use this mental model as they conduct Conversations of Inquiry. This video, produced by the author’s consulting firm, carries viewers through the rollercoaster journey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnR0RtWTZc8 6 3PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE SKETCHES, NOTES, DRAWINGS 6 4PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE SKETCHES, NOTES, DRAWINGS 6 5PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE SKETCHES, NOTES, DRAWINGS 6 6PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE SKETCHES, NOTES, DRAWINGS 6 7PA G E
CONVERSATIONS OF INQUIRY AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE SKETCHES, NOTES, DRAWINGS 6 7PA G E
FROM THE AUTHORS:We sometimes hear people speak about \"being world-class\" and \"winning.\"Usually these ideas turn out to be about individual achievement and being better thanothers.Instead, we invite you to be the creative genius you were meant to be, to createprojects, teams and communities - including organizations and companies - that allow youand others to realize their creative potential. If you do that, we believe the 'success' will bethere for everyone.We invite you to help many others to be the creative geniuses they were meant to be. It'snot about comparison, being better than someone else, or winning in that sense. It'sabout being the best you can be and helping many others do the same. That's what \"win-ning' really means to us.Our hope is that, in a small way, Conversations of Inquiry will help us all as we undertakethose journeys of discovery.Scott Downs, a former banker, management consultant and entrepreneur now works to call forward greatleaders and great organizations on the basis of great cultures.Jerry Doyle is Vice Provost for Student Access, Success and Diversity initiatives at the Illinois Institute ofTechnology. He leads teams that create ideas, relationships, and collaborative partnerships to strengthenlong-term sustainable enrollment pathways to higher education, and to support students and alumni intheir career paths through and beyond graduation.Annie Littrell Senior is the Director of the Illinois Tech Global Leaders Program in Chicago. Through herexperience with program development, instruction, service learning, and research, she has focused onproviding tools for people from diverse backgrounds to understand their narratives and unique leadershippotential.Tracy Skala, a Career Development Coach at the Illinois Institute of Technology, works with students toderive meaning from their experiences, recognize their talents, and apply their strengths to create apurposeful career. © Copyright 2016, W. Scott Downs and Gerald Doyle
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