No one cares how much you know, unless they know how much you care.
Early in my consulting career, I worked with one particular consulting Partner - a friendly Texan with a Texas twang and a penchant for handing out advice using an adage. I didn’t grow up with adages, so sometimes it looks months to puzzle out the nuggets of advice. But, when I asked this Partner for advice on how to better understand our clients, to shape productive conversations and frame better solutions, the lightbulb clicked on immediately.
In fact, he said, there are 3 types of people:
1) Those who know that they don’t know what they don’t know (and are open to receiving or seeking more knowledge)
2) Those who don’t know what they don’t know (and may be indifferent, but are willing to gain more knowledge), and
3) Those who know all they want to know, and don’t want to know what they don’t know.
The pearls of wisdom:
Recognize that everyone comes from a different place.
Acknowledge that different places create different perspectives.
Do not mistake opinions (our own and others) for knowledge.
Curiosity forms our knowledge.
Do not judge a lack of curiosity for a lack of intelligence.
I put these pearls to use with a client who was adamant there were no good solutions to a problem that didn’t exist. Apparently, we had been hired by someone else who thought differently, but we were working with a team that wasn’t interested. It was a conundrum.
That client wasn’t unique. Consultants often find themselves where they aren’t welcome and their observations and suggestions are derided. Those partner’s pearls of wisdom enlightened me to the power of empathy. Telling someone the solution to their problem is not the same as that person asking you for a solution to their problem. And so, take the time to really listen, and restrain yourself from doing all the talking at the outset. You might just save everyone some frustration and walk away with some new nuggets of insight.