What are you really concerned about here?

I learned this particularly powerful combination of words from one of my (few) regular commenters here, Andy Flach. I might generalize them slightly, though to “What are you concerned about?” If managers used these words more often, they’d make their lives a lot easier.

Andy uses them a lot during contract negotiations. Inevitably one side has issues with a particular contract clause or detail and then the other side proposes alternative wording which doesn’t end up satisfying the objecting side and long delays and discussions ensue. Andy cuts through all that by asking quite early in the process, What are you really concerned about here? and I can tell you not only is it a huge time-saver, but it often leaves us with a more advantageous contract than if this question had not been asked. What happens without this question is that side 1 objects to something, side 2 tries to figure out what the objection is and how much it is willing to compromise and then offers some substitute terms. Since side 2 is only guessing at what is bothering side 1, it usually guesses wrong (which means another round of negotiating) and it often gives up too much in an attempt to compromise as it tries to cover all possible bases of discontent.

Instead, by asking directly what the real concern is, Andy can offer a limited, targeted change of terms which directly addresses the other party’s concerns. The issue is usually resolved quite easily thereafter, with each getting more of what they want than would have happened otherwise.

What every good manager should do- carefully look under each rock for trouble or gold! (Photo borrowed from snailstales.blogspot.com.)

Another use for this phrase is for managers to understand what is going on that their people know about, but they don’t. These are often issues that are so apparent to people on the lines that they simply assume that since management is doing nothing about, they must not care. Actually, more often management simply doesn’t know – or worse – doesn’t want to know. By continually asking what are you concerned about? or what should I be concerned about?, leaders and managers can learn a lot about those thorny issues that no one likes to talk about, but that everyone (except themselves, of course) knows. In Good to Great parlance, this is the process of “looking under the rocks”, of finding and dealing with potential problems of the future before they get too big.

And as described in my last post, asking questions like these is a direct, visible request for input. If the response is really heard and actively and transparently processed as I described, employees will feel their input is valued and that they can make a difference to improve the organization by noting and reporting on current and possible future issues. What an empowering environment to work in!

In adopting these words into his daily life, Scot learned (the hard way) to be careful about the word “really”. Someone once thought Scot was implying this person was hiding her true motives by using “really”. He now uses “really” less often, or changes the phrase to “what’s the core issue here?”, when deemed appropriate.