Once You Ask A Question, Listen

Why the best follow-up to a question is silence.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to attend an internal focus group seeking input, perspective, and ideas from key stakeholders. As I heard their feedback, I found myself at a decision point about how I could respond to their comments:

1. I could get defensive, explain why we didn’t do things that way, justify the way we had done things in the past, tell myself they didn’t understand the complexity involved, shrug off the constructive feedback and listen only to confirming points of view, etc.

Or

2. I could listen.

I chose the latter, and I’m extremely glad I did. We didn’t gather this group of individuals to ignore what they had to say. We brought them in because we truly wanted to learn, improve, and gain additional ideas and perspective.

By continually checking my mental state and ensuring I wasn’t falling into the first bucket - I came away with new thoughts.

I listened.

And we’ll be better because of it.

Thanks for spending time with me in my workshop,

Eric