Do You Speak Your Boss’s Language?

Do you speak your boss’s language?

Or, perhaps more importantly, do you speak their boss’s language?

I’m sure we’ve all been there. A team is getting ready for an important meeting, and someone inevitably asks, “What questions do you think they’re going to ask?”

So the team starts preparing. We anticipate the questions. We adjust the presentation. We think about which details the leader will care about and which ones they’ll probably want to skip.

And maybe you’ve also been on the other side of that conversation—the leader walking into a meeting and wondering why the team presented information that way, or why they didn’t focus on the things you thought were most important.

The reality is, we each have our own language.

I’m not talking about English, Spanish or any other formal language. I’m talking about the way we naturally hear, process and interpret information.

Some leaders want the executive summary. Others want the data behind it. Some want to know the risks. Others immediately want to know the solution. Some people think in big-picture concepts while others need to understand every detail before they can move forward.

It’s a little like the classic picture where some people see a rabbit and others see a duck. The picture hasn’t changed. But what we see in it—and how we interpret it—can be completely different.

And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In fact, that diversity of perspective is one of the things that can make an organization stronger.

The problem comes when we start expecting everyone to speak our language.

When It Becomes About the Leader

There is a natural tendency for teams to figure out what their leader likes.

“What does she want to see?”

“How does he want this presented?”

“What questions are they going to ask?”

Some of that is healthy. Good communication requires us to understand our audience.

But there is a line where adapting to your audience becomes organizing the work around the preferences of one person.

That’s when things can start to get unhealthy.

We want our teams spending their time doing the deep, analytical work that will actually move the organization forward—not spending excessive amounts of time trying to predict which questions their leader might ask or figuring out how to package information in exactly the way that leader prefers.

Otherwise, we can unintentionally create an environment where the organization revolves around the leader instead of the mission.

And seldom is that what’s best for the organization.

For employees, this might mean having the freedom to identify the problem that has existed for years and recommend a meaningful solution rather than continuing to explain why the problem exists.

For leaders, it means creating information-sharing systems that are transparent, accessible and useful across the organization—not simply systems designed around how I prefer to receive information.

So What Should We Do?

I think there are a few things leaders and teams can do to find the right balance:

1. Learn your audience—but don’t become consumed by them.
Understanding how your boss processes information is valuable. But there is a difference between communicating effectively and constantly trying to predict what your leader wants to hear.

2. Reward good questions, not just good answers.
If an employee identifies an uncomfortable problem and asks, “Why are we still doing this?” that may be more valuable than someone who gives you a perfectly packaged explanation for why the problem exists.

3. Keep bringing the conversation back to the organization.
When making decisions, ask: What is best for the organization? What best serves our customers, patients, employees or mission? Not simply, What do I prefer?

4. Build systems that work for more than one personality.
If all information has to be presented in the exact format one leader prefers, the organization becomes dependent on that leader. Transparent and user-friendly systems allow different people to process information in different ways.

5. Protect diversity of thought.
Your way of thinking may have made you successful. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to think like you. Different perspectives, communication styles and approaches can be incredibly valuable—especially when they challenge our assumptions.

The Takeaway

Every leader has preferences. Every employee has preferences. We all have a language we naturally speak when it comes to information, communication and decision-making.

There is nothing wrong with learning someone else’s language.

But we have to be careful not to create an environment where everyone is expected to speak our language.

Because when that happens, we may gain consistency—but we can lose something much more valuable: diversity of thought.

The goal isn’t to build a team that knows exactly what the leader wants to hear.

The goal is to build a team that is confident enough to tell us what we need to hear.

That’s when the conversation stops being about the leader and starts being about the organization.