Explaining yourself isn't the same as listening

A conversation I had recently reminded me of something I've seen time and time again in organizations: Someone raises a concern, and within about three seconds the other person starts explaining themselves.

"We had to."

"That's our process."

"There wasn't enough budget."

"We've always done it this way."

Maybe all of those things are true, but that's not really the point. The point is that nobody stopped long enough to acknowledge that the person had a legitimate experience.

I think we've convinced ourselves that explanations are a form of accountability. Obviously, they're not. In fact, explanations often do the exact opposite. They communicate, "Here's why your concern isn't really a concern." Just like an "excuse," which are often called out (Picture it: 1987, South Jersey. I got in trouble for something dumb. I explain. My mom says, "Excuses, excuses.")

That's why these conversations spiral so quickly. One person is trying to be heard. The other person thinks they're solving the problem by providing context. They leave feeling like they were perfectly reasonable. The other person leaves wondering if they were listened to at all.

Those are two completely different outcomes.

I've noticed this in project retrospectives, performance reviews, client conversations, and just about every difficult discussion you can imagine.

Someone says, "This process didn't work."

The response is, "Well, here's why we did it."

Cool. I didn't ask for the documentary.

Seriously. I wasn't asking for a behind-the-scenes featurette on the decision-making process. I was asking whether you could acknowledge that, from the other side of the table, the experience kind of sucked.

Those aren't mutually exclusive ideas. You can have good reasons and create a bad experience. You can be constrained by budget, time, policy, or precedent and still say, "Yeah...I can see why that was frustrating."

That sentence costs nothing. Ironically, it's also the sentence that usually earns you the right to explain everything else. Because once people feel heard, they're a whole lot more interested in hearing you.

Until then, you're not having a conversation. You're just giving a defense.

T L ; D R - You can have good reasons and still create a bad experience. Ask me how I know.