who is the partner you keep not listening to?
“No your not.”
We left our home in Houston… because we had won the Space Station contract. Six years of campaign, an executive who had maneuvered us masterfully to the right partner, and a proposal that got picked to build the on-board computer system. After the celebrating we were reorganized into new teams. I came home from work, shared the news, and said who I would be working for. Taking advantage of those years of work…
… without missing a beat, Beth came back with “No your not.” And then proceeded to give me a list of very logical reasons why not.
Who in your house gives you the shortest answers, and when did you last treat one of them as data rather than as a mood?
…and how could SHE possibly know that?
That was my actual reaction. She did not work there. She was home with the kids at that point. What could she possibly know about a man she had never reported to?
Ten couples had come out of college to the same place at the same time, to start careers and start families and to spend most of their spare hours around the same tables. She had been at every one of those tables, listening, while the people who worked there talked. She knew the man by his reputation from the many times he was mentioned. And she knew me well enough to know the mix of the 2 personalities would end badly for 1 of us, and he outranked me, which meant it would land on her too.
When quiet people speak up, their power is larger because it happens so rarely. And it is almost always in the first sentence, so you had better be listening when it comes. Her whole analysis arrived as 3 words. The most Compressed signal in my life came from the person who talks least, and I nearly missed it because it was short.
…and a band that wanted it raw…
In February 1993 Nirvana went to a studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota and made a record in 2 weeks, deliberately raw, deliberately theirs, as an answer to how polished the last one had been. Krist Novoselic had been the bass player since 1987 and was still there. And then, in May, before it shipped, they went back into a studio in Seattle and let Scott Litt remix exactly 2 of its songs. All Apologies was 1 of them. Not the record. Two songs. That is what it looks like when a partner is allowed to touch the signal.
so what would your partner write in the margin?
We treat a short answer as a thin one. It is usually the opposite. Compression is years of signal squeezed down until only the part that matters fits, and the reason it sounds thin is that all the working has been thrown away. Three words from somebody who has been listening for a decade is not less information than 3 paragraphs from somebody who has been listening for a week.
I had a mentor early on who hammered 1 word into me. Relationships. He took a real risk and sponsored me into his own network, so I knew what that investment was worth. When Beth was right, it was that network I went to, and through it I found a role in a start up inside IBM. We packed the house and trekked to the east coast, and the rest of the adventure has continued from there.
Years later, when I stepped out into the risky world of working for myself, I asked Beth for permission. I meant it. It was not an idle question and it was not a courtesy. I was asking my best business advisor whether I could do this. Her answer, and her support through the process, is most of the platform I ended up standing on.
Now I ask the leaders I work with what their partner thinks. That answer tells me more than almost anything else they say, and the ones who cannot answer it are usually the ones running the most Compression everywhere else.
word for word… today…
Your “Simple… Not Easy” move: Find the person who never asks you to repeat yourself… your best listener. Ask them your most important question, and write their answer down word for word… no Compression.
Helping leaders hear the short sentence from the quiet partner, the first time it is said, is a good deal of what I do now. Schedule time with me here.
Three words, from the person who almost never uses them, and they were right. Say thank you before you say anything else… All Apologies
