There's always something I need to learn!

Do I always have to start with listening and inquiry? It's always the right time to listen, all things being equal, it is better to listen first. But all things aren't equal, so there are exceptions. Readers who take our plug for listening as a wholesale ban on asserting their views inevitably get all tangled up. A boss. for example, who wants to address the employee's failure to deliver on schedule might end up in a conversation like this:

BOSS: How do you think you're doing in terms of getting work in on time?

EMPLOYEE: Great.

BOSS: But don't you think there have been a few times when you've been late on important things?

EMPLOYEE: Not really.

BOSS: Well, what about the Pennsylvania Project?

EMPLOYEE: I thought it went well.

BOSS: But don't you think it was late?

Instead of asking this absurd set of leading questions, the boss needs to assert : "Let's talk about the Pennsylvania Project. It was three days late. Let's figure out why, assess the impact, and decide how to avoid this going forward." Once you've set the problem on the table, and shared your view if you have one, that's when you switch into inquiry mode, and from there, you'll use a mix of inquiry and assertiveness.

The touchstone, as always, is purpose. One could imagine a conversation where a boss's sole purpose was to learn the employee's point of view, but that's not the boss's purpose in the conversation above. Use questions when you want to learn and statements when you have something to convey. Ultimately it is the combination of assertiveness and inquiry that helps us pool our insights, learn things we didn't know, and lay the foundation for creative and effective problem solving.

We emphasize listening here because the far common mistake in conversation is failure to listen rather than failure to assert. When we're in a conversation where we feel angry, hurt, fearful, or under pressure, our internal voice roars full blast, and curiously fades away. That's why, to get yourself to listen well during a difficult conversation, you need to remind yourself again and again (and perhaps enlist others as well to remind you in the moment) "I may feel upset, I may feel like I already knew their view, but there's always something I need to learn. In addition to asserting, I'm going to need to inquire, and then inquire some more." As there is always something I need to learn.