This is what we’ve studied. We studied this very extensively. We’ve looked at well over 30,000 documented conversations—cases where the person who shared it with us said: “Here’s what I actually said and did, here’s what they said and did—one person or more than one. Or here’s the conversation I expect I’m going to have with one or more people, and here’s what I would actually say, what they would say, and why I don’t think it’s going to generate the results I’m hoping for.”
So in some ways, the dataset I have is focused on whether there’s an actual or predicted results gap.
And by the way, just so your listeners know, these are conversations with clients. These are conversations where you’re trying to say something meaningful up the chain. These are conversations with people on your teams. These are conversations with customers. So it’s conversations in all directions.
The only criterion we set is that it has to be about something important—whether you actually had, or are predicting, a results gap.
What’s interesting about that is when you look at the data, there’s always something the person is doing—without being aware of it—that is preventing them from getting better results. And the thing they’re always doing, without realizing it, is compromising candor in some way.
That’s why I’m so committed to candor.
If I were to grossly oversimplify, there are errors of expression and errors of exploration. Expression is when you express the truth of what you think. Exploration is when you try to better understand the truth of what somebody else thinks.
Sometimes the problem is that you’re honest, but you’re not helping the other person be honest with you. And the hallmark of an honest, effective conversation is that you can be honest in ways that pull the other person to do the same with you.
Because the point around candor is not just about expressing the truth of what you think. It’s about treating the conversation as a collaborative search for the truth—in order to figure out what to do about it with other people.
So there are errors of self-expression, but also errors of exploration. And when you look at the errors of self-expression—and you and I were talking about this beforehand—I actually like the way you said it. It’s either that people avoid the conversation, or they handle it too aggressively.
It’s an AA problem—no pun intended. “Hi, I’m Todd, I have a problem with candor.”
Avoidance is a problem because we can’t solve any issue we can’t talk about with each other. But if we’re too aggressive, people pay more attention to us than to the issue we’re trying to discuss. And that compromises candor.
On the other hand, if you don’t explore the truth of what other people think, then you’re only ever seeing a very small part of the problem.
