Jeff Wetzler | How to Help People Speak Their Minds, And Benefit From Their Wisdom

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:09] Hey, so are you unintentionally shutting down those around you so you end up never getting the benefit of their wisdom without even realizing what's happening or what is coming. Maybe even from you. Or maybe are you the one being shut down and work and relationships and life? Have you ever wondered what your coworkers, friends, or even kids really think? But don't say, I am sure that you have experienced those rare moments when someone finally opened up and offered a perspective that shifted your whole view. But what about all the times they stayed silent? How much wisdom have you missed out along the way? And today's SPARKED episode, we're joined by Jeff Wetzler to explore the invisible blockers, causing people to withhold their insights, their truth, their wisdom from us. What deep seated human dynamics lead us to hold back ideas and struggles from the very people who could be helped? Jeff has pursued a 25 year quest to transform learning with experience spanning business consulting, education and innovation. He's uncovered a pervasive yet invisible problem. We all withhold valuable perspectives from each other, which he shares in his forthcoming book, Ask Tap into the hidden wisdom of People around you for unexpected breakthroughs in leadership and life.

Jonathan Fields: [00:01:30] Just imagine a world where your teammates freely share their wildest ideas. Your kids openly talk about their struggles, and your partner unconditionally gives you feedback. It's like a vault of collective wisdom waiting around for you. If only you had the code to unlock it. Well, that is where we're heading into today's conversation. How to unlock that vault I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED. Fascinated by sort of, um, you know, like, you have this journey that's taking you through the world of education, through the world of learning and development, through the world of leadership and organizations at scale. So you have a really interesting sort of, um, blended perspective looking at like how we develop insight and education and wisdom and how we share it and how sometimes we don't share it. And it seems to be the real focus of a lot of your work right now is this notion that, you know, we've got this invisible problem that shows up in personal relationships and professional relationships and educational relationships, and that's that. We all have something of value to share, but so often we don't share it. So take me into this a bit.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:02:49] Yeah. And I think invisible problem is a good language for it, because we often don't even know what it is that we're not finding out from the people around us. And one of the, one of the common things I have seen in many different work contexts, and also in my own life, is that we are surrounded by people, whether that be our clients or investors or our coworkers, the people we manage or who manage us, or our loved ones who are filled with ideas and insights and perspectives and feedback that if we could know and tap into, we would both be better off, we would make better decisions, we would innovate better. We'd save time. We'd be closer. But far too often they just don't tell us so much of what's in their hearts and minds. And so the book really starts off with trying to explore that phenomenon that I call the unspoken. And so I really looked hard at what are the most common things people don't tell us and why. Yeah, I'm so happy to go deeper into that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:03:44] Yeah, let's do that because you break it into categories, which I think was really useful to try and understand, like the nature of things that we often withhold.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:03:51] Yeah. So one of the most common things that people around us just don't tell us is the struggles and challenges that they're up against. When I was in my first major line management role and I was managing several hundred people, we had one. One of the teams that was under me was dealing with something that nearly blew up in a very consequential and high stakes way. Um, and we got it just in the nick of time, but almost didn't. And what I discovered is that all year long they had been really struggling, and I thought I was being a good manager and helping them and checking in whatever. They just didn't feel comfortable telling me what the real challenges were. And that can be true in our personal life, too. Whether you know things that our kids are up against or our friends are up against, etc., that we only discover too late. So that's one category of things, another category of things that people often don't tell us, um, is their feedback for us, their observations. And, you know, we have impacts on people. We come across certain ways we can do things better, and the people around us can see that in ways that we can't. But quite often they're not going to tell us that one. Another one is they you know, people around us have ideas, you know, they the people who are on our teams or even our customers or our friends. They could see this might be a better direction for you to take the team or the organization. This might be a breakthrough idea. And it might. They might be thinking, well, this is just going to sound too crazy, so I'm not going to say it, but they don't say it. So those are three of multiple different kinds of things that that I discovered. People are just not sharing. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:05:16] And as you lay even just those three out, you know. Yeah, my mind is saying like, but I want to hear that and I want to hear that and I want to hear.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:05:22] Absolutely.

Jonathan Fields: [00:05:23] Which raises the big question, which is like, why aren't we if there's value in this information, it value on both sides, you know, it would it would help the endeavor. It would help the relationship. It would. Why is it being withheld? Like what is it about us or about the culture within which we function that stops us from going there?

Jeff Wetzler: [00:05:41] Yeah. Well, I think what you just said, which is that I want to know this stuff, you know, which which I do, and I think most of us do, too. One of the biggest reasons people don't tell us is they don't realize we want to know. And in fact, they might assume that we don't want to know because we haven't gone out of our way to let them know that we want to know. But another reason is, and and this I did a lot of research for the book, and one of the most fascinating studies I found is that between 60 and 80% of people surveyed, depending on their demographic, withhold information about their own health from their doctor. Um, literally information that if the doctor knew, you know, we could live better. We might not die as soon, like all these things. And and so the question was, why didn't why don't you tell your doctor that information clearly? Your doctor would want to know this. And the two biggest reasons were one, I don't want to waste the doctor's time. Um, and two, I'm afraid of being judged. Uh, and so those are other reasons that people hold back, and the fear of the impact of saying their truth, of the impact of saying what they have to say is huge.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:06:38] It could be that they don't want the impact to be on them, that they're going to look stupid or they're going to look bad. It could be the impact on us. They don't want us to feel burdened or upset or, you know, whatever, or that it could be the impact on our relationship. So that's another one. And then I'll just offer one other, you know, one other barrier that I found was really interesting is that people don't always have the words to say it. They may want to say it, but they just don't know how to say it or they don't how to say it constructively or even this is this was fascinating to me. The math doesn't allow it. So it turns out I learned from a neuroscience study that on average, people have about nine. 900 words per minute flying through their brains. But the mouth can only get out about 125 words per minute. And so literally just, you know, less than 15% of what we're thinking in any given minute, we're saying to people, if only because we just can't get it out fast enough. So there are many. I think it's an overdetermined problem. Um, so many different things are holding people back. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:07:31] And that last thing is actually like, probably in a lot of circumstances, a good thing because you're like, right? Prattling 900 words can be a lot of everybody around you, right? Not necessarily. It's a whole lot of noise.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:07:43] Um, but it may not be that the 15% that comes out is the most significant 15%. Right.

Jonathan Fields: [00:07:47] Which makes a question like, how do we actually if, if, if, if that number is true, if we've got 900 words or so a minute going through our head and we have the ability to actually share 125 or so New Yorkers, last time I checked, were closer to 160. That's right, that's right.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:08:00] And if you put it on two x speed, you can get up to 250. Exactly.

Jonathan Fields: [00:08:03] Yeah. Um, how do we internally do the work of figuring out of those 900 words? What's the signal and what's the noise?

Jeff Wetzler: [00:08:12] Um, in terms of if we're the one who is sharing it. Yeah. With people. So I think that most people don't do such a good job about it, which is why on the receiving end, we often don't hear what you know, what is the most important thing that someone thinks, feels and knows? I think a lot of it that one of the filters that people use is what? How's the other person going to react, you know, of the of the 900 words that I've got, which are the ones that are going to feel safest to share, um, which are the ones that are going to feel easiest to share. And also just I think some of it's random. What's the ones that are just at the top of my head that happen to come out and when other things don't come out?

Jonathan Fields: [00:08:44] Yeah. What do you think a better filter would be? I mean, as you're describing that, I'm thinking to myself, well, an interesting sort of like internal filter for me would be what matters most. Exactly. I mean, does that make sense?

Jeff Wetzler: [00:08:55] Absolutely. Yeah. What's going to be the most important thing that the other person might want to hear from me or might want to learn from me, or might be contributing to the other person or might be significant in our relationship. Um, but because I don't think that's the conscious filter that most of the people around us are using, we end up missing out on what might be most significant from them.

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:13] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, also, and you write about this and I've had conversations about this in the past. There's the culture within which we function plays a role. It's not just about the dynamic between two people. I remember years ago talking to a nuclear sub captain who took over a vessel that, you know, he wasn't super familiar with because he had prepped for a different vessel in the last minute. They switched it and he took over a fleet where or like the crew was the worst performing crew, um, out of the fleet. And he thought that the answer was he needed to step in there, pretend that he knew everything about, like, this particular vessel, and operate within this traditional command and control mode where it was like, I issue an order and nobody questions it, and everyone operates it, and they nearly grounded the sub because of that. Until finally, just before that, somebody finally said, we can't do this and and stopped literally from like grounding a nuclear sub and putting the entire crew at peril. And it was a huge wake up call for him. But it, you know, the culture, not just of that vessel, but the entire organization was this sort of command and control structure, and it led him to rethink everything and switch it over to what he called a permission based or an intention based where, like everyone, he told everyone, he said, here's the deal. I need to know what's on your mind all the time because you know this shit better than I do. So you need to say like, I like my intention is this, and then I'll respond to that. I mean, so, you know, so much of this I feel like is operates on a cultural level too.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:10:44] I totally agree. I think there are cultural messages that every one of us receives in society and in organizations about who's allowed to speak up, who's allowed to say what I mean. So much of this problem gets exacerbated across lines of difference. For example, power differences are one. And honestly, in that story that I was relating earlier in my first time when my team didn't speak up and tell me that our submarine was about to to run aground, a lot of it is because they felt they couldn't say something to someone in the position, or the power that I was in, that it would make them look bad or it would be inappropriate. But also, you know, women get certain messages about, you know, what their voice, people of color get certain messages, people you know of different ages and abilities. All all people are getting different messages. And for anyone in a leadership position, if we're not sensitive to that and attuned to that, the assumption too often will be, don't speak up. Don't tell them that the submarine is going to run aground, or what's a better way to do it. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:11:38] Which is I mean, it's interesting. I wonder whether the stakes of the scenario change that. Like at a certain point, do the stakes rise to a level where you're like, you know what, I need to actually break that, like violate the norms of this culture because there's too much at risk?

Jeff Wetzler: [00:11:55] Yeah, I think that I imagine if you're ultimately getting to life and death, that that is the case. But there's some really interesting research, even in hospitals that, you know, people, professors like Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School have done where the psychological safety, even in situations of like life and death, can make a huge. Can still impact people's willingness to share, report mistakes, those kinds of things. I mean, in the in in the work for this book, I came across a study that looked across many different industries and basically said, if 85% of people in organizations said, yeah, there's been a time when I've had a significant concern about something in my organization and did not speak up to to someone around me about that. And they said, and, and three quarters of those people said, and by the way, everyone else around me also knew it too. And they didn't speak up either. Um, and so it is it is truly pervasive, this, this, this kind of unspoken silencing that happens. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:12:46] I mean, that that whole thing of everyone else around me knew it and they didn't speak up either. Is is a fascinating dynamic too. Right. Because and very often I feel like everybody else around you, they're sharing it with each other. Right. But not with one person who actually can sit down and create change and like basically authorize or, you know, allocate resources to own that. We actually have to do something differently here. Totally. Which, which as, as a leader, like it's a little bit terrifying to think about.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:13:12] You're completely isolated. And yeah, and in the book, I did a number of interviews with iconic CEOs who are, you know, at risk of being the most insulated from the truth. And they shared, I'm happy to share as well some some of their strategies for how do you guard against that too.

Jonathan Fields: [00:13:27] Yeah. Let's circle around to that. But first I want to dive into more on an individual level, because basically where where you land is with this methodology, um, which, which, you know, breaks down to these five different components. So like, how do we actually shift this dynamic. Can we walk through those different dynamics? I mean, the opening one is really it's it's centering curiosity as a really critical element. Yeah.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:13:49] So these are the five practices or five steps of what I call the ask approach, which are science backed, practice tested ways that when put together, I believe, give us the greatest chance of overcoming the problem that we've just been talking about and really learning what others around us truly think, feel and know. And the first step, as you say, is choosing curiosity. And choosing curiosity looks at curiosity not as a trait that some people have and other people don't have, or a state of mind that we're in sometimes or not. But really as a decision that we can always make, the decision that's always available to us. And when we make that decision, we are centering one question in our minds and using and allowing that to push out all kinds of other things in our minds. And the question really is, what can I learn from this person when I'm centering that question? The question reminds me, there is something that I can learn from this person and from every single person, and it puts me in an orientation of of openness and interest in learning from, from that person. And I'm not talking about the kind of curiosity that's like, I'm curious about the history of Russia or why trees grow the way they do. I call it connective curiosity, and it's curiosity about the thoughts and feelings and experiences of the people around us. And it has this impact, which is that when we are truly exhibiting connective curiosity, it actually does bond us. It connects us to other people around us, and it allows us to it allows them to really want to share more with us, too.

Jonathan Fields: [00:15:14] That makes sense. So give me an example of like how this might show up in a work situation.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:15:19] Yeah, I mean, it could literally be as simple as I we need to take our strategy in a certain direction. And if I'm not curious, I'm going to be standing up there and basically just saying, here's where we're going. If I am curious, I'm going to be saying to people what lands about this, what what resonates, what doesn't resonate, um, and, and particularly the parts that doesn't resonate. What tell me about your experience and then what other ideas do you have? And all of a sudden, I am really curious about what I refer to as like the collective genius that is around me on my team or in my organization. And I'm saying they know probably more than I do collectively on on all these different kinds of things. And I want to know what can I learn from them.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:02] Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. That also brings us to the the second element. Yes. This approach because like, let's say you're a leader on a team and you stand up there and you offer this up. And then so often, especially if this is like the first time that you've done it this way, you know, and everybody on your team has been trained for a couple of years now, like, well, this isn't what normally happens. You're going to offer it up and there's a pretty safe bet that you're going to get like crickets in the room.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:16:29] Absolutely.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:30] Because you're lacking something else.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:16:32] No matter how curious I am, if people don't feel safe to tell me the truth, particularly hard truths, I am not going to learn from them. And as we were saying earlier, this is especially important across lines of difference of all different, of all different dimensions, especially important when we're working across the hierarchy as well. And I learned this lesson the hard way. And I, you know, I continue to learn it at different times as well. And so the second step of the ask approach is called make it Safe. And it draws from the work of Amy Edmondson and others on psychological safety. And there's different ways we can do it. One is, uh, really being intentional about even where and how we're connecting with other people. And so I was referring to, you know, I talked with iconic CEOs like Bill George from Medtronic or Irene Rosenfeld from Kraft. And I said to them, how did you get people to tell you the truth? And they said, if I want people to tell me the truth, the last thing I'm going to do is drag them into my office, make them sit across the big, intimidating CEO desk from me, and somehow assume they're going to feel safe. Instead, I'm going to go to them. I'm going to go to, you know, we're going to have lunch at the cafeteria. I'm going to go on a sales call with them on their car. I'm going to go to the factory floor. We're going to sit on a couch together and we're going to have it. So so just even the physical setup of the whole thing and the time you have to do it in ways that are going to work best for the other person, not for yourself.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:17:46] This is true for me in my personal life too. But you know, when my teenage daughter comes home from school and I want to know what's going on in her life, she's not going to tell me, you know, if I want to learn from her, we need to be talking at 11 p.m., which is when she has energy and is done with everything she wants to do, and then it all comes out. And so it's really about being choiceful. So that's one piece of it. Another piece of making it safe is if I want other people to open up, I need to open up first. And so, you know, I think just the same way that you were sharing in that submarine story, when you can ultimately say, like, you know, more than me and I'm dependent on you and your information, all of a sudden that displays a level of humility and also doesn't cause people to guess at what your agenda is. And so opening up ourselves first, especially something that exposes us in a vulnerable way, increases the safety. And then another thing that I that I talk about in the book is called Radiating resilience, which is really letting other people know that I can handle your truth. Even if you tell me my idea is a lousy idea, that's okay. Like, I'm not going to crumble. I'm not going to, you know, take it back, take it out on you. I'm not going to hold you responsible. And there's a whole bunch of different ways that we can radiate resilience. But that set of things together, I think, really goes a long way towards making it safe. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:55] And that last one in particular, I think really probably resonates with a lot of people because I think one of the fears is that, well, if I say something and it lands the wrong way, I'm going to pay a price for that. Like there's going to be repercussions for that. You know, it's going to set me back in my career or like I get demoted from this or I get kicked off the team or whatever it may be. But here's my question for you. You know, in my experience, it's not enough to say, hey, listen, I want the whole group to know here, like, I want your opinion, I want like it. And no matter what you come to me with, you know, like, even if I completely disagree with you or it's wrong or it leads us down the path where, you know, like, it doesn't work out and resources are not used. Well, there won't be a price to pay. I want you to know it's. Is it enough to just say that because I don't think people buy into it.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:19:38] It's not enough if you haven't behaved that way in the past consistent with those promises. And it's also not enough if other people in your organization haven't behaved that way as well. And so if those are the cases you have to you have to work against that. So you may need to acknowledge it hasn't always been this way. In the past. I have not always been this way in the past. That can be one way to overcome it. Another can be to say, let me share with you some examples of ways that other people have pushed me or given me feedback and, and, and and how valuable that's been to me. And another is to is to, you know, publicly receive that feedback and take it in in ways that literally show people proof right then and there. This person can handle it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:20:16] Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. It's such an important point. You make also that the rate that at which teams are stood up and wound down in organizations is, has accelerated dramatically. Yes. So if somebody in five years has worked across five teams, each team might have a different dynamic. Each leader might have like one. You may have a leader where like you're actually going to pay a price. So that's right. So like every time you stand up something new, if it's the first time people are working with you, you've probably got to reiterate that and demonstrate it like freshly to them, because they may be coming off a team where the dynamic was totally.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:20:49] Different, and chances are they're going to be operating based on the most toxic one that they have ever seen, because that was the most painful. And so they're like, you know, this might be like that. Let me be careful first.

Jonathan Fields: [00:20:58] Yeah, they're just going to be protecting themselves, which makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's human nature. Exactly. You talk about also the importance of posing quality questions. Yes.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:21:05] So that's number three.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:06] Quality question.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:21:07] Yeah. Quality question I define simply as a question that helps us learn something important from someone else. And I distinguish quality questions from what I call crummy questions. We all ask a lot of questions or make statements with question marks at the end that are not quality questions. You know, some of the crummy questions are just questions. You know, sometimes if I say, here's what I think, I think we should go in this direction, right. And and you know, who knows? You know, who knows. Do I really care what you have to say? Or if I ask five questions at once and you don't know which 1 a.m. I supposed to respond to? That's just clumsy. But some some crummy questions are also like sneaky questions. Like, if I'm a lawyer trying to lead the witness to a certain answer or, or just kind of manipulate you. So there's, there's all kinds of questions that are crummy questions, quality questions. I kind of think of almost the way that I think a surgeon would think of, you know, their scalpel and all the different instruments that they have, depending on what they're trying to get at.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:21:55] I can actually use a different kind of question to learn different things. So, you know, in this chapter of the book, I offer the taxonomy of multiple different kinds of underutilized quality questions. One example that I think is particularly underutilized often is is a strategy I call request reactions. And that is simply saying to the other person, how did that land with you? What do you think? Um, what's your reaction to what I said or what might I be missing? And it's so often we can assume that once we say something, if someone has a reaction that we should know, they're going to tell us that reaction. But for all the reasons that we talked about, you know, earlier in the conversation, they're not going to tell us that reaction, particularly if it's a negative reaction. And so just that just adding that one of those kinds of questions of request reactions can, can open up so much in terms of learning from the other person. That's just one example.

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:45] No, I love that. And it makes so much sense. And I love this particular like part of the model. Also because I've literally spent the last dozen years of my life, you know, like professionally asking questions and. Yeah, and you see how important just the questions that you ask are. One of the things I've learned. Also, I'm curious where you land on this is the follow on questions I found are often as important, if not more important. And things as simple as like, is there more or tell me more, or you know, like what? And and what else? Like really simple questions like that that we often never ask just in day to day life, but often, you know, like people feel like, okay, I only have 10s with this person. I know how this goes. I need to just blurt out the single most important thing. But there's a really there's a whole bunch of other stuff that's more nuanced and critical. And if we never actually say, like, well, tell me more or like and what else, we never get the context around it.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:23:37] I 100% agree. I talk about that strategy in the book and I call it pull the thread, which is when someone says something, keep pulling it. And psychologists recognize this as what they call the doorknob moment, where, you know, 49 minutes into a 50 minute session, their patient or their client is walking out the door, hand on the doorknob. That is when the most important thing happens. That's when they say, I'm thinking about leaving my spouse. Or I just got investigated by the government and it's like, why didn't you say that? For the first 49 minutes of the conversation? And there's a whole bunch of reasons why people don't. Maybe they were working up the courage. Maybe they wanted to see how you were going to react to the first thing. But so often the most important thing that someone has. Say is not the first thing that they're going to say. And if we just take the first answer, they give and then we move on, we're most likely to miss out on really the good stuff. And so questions like you just said, tell me more, say more. What else can can really get that? I mean, sometimes I'll even say to my own team, if we're having a brainstorming conversation or I'm just asking a question and someone gives an answer and I'll say, that's super helpful. What else? Tell me more. And and each time I say that, it gets better. And sometimes I'll even say to them, listen, I'm going to just keep asking you tell me more until you tell me, that's all. And then I'll stop. And there's, you know, usually 4 or 5 more rounds, and each time something more interesting comes out about that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:24:49] Yeah, I love that. And I've had that same experience so many times. And you know, we're talking about it more in the context of work. But this is a great thing for just your personal relationships too. Absolutely. Especially these days where people are so distracted by their devices that, you know, when you actually sit down with somebody and you listen and then you ask another question and say like, tell me more, tell me more. People are like, wait, you're going to give me even more of your time and your attention? That is so rare these days.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:25:16] It's a gift.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:17] Yeah, absolutely. And and it brings us to the fourth element, which is like when you ask the questions, you got to have you listen, listen.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:25:24] Yeah. Once you ask a question, it all comes down to, are you listening to what the other person has to say? And we are all worse listeners than we think we are. I also interviewed professional question askers for this section of the book and professional listeners. And, um, some of them were like world class journalists. I remember talking to a journalist, Jenny Anderson, who said to me that when she interviews people she's writing about, she will record the interview and then she'll go back and listen to it two, three, four times. And every single time she listens to it, she hears something that she literally hadn't heard the first time or the second time, or the, you know, the previous times. And I think to myself, if someone who's a professional listener misses it the first time, the second time, the third time, imagine us who are not professional listeners and we don't record it and we don't, you know, relisten to it. And so this fourth step called Listen to Learn, is really all about taking in what's most essential that someone else has to tell us, not just the content of what they have to say, but also the emotions that are being conveyed and the actions that they're demonstrating in the conversation as well.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:24] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And it also makes me wonder how so often when you have a conversation in the virtual space these days, you know, like whatever platform it is, pretty much all of them have some version of an AI note taker that you can sort of like put put into the conversation, and that will then generate a summary of what it determines were the important things that actually were discussed during the conversation. Do you have the same fear that I have that like the more we start to rely on those, the less we'll actually like pay attention during the conversation itself, and that the notes that the AI generates from for us wouldn't be the same things that we would have want to key in on ourselves.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:27:02] I think it's a I think it's an important risk, just in the same way that I have a much worse sense of direction driving my car when I rely totally on the GPS as opposed to having to figure it out myself. But I do think that if we're intentional about it, we can flip it, and actually I can help us get better. So, as you know, as part of the research for the book I played around with saying to AI, can you help me listen through each of these three channels of content, emotion, action? And I would put a transcript into into chatbot. And I said, first, help me summarize what what was the content being shared. Then what did you notice about the emotions that were being expressed or displayed then? What actions did you see each person taking in the conversation? And the summaries were very different depending on what channel you're asking it to listen through. And when we do that with intention, we can say, huh, how did that compare to what I noticed about the content, about the emotion, the action. So we can use it to train ourselves actually to be better listeners, but if we just rely on it as a crutch, I do share that worry too.

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:56] Yeah. It's we're it's such an interesting moment when it comes to all of this. Yes. And that really lands us with the Fifth element here, which is okay. So we need to actually also reflect and reconnect after this process because it's which makes it feel like this isn't sort of like a one and done type of process. It's this it's like a perpetual loop.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:28:14] Totally. And for me, reflection is it's my favorite step of the ask approach, in part because I'm just a learning nerd and junkie. But reflection is where we convert any interaction we have into learning. And so I talk about reflection as sifting it and turning it. Sifting it is, first of all saying, let me go back and just review. What did I hear that could be looking at my notes or watching the video or listening to a transcript. What's important and what can I let go of? Because we can't reflect on every single thing. So really starting to zoom in on what matters most. Sometimes it's helpful to get a friend or a colleague to help us triangulate their thoughts on what matters most so we can calibrate. And then once we have that, it's really running through three, I think very practical, reflective turns or questions to ourselves. One is, what did I hear that would affect the story I have about what's going on in this situation? Um, my thoughts about myself, the other person, the issues, etc. and second is what did I hear that should lead me to take certain steps in a conversation? What? What do I do next? What move do I make based on this? And the third is what did I hear that might have any? Of insight for my deeper stuff, my own ways of being, my own worldviews, my own assumptions about life.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:29:21] And when we just walk ourselves through those three terms and it can be in a journal, it can be in the shower, it can be with a friend. That's how we really squeeze the insight out. And then it's really important to close the loop, which is why I call it reflect and reconnect. To go back to the team or to the person and say, this is what I learned from you. Um. Thank you. And by the way, is this what I was hoping? What you were hoping I would learn? Um, is there something different that you would want me to take away and doing that? You know, number one makes the other person just feel valued. Um, to your point, so, so few people have that experience of being listened to. It also gives them a chance to correct us. But I think that is the thing that keeps the channel open for them to be motivated to share in the future in ways that can continue to benefit us both.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:59] Yeah, that makes so much sense to me. And as you're describing it also, I would imagine that, you know, if you're that person where, you know, like somebody comes back to you, the other thing that's going to go through your your mind is, wow, not only do they listen the first time, but they didn't then just walk away and sort of like forget about the conversation. They really took time to think about this. Exactly. You know, and if you want people to feel that they genuinely matter in a process or experience that alone, saying like, I didn't just like, listen for a hot minute and then like, we moved on to the next thing because life is, you know, busy, but like the person who really paid attention. And then then they really thought about it. They took time to consider it, then makes you feel like who you are and what you're offering really matters. And I would imagine it creates this benevolent circle again where you're like, now you're going to be more willing to continue to offer more in the future. Does that make sense?

Jeff Wetzler: [00:30:49] 100%. How rare is it that we get someone in our life to come back to us and say, I really listened hard, and this is what I learned, and this is what I'm going to do about it, and thank you. And did I get it right? I mean, it's we do this so infrequently, but the impact is profound in all the ways that you just said.

Jonathan Fields: [00:31:03] Yeah. So final thought here. Final question for you. Um, what you just offered is like, it makes so much sense. It's just so logical. I think anyone listening to this is going to be nodding along and saying, well, yeah, of course, like that makes a ton of sense. How do we operationalize this at scale? Because we've talked about like in the context of an individual conversation or relationship or a small team. Right. But going back to the earlier part of the conversation where it's like there's a bigger element here, there's a social norm, there's an organizational cultural element here. What's even sort of like the first step about thinking about how to operationalize this at scale. Yeah.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:31:37] So there's a chapter in the book called Make It Your Organization's Superpower. Um, after the make it your own superpower. And there's a set of things that people that, you know, at a variety of different levels and positions in organizations can do to build this into the DNA of their organizations. Some of it, honestly can even start with the hiring process and certain filters for are we hiring people who are inclined to be curious and to learn things like that? There's, of course, a whole set of stuff that people can do around training and capability building. There's a set of practices that we can do. Even in my own organization, we do this regular thing called two by twos, where every quarter or so we everybody who works together almost has like a, an automatic conversation where I'm going to say, here's two things I'm doing well, I could do better. Here's two things you're doing well, you could do better. And then it flips. And so it builds in that practice of asking what can we each do to be better? And it just normalizes it. So there's there's there's learning practices that we can do. We also elevate learning in terms of naming a learning agenda. And so centering questions right alongside performance goals. And that celebrates the kind of question asking. And I think probably the most important thing is for anybody in a leadership role to be modeling this, to be doing the kinds of things that we said earlier and to seeing themself as a learner in chief to be admitting mistakes, to be asking for help, to be going back and saying, here's what I've learned, that bundle of stuff I think has both structural and cultural effects on an organization.

Jonathan Fields: [00:33:01] Yeah, that makes so much sense. Well, I'm excited to dive into it more in our own team and and see what unfolds. Jeff, thanks so much for sharing the insight for the research. And and this model. I think it's super valuable for everybody.

Jeff Wetzler: [00:33:13] Thank you for the conversation. I really enjoyed it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:33:19] Hey, so I hope you enjoyed that conversation. Learned a little something about your own quest to come alive and work in life, and maybe feel a little bit less alone along this journey to find and do what sparks you. And remember, if you're at a moment of exploration, looking to find and do or even create work that makes you come more fully alive, that brings more meaning and purpose and joy into your life, take the time to discover your own personal Sparketype for free at sparketype.com. It'll open your eyes to a deeper understanding of yourself and open the door to possibility like never before. And hey, if you're finding value in these conversations, please just take an extra second right now to follow and rate SPARKED in your favorite podcast app. This is so helpful in helping others find the show and growing our community so that we can all come alive and work in life together. This episode of SPARKED was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and Me, Jonathan Fields. Production and editing by Sarah Harney. Special thanks to Shelley Adelle for her research on this episode. Until next time. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is SPARKED.