Megan Cook: evaluation

Transcript context

…I imagine most people think they are always in that state, "I am very open to feedback. I am totally open-minded, but really they're not." Is there anything that you think would either convince someone you're actually not as open-minded as you seem or any advice for how to come across as more open-minded? Or is there anything that you see... I see this all the time. People think they're listening, but they're not. You should change. I think one way to force yourself into that situation is to be clear about the hypotheses you have and the facts. So I think often people can present as, "This is absolutely the case. This is what I know, and this is obviously the correct response to the situation." Where most of the time you've got a good set of data, you've got a good understanding with your knowledge of the space, but what is actually going to happen is a hypothesis. There's always going to be something you don't know and oftentimes you don't know until you ship it. That is absolutely the best test of whether or not what you thought was going to happen will actually happen. And so I think when you come to the meeting going, okay, here's the top-back so we actually know, and here's the hypotheses and here's my plan to prove or disprove them, then you're exposing your idea for people to go, oh, here's more that I know about that hypotheses, or here's some data that you don't have or here's another way to think about it. I think people can feel like they're not going to be credible. That you have to come in, you have to come in confident, you have to come in knowing exactly what that solution is going to be. But I usually find that if you come in there open and you're exposed, you're thinking and where you could use some help on perspectives, that actually that builds more credibility because everyone knows that you are not going to have all the answers and you're not going to be able to see the future. And so that can really help in building people's trust in you and that you know what you're doing. Is there an example of that that comes to mind to make it even more real of either someone on your team doing that or you doing that? Because I think it's still going to be hard for people to realize, "Hey, I'm not actually paying attention to anyone and I just want to convince them this idea is right. This is what we're doing. Just come on, get out of my way. Give me the okay."…

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