Listen, Even When You Already Know the Answer

I’ve spent years helping organizations make difficult decisions under uncertainty.

I literally have a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership. Awesome, right? Well…not if you forget how to listen.

Stay with me.

A few weekends ago, I was at the Starbucks near my place, sitting across from a new friend who writes a Substack.

She was telling me about a piece she's been working on, a new direction, a few angles she's testing, and some ideas she'd been turning over.

Halfway through, I caught myself. I was responding to her like she'd already made decisions.

"Oh, that won't work because..."
"You should structure it like..."

I really should have known better. I did know better.

She'd float something exploratory and I'd jump in like she was looking for approval.
She wasn't.

She was thinking out loud, and I was treating her napkin ideas like a PowerPoint deck she'd just presented to a board.

That's the thing about listening as an expert.

We're so used to being asked for opinions that we sometimes hear opinions being requested when none were. We confuse sharing with asking, and exploration with conclusion. The other person walks away feeling unheard, even though we were technically listening to every word.

This happens at work constantly.

In a meeting, someone floats an idea and three people jump to refine it like it's a final draft. Have you seen a senior leader think out loud, only for the room to treat it as a directive, and then we're off to the races?

Even more often, I see someone share a worry, and we respond with a fix instead of an acknowledgment.

The experts and leaders who become thinking partners aren't the ones who hear the most.

They're the ones who can tell whether they're hearing a question, a position, or a person thinking out loud, and respond to the actual one.

This is the second in a short series on the practices that pull experts into bigger conversations. The first looked at curiosity, the discipline of asking questions that aren't actually advocacy.

Once you're asking better questions, you need to actually hear the answers.
You need to listen.

I’ve found that the biggest listening failure isn't missing the words. It's catching them too quickly and assuming you know the register.

Speed can be the enemy of meaning. The moment you find yourself responding quickly, with a fix, a counter, or a refinement, you've probably already misread what someone was doing.

Which gives you a clean test for yourself: if your response feels obvious, you've probably missed something. The fastest responses are usually answers to the wrong question.

Here are five moves to help slow you down at the exact moments your expertise wants to speed you up.

Let’s get it…

The grammar usually carries the meaning.

"I'm thinking we should..." isn't the same thing as "We're going to..." and
"I'm not sure, but maybe..." isn't the same thing as "We need to..."

If you identify this underlying reference, you catch the true meaning behind what is being said.

When my friend said "I'm trying a new direction with this piece," the prior was closer to I'm worried my old direction isn't working and I want to know if this one might.

If I'd caught that, I would have responded to the worry, not the direction.

While what they state may be clear, there’s often a part they're working not to say, out of politeness, professional caution, or self-protection.

The tell can be hesitation: a pause where there shouldn't be one or a softer word where a sharper one was about to come out.

When you notice it, gently acknowledge it by saying, "It sounds like there's something you almost said there. Want to share it?" 

People remember the experts who give them permission to say the harder thing.

"It sounds like you're thinking out loud, not deciding. Is that right?"

This sounds small. It isn't.

So much of the miscommunication between experts happens because both parties are operating in different registers without realizing it.

One was exploring, one was decision-making.
One was venting, one was problem-solving.

Naming the register gets you on the same page before you start trying to be useful.

Each urge is a question you can flip back on yourself: did they actually want a fix, take a position, or ask for that information?

I find that most of the time, the answer is no, and the urge is yours, not theirs.

Listening isn't a courtesy; it's a discipline.

The next time someone is talking, ask yourself what they're actually doing. Then respond to that.

Hear the person, not just the position.

A simple reminder, but sometimes a reminder is exactly what’s needed.

Thanks for reading. Be easy!
(Human skills are your advantage.)

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