A CEO was telling me about a frustrating conversation with a board member.
The board member had made a comment about the company’s need for additional capital.
The CEO immediately began interpreting it.
- Was the board member criticizing him?
- Questioning his judgment?
- Suggesting that he had made the same mistake before?
He had an entire response forming in his mind — defending the company’s decisions, explaining the context and correcting what he believed the board member had misunderstood.
I asked him: “Did you ask what he meant?”
He had not.
This happens constantly in leadership. Someone makes an ambiguous comment. We assign meaning to it. Then we react to the meaning we created.
We become defensive about a criticism that may not have been intended. We solve a concern the other person may not have. We leave the conversation believing we disagree when we may not even understand one another yet.
Four words can interrupt the entire cycle
- “What do you mean?”
- “Say more about that.”
- “Help me understand how you are thinking about it.”
Curiosity is not weakness. It does not mean surrendering your point of view or allowing someone else to control the conversation. It means slowing down long enough to respond to what was actually said, not to the story your mind built around it.
Many difficult conversations are not difficult because the disagreement is so great. They are difficult because neither person has stopped to find out what the other one means.