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Michael Bungay Stanier: Build Brave Work Relationships

·41 min·3 clips

Michael Bungay-Stanier says repair starts with speaking up, noticing hurt, and avoiding a "weasel apology."

Caitlin Schiller and honorary guest Phoebe McIndoo welcome Michael Bungay-Stanier back to Simplify. The opening has the easy warmth of people revisiting a guest they know well. From there, the conversation moves into his book How to Work with Almost Anyone. Michael lays out the BPR, short for best possible relationship, as a way to name what people are actually trying to build with one another. He treats the idea as practical rather than sentimental. A working relationship, he suggests, gets better when both people choose to be in it together on purpose. Caitlin keeps the focus on what that means in everyday life. Michael answers by translating the concept into the messy reality of coworkers and other relationships that are not easy to opt out of. He does not pretend that every connection can become easy. Instead, he keeps returning to the value of having a plan for how to be with someone well. The conversation grows more personal when he tells a story about his parents. Their relationship had become strained late in life, and he could see the sadness, anger, and frustration settling in. He stepped in to help them talk directly about how they wanted to be with each other during the time left. They were not excited about it. They were skeptical enough to make the whole thing sound slightly absurd. Still, he persisted. They eventually agreed to try the conversation. What followed was awkward, emotional, and brave in a quiet way. The point was not to perfect every sentence but to leave the relationship in the best shape possible. Caitlin’s response gives the story room to land as something more than a clever framework. By the end, the episode feels like a careful meditation on how people stay connected when work, family, and the time they have left make that harder than it sounds.

As heard by us

A quiet case for treating difficult relationships like something you can practice.

Michael Bungay-Stanier treats work relationships as something to shape with intention rather than simply endure. He introduces BPR, the best possible relationship, and uses it to think through how people can work together when both sides are willing to make it work.

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Why you'd press play

When goodwill is not enough to fix a difficult working relationship.

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