When you take the time do this you avoid:
The project or piece of work going down the wrong road
Wasting time, cost and energy having to backtrack
Confusion, suspicion and speculation
People holding back on what they might offer
When you take the time to check for understanding you benefit by:
Ultimately speeding up the project
Having a good chance of getting the result you set out to get
Gaining insight into challenges you might not have seen
Building stronger relationships through supporting other people’s success (because they are clear on what success actually is)
I was struggling in a piece of work recently where there had been engagement issues. It’s an organisation-wide leadership development project. It’s aimed at building better leadership with middle and senior managers.
I noticed some of the leaders turning up in 1-2-1s in a very managed way - i.e. wearing a mask, or to some extent being more worried about providing an apple for the teacher. They were on show.
I also noticed a mismatch between feedback I was getting directly from the leaders I was developing, and the feedback they were providing to their bosses. Something here was also ‘on show’.
I have a concept called getting over the line. In a nutshell this means making sure my clients feel secure enough to drop the pretences and talk about what’s really going on for them. This is where the big shifts and breakthroughs happen.
It’s mostly about trust… Trusting it's OK to turn up as yourself with your real challenges. Trusting I am on your side and want your success. Trusting that it’s confidential. Trusting me to ask challenging questions in the interest of your development.
What emerged in this scenario was a belief that the work with me had something to do with being promoted to the next level. An idea that my role was more talent scout than coach. That I was a conduit to head office. To be fair I should have spotted it quicker given most people were preoccupied with ‘how do I make director level?’
Everyone got over the line once the confusion was cleaned up
It required:
Naming the elephant in the room
Establishing context
Shifting belief
Checking we were on the same page
Some reassurance and commitment
A few years back I received a really valuable lesson in just how much can get missed, and misinterpreted, in the act of communication. Let me set the scene. There are 18 people in the room. They are made up of Heads of Department and an Executive Team. They are the Strategic Leadership Team of a mid-sized organisation.
We are in the room together to review their previous four year corporate cycle. The strategic plan for that four year cycle had five headline themes. There was a shiny document that had been produced to share the word with internal and external stakeholders. It was really good. Concise and seemingly simple.
When we got into reviewing each of the five headline themes the following statements could be heard echoing around the room: “That’s not what I took that to mean, I thought that meant … , Oh, is that what that meant?”
To be fair to the organisation they had had a successful corporate cycle. The misunderstandings were’t deal breakers and often those misunderstandings were across different work areas and therefore less crucial.
However, for four years senior people in the same organisation had different ideas about their collective plan. What might have worked even better if they had checked up front?
I have learnt this again and again - that we should never assume we have taken the same meaning.
Before a conversation begins it helps to check to see if everyone in the room thinks the conversation is about the same thing. And before you leave the room it helps to check to see if everybody has taken the same meaning.
The Framing Conversation - Lean Learning Lesson