Lesson Learned #33
Here’s an example of what should be a “lesson learned” but can actually turn into a terrible habit: a client is talking to you. When she’s in the middle of asking a question, you cut her off and give an answer to what you think she was asking. In our business, there are few things more disquieting than cutting off your client mid-question and then seeing her look at you in disbelief as you rattle off the wrong answer.
So why do some of us do this? This seems to be a problem more for people who like to “tell” as opposed to people who like to “ask” (different social styles). For those of us in the former camp, one explanation is that we’re upended by our experience and the way our brains function. The brain apparently likes to take shortcuts, which hampers our ability to listen. A client needs only to hint at a business problem and some of us will jump ahead to where we think the client is going and provide an answer. Only sometimes we haven’t really understood the question, so we have to rapidly backtrack to repair the situation.
The problem with this habit is that when you guess right it irritates people, and when you guess wrong it damages your credibility. A client once offered us this tip on how to answer questions well:
“First, listen to the question.” In its entirety.
“Understand the question.” Understand the context and ask questions.
“Stop.” A pause allows you to think about your response.
“Then, answer the question.”
Of course we had to get him to write this down, because we missed half of it the first time.
