Episode 49:
Conversations Worth Having with Cheri Torres
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Episode 49 Description
Every interaction we have impacts others, and every interaction someone has with you impacts you. So how do we take this knowledge and allow it to transform the way we show up in the world?
On this episode of Yes! We Rise, founder and CEO of Collaborative by Design, Cheri Torres, PhD, joins Christine to share her life’s work around supporting growth and evolutionary purpose in people and organizations. She dives into the power of asking generative questions, understanding your broader purpose, and how curiosity unlocks inherent wisdom.
This rich conversation is both relatable and transformative. Tune in and begin accessing inner clarity, creativity, and deeper relationships. Welcome!
Cheri Torres is passionate about supporting growth and evolutionary purpose for people and organizations. As an organizational consultant and facilitator, Cheri catalyzes positive change, encouraging people to recognize they are integral parts of a whole system and that what they say and do matters significantly. She’s worked with thousands of leaders and teams around the world to support high performance, engagement, strategic planning, culture transformation, and organizational success. The foundation of her work draws upon a living systems paradigm and the strength-based approach of Appreciative Inquiry, one of the most widely used approaches for systems change.
To support conscious leadership and team excellence, she introduces a living systems framework for understanding and two simple communication practices that give people the power to strengthen relationships, expand possibilities, and increase productive and meaningful engagement through everyday conversation. These evidence-based practices are grounded in neuroscience, positive and integral psychology, and Appreciative Inquiry.
Among numerous books and articles she has written, she’s most excited about the second edition of her Berrett Koehler bestseller, Conversations Worth Having. It includes a new chapter and tips she and her co-author have developed during their trainings to support conscious and intentional communication.
Cheri has been featured in leading media sources including Fast Company, Forbes, HR Magazine, SmartBrief, Training Industry, and Training Magazine. Her keynote presentations reach a broad range of people, including HR Directors, organization development practitioners, women leaders, educators, and corporate management. A perpetual learner, she’s accumulated a PhD in Collaborative Learning, an MBA, a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology, Level II certification in the Barrett Values Cultural Assessment tools, and Level II certification in Spiral Dynamics Integral. She is an Executive Officer in CWH Institute Inc, and Co-founder of The Sami Project (for conscious leadership).
She lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, Michael and dog, Annabel where she enjoys hiking, music, good food, family and friends.
Download the show Notes
find this episode on youtube
Key takeaways
- Appreciative Inquiry is a strength based approach to organizational change, and this was the primary approach for the ropes course program Cheri previously facilitated. Hear how working with participants led to a 20-year research endeavor, and how asking generative questions can cultivate creativity and strengthen relationships.
- How a ropes course reveals existing aspects of an organization’s structure and community dynamics. And the power of generative questions in shifting out of a fear-based mindset and toward solutions to even the most complex problems.
- What this work looks like in the day to day. Cheri shares about running a recent conscious leadership women’s retreat in Ecuador on learning to lead, knowing you are an integral part of the whole. You’ll hear about the vision Cheri and her team have for ensuring the conversations we have are flourishing.
- The most powerful practice you can bring into your life to support well-being and strong relationships, along with some relatable examples. Generative questions make the invisible visible, create shared understanding, and develop new knowledge.
- Christine expresses how she incorporates generative questions into her own life, including the power of her mantra, “curiosity over control.” Curiosity creates space for inherent wisdom to solve communal, local, and even global problems.
- The joy that Cheri experiences through the work she does, finding motivation through urgency, and key lessons she’s learned and wants to offer others.
Notable quotes
“My whole life has pretty much been about supporting people, and organizations and communities to recognize and use their full potential, including my own.”
“We finally realized that… the basis of appreciative inquiry was asking generative questions and using a positive frame for your conversation. And if you do those two simple things, your relationships strengthen, you can manage and access creativity and connection around any topic. And it just facilitates greater success and well being in your life..”
“As a woman that leads, in this culture, there’s a tendency to suppress the feminine. And yet, that’s what’s absolutely needed right now in our organizations and in the world- this bringing in the heart, bringing in the wisdom of connection and relationship.”
“I think the biggest practice or the most powerful practice anybody can bring into their lives to support well being and strong relationships is asking generative questions.”
“Part of my journey is to figure out, how do I live from a place of being an integral part, that everything I do is either helping the system flourish or not.”
The Yes! We Rise podcast features solutions-seekers, change-makers, and those creating a resilient future. We share stories and strategies to inspire action to build resilience and community transformation. To create change, people need to feel like they belong and that they are part of a growing movement. They need to know their voice matters and that they have the inspiration, agency and ability to transform their lives and their communities. They are the key to a resilient future.
From the Navajo Nation to the mountains of Appalachia, incredible work is being done by community members and leaders. Change is often sparked by inspiration: seeing what others have done, especially in similar situations and places. People see that when someone looks like them or lives in a place like theirs, and has created real, true and lasting change, change that will allow their granddaughters and grandsons to thrive — they begin to imagine what might be possible for them. No longer waiting for someone else to come and save them, they realize they are the ones they have been waiting for. But what creates that spark? What creates that inspiration? Learning through stories and examples, feeling a sense of agency and belonging, and getting fired up to kick ass creates that spark.
We Rise helps community leaders and members learn to forge a new path toward creating resilience and true transformation. One person at a time, one community at a time, one region at a time, the quilt of transformation can grow piece by piece until resilience becomes the norm instead of the exception. Together, we rise.
Links/resources mentioned
Check out Cheri’s book: Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement, and discover more about her powerful work, including resources, through her website.
You can also experience Cheri’s work at the next Conscious Leadership Retreat for Women through The Sami Project.
The Yes! We Rise is produced by Dialogue + Design Associates, Podcasting For Creatives, with music by Drishti Beats.
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Please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast so we can continue spreading our message far and wide. Find our email list at the website: www.yeswerise.org. Thanks for listening.
The Yes! We Rise podcast features solutions-seekers, change-makers, and those creating a resilient future. We share stories and strategies to inspire action to build resilience and community transformation. To create change, people need to feel like they belong and that they are part of a growing movement. They need to know their voice matters and that they have the inspiration, agency and ability to transform their lives and their communities. They are the key to a resilient future.
From the Navajo Nation to the mountains of Appalachia, incredible work is being done by community members and leaders. Change is often sparked by inspiration: seeing what others have done, especially in similar situations and places. People see that when someone looks like them or lives in a place like theirs, and has created real, true and lasting change, change that will allow their granddaughters and grandsons to thrive — they begin to imagine what might be possible for them. No longer waiting for someone else to come and save them, they realize they are the ones they have been waiting for. But what creates that spark? What creates that inspiration? Learning through stories and examples, feeling a sense of agency and belonging, and getting fired up to kick ass creates that spark.
We Rise helps community leaders and members learn to forge a new path toward creating resilience and true transformation. One person at a time, one community at a time, one region at a time, the quilt of transformation can grow piece by piece until resilience becomes the norm instead of the exception. Together, we rise.
