Talking Over vs. Talking Though a Challenge

When faced with a challenge, many leaders are too busy to make time to share their situation with a thought partner (or assume others are too busy). Partly this is because it takes TOO long! Not that it has to.

The approach most people take is not efficient or particularly effective, which means it makes more sense to *try* to figure things out on our own. I believe that if more leaders understood how to talk through a challenge (vs. talking over it), it would become more common to share with others (and allowing diversity of thought to be leveraged, leading to a better solution).

Talking Over an Issue looks like this:
— I share my challenge
— You share a question (usually one I have already asked myself)
— I answer the question (reinforcing the position I already had)
— You share a suggestion (one I’ve considered)
— I explain why that wouldn’t work
— You ask another question
— I realize it is going to take too long to bring you up to speed so I politely say thank you and go about my day

Talking Through an Issue looks like this:
— I share my challenge with you
— I ask you to share with me what you would suggest as an approach
— You make a suggestion
— I ask YOU a clarifying questions such as “what makes you suggest that?”
— You share more and ask me “is any of this helpful?”
— I share my take-aways and/or any new questions that have come up as I’ve listened
— You reflect back to me what you’re hearing about what is at the heart of my decision and/or what my preferred path forward is

In the second scenario even though I am the one with the challenge I actually do less talking and more listening. The whole process may take only 10 minutes and I will reliably be much further along in my decision making process.

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