GeekMBA360

A lot of people don’t have this skill. In fact, in a corporate environment, the higher you go, fewer people you’ll see have this skill.

Right now I’m dealing with a couple of senior executive colleagues who have essentially zero amount of this skill. It’s hard to get them to understand what is going on and change their mind. They have a lot of opinions based on gut feeling but not on facts. The problems is that they don’t know what the facts are, and they don’t try to gather the facts. This is because they lack this skill.

The skill is the listening skill. The ability to ask questions, let someone to finish their sentences and explain, and quietly process the information before talking again.

A couple months ago, I interviewed a candidate for a senior marketing executive position. She interrupted me multiple times “I got it.” while I didn’t even finish describing what I was going to say. That’s a huge red flag.

Listen more. Ask more questions. Have the humility.