QRCA VIEWS Design Thinking and the Power of Anecdotes: A Conversation with Briony Hancock
Host Doug Keith interviews Briony Hancock, Senior Strategist at Eighth Day, about using design thinking and anecdotes to uncover deeper qualitative research insights.
17 Dec 2025TRANSCRIPT
Understand Your Motivational Style and How to Adapt Your Communication Approach: A Conversation with Beka Shea
Understand Your Motivational Style and How to Adapt Your Communication Approach: A Conversation with Beka Shea
In the latest episode of Conversations in Depth, host Doug Keith talks with Beka Shea, Founder & Executive Advisor of Magnetic Consulting. Beka discusses her path from Naval officer and mechanical engineer to client and business advisor, and how behavioral analytics can help both individuals and teams understand their own communication styles and be better communicators as a result.
With ambitions to be a pilot, Beka completed an undergraduate ROTC program and joined the Navy, serving as the Assistant Training Officer on an aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington. She finished an advanced degree in mechanical engineering and moved into the private sector as an engineer at NORESCO, a carrier company focused on energy efficiency and sustainability. She's since led one consulting firm and founded another, created a real estate investment business, and has become an in-demand public speaker. With her team at Magnetic, she helps growth-stage companies align their leadership teams, improve decision-making, and scale with confidence.
In this conversation, Beka will share what she's learned about key types of motivational factors that typically define team members—Sharks (autonomy), Sunshines (social) and Shepherds (knowledge)—so you can think about what motivates you and how this influences your own communication approach. Through this assessment you can learn how to adapt your communications as a consultant with both respondents and clients, while avoiding letting your best traits become your Achilles heel.
https://www.magneticconsulting.net/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bekashea/
17 Sept 2025TRANSCRIPT
Be More Effective at Delivering Your Message: A Conversation with Sally Kohn
In the latest episode of Conversations in Depth, host Doug Keith chats with Sally Kohn, public speaking coach, media trainer, author, and former MSNBC commentator as she shares her personal journey from on-air personality to helping people and organizations be more effective at delivering key messages.
Kohn is a nationally recognized television commentator, writer, and executive presence coach working with top executives and political leaders. A frequent guest on CNN and MSNBC—and once upon a time, Fox News—Kohn’s first book, The Opposite of Hate, was published in April 2018. Kohn is a TED Curator, and her three hit TED Talks have been viewed more than six million times. She is also a popular keynote speaker at business conferences and on college campuses, talking about how to end political division and save democracy by cultivating connection and belonging.
In this conversation, Kohn talks about how she found her way into commentating, and what led her back out of it—a desire to help people and organizations on a much larger scale through her current work. She also reflects on what she’s learned from having conversations with people who are very different from her, and how that can help qualitative researchers be empathetic even when the topics get tough.
In this time of polarization, where even the most seemingly innocuous research topics can veer into deeper concerns, Kohn reminds us that understanding the complicated natures of people is more important than ever.
Show notes:
Website
https://www.sallykohn.com/
What we can do about the culture of hate (TED Talk)
https://youtu.be/BzeTjn0R2VY?si=9pzv8xYW2c0ITsKP
View Sally's book:
The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity by Sally Kohn
Inside a recent episode
QRCA VIEWS Design Thinking and the Power of Anecdotes: A Conversation with Briony Hancock
Published 23 Jun 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] What were you interested in, in terms of presenting to a group of qual researchers in particular? Yeah, totally. Yeah, I feel like that QRCA conference sort of opened up my world massively. And the topic of the talk itself was called Bold Anecdotes, Sparking Change Through Stories That Stick. And it was basically a slight attack on stories as a concept, which is sort of sacrilege because we're all told that stories are the thing we should aim for to embed in our narratives, things like that. But my hypothesis was that stories are actually quite um quite big a bit bulky amorphous um great for sort of children's bedtimes but actually come with quite a lot of pressure to make them perfect in crafting this sort of story arc um well what what if you can't do that all the time and also like Our client sort of time with us is getting shorter and shorter. […]
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