"Just Tell Us What We Should Do"
I heard this story and I thought it was the pinnacle of effective communication. How to navigate a discussion without telling someone what to do, but letting them arrive at where you would have taken them, on their own.
'He tells the story about meeting with Andy Grove, of Intel. And, Andy Grove flew Professor Christensen out there and he was supposed to have a long presentation and it got compressed to a few minutes. "We don't have time, just tell us what we should do." And Professor Christensen refused. He was not going to tell Intel how to run their business, he was going to explain what disruption is and how it works, and he was going to talk about mini mills and steel, whether Intel wanted to hear about mini mills and steel or not.
By resisting the pressure to talk about Intel, and instead talking about the theory, that made it click for Andy Grove in a way that oh, I know what we should do for Intel because I have the context, I understand the business, now I get the theory, and I'm the one that can put it together. I don't need Professor Christensen to be prescriptive. I need him to give me a framework and I can fill in the details.'
It's easy to tell people what do to because of information asymmetry. I know what an investment portfolio should look like, and they don't. But that doesn't make for a great relationship. The advice doesn't 'click' for the client if they can't comprehend a bigger framework. This type of communication does. This is the pinnacle.
This framing is evident in Professor Christensen's TED talk. RIP to one of the great minds in business.
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