255: "Are You Communicating Accurately Or Just Assuming You’re Heard?" (Reflections On Molly Tschang)
🧠 Erik’s Take
This short review mattered because it challenged a habit Erik has seen in leadership and in himself: focusing on what’s being said while ignoring whether the other person is willing and able to participate. He feels Molly’s lens cut through the “better communication will fix everything” storyline. What stuck is the shift from persuasive accuracy to relational conditions, where honest exchange depends on both a speaker’s skill and a listener’s openness.
🎯 Top Insights from the Interview
- Communication is not just about accuracy, it is about being heard, in the moment, by the person in front of you.
- You can build skill, but you still cannot force participation, alignment, or value from the other side.
- Organizations often mistake shared access to data for an accurate shared reality that includes human experience.
- A simple pivot like asking what the other person is hearing can reveal misalignment before decisions get made.
🧩 The Personal Layer
Erik keeps returning to his own pre-departure corporate meeting story, where his intention to “charge the hill” collided with the reality that his boss could not receive what he was trying to express. He recognizes that even when he recruits allies and feels energized, he still has to do the slower work of translating intent into something the other person can actually take in. He also sees how easy it is to invest energy into being understood, without first being clear about Me.
🧰 From Insight to Action
- After important conversations, ask: “What are you hearing?” Then clarify what’s off before moving to decisions.
- Run a quick “deserves you” check: is this a difficult conversation that can be had, or an environment that is consistently unwilling to engage?
- Practice Me You We as a pre-frame: clarify values and feelings (Me), genuinely take in their experience (You), then name what you can build together (We).
- When teams rely on tools for shared truth, also create space for shared reality by surfacing both facts and lived experience, explicitly.
🗣️ Notable Quotes
- “You can't defy gravity.”
- “Communication requires participation from both sides.”
- “Having access to the same information isn't necessarily the same thing as having an accurate, shared understanding.”
- “When you've explained something important, stop and ask the other person what they're hearing.”
🔗 Links & Resources
