732: How to Find What’s Missing, with Jeff Wetzler

Summary

Podcast Summary: Coaching for Leaders – Episode 732: "How to Find What’s Missing" with Jeff Wetzler

Introduction

In Episode 732 of Coaching for Leaders, host Dr. Dave Stachowiak engages in a profound conversation with Jeff Wetzler, co-founder of Transcend and author of Tap into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs in Leadership and Life. Released on May 5, 2025, this episode delves into the often-overlooked aspects of leadership—particularly the unseen assumptions and hidden feedback that can significantly impact organizational effectiveness. Through personal anecdotes, practical insights, and strategic questioning techniques, Jeff provides listeners with the tools to uncover what’s missing in their leadership approach.

Jeff Wetzler’s Transformative Uber Experience

The episode kicks off with Jeff recounting a pivotal personal experience that reshaped his understanding of assumptions and human connections. Jeff narrates an encounter with an Uber driver adorned with a Blue Lives Matter symbol—an image that initially invoked fear and discomfort due to his associations with racial justice and police symbolism.

“I realized there’s more that we share in common than I realize. So it was definitely a humbling moment. It was a connecting moment. And it was a moment that truly changed me forever.” ([02:43])

This story serves as a powerful illustration of how initial assumptions can cloud judgment and hinder meaningful interactions. Jeff emphasizes the importance of pushing past these assumptions to discover the person behind the symbol, fostering empathy and understanding.

Identifying Hidden Feedback Cues

Dave and Jeff transition to discussing the concept of hidden feedback cues—subtle signals that leaders often overlook but can indicate deeper issues within teams or organizations. Jeff highlights two primary types of hidden cues:

1. Repeated Questions or Suggestions About Seemingly Minor Details:

   Jeff explains that when team members repeatedly bring up small issues, it’s often masking a more significant concern.

   “If you see yourself dismissing what might seem like this is just a trivial question that keeps coming up, that can be a cue to get curious.” ([10:10])

2. Increased Involvement in Tactical Decisions:

   An uptick in a team member’s involvement may indicate underlying reasons for the change, such as insecurity or lack of trust.

   “If they start to show up more, there must be some reason why they're feeling the need to do this.” ([13:18])

Conversely, unexpected decreases in engagement can signal deprioritization or disenchantment, urging leaders to explore the root causes.

“People are changing their pattern of behavior... get curious about.” ([14:24])

The Power of Curiosity in Leadership

Central to Jeff’s philosophy is the cultivation of curiosity as a leadership tool. By questioning what might be missing or how else a situation can be interpreted, leaders can unveil deeper insights and foster a culture of openness.

“What might I be missing?” ([17:46])

Jeff advocates for asking probing questions to oneself and others to unlock hidden information and understand diverse perspectives. This approach not only enhances empathy but also strengthens relationships within the organization.

“There’s something here for me to learn. What can I learn?” ([27:21])

Leveraging AI to Enhance Curiosity

Addressing the modern challenges of leadership, Jeff discusses the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a tool to bolster human curiosity. Instead of seeking direct answers from AI, Jeff suggests using it to generate insightful questions that prompt deeper reflection and exploration.

“If you just take whatever strongly held point of view you have... ask the question at the end, what might I be missing?” ([29:03])

This technique allows leaders to break free from cognitive biases and explore multiple angles of a situation, thereby expanding their cognitive framework and leading to more informed decision-making.

Introducing the ASK Project

Towards the end of the episode, Jeff unveils the ASK Project, a collaborative initiative aimed at embedding curiosity and effective questioning into the DNA of organizations. Partnering with Emily Irving, Jeff describes the project’s mission to go beyond theoretical knowledge by providing practical learning experiences, reinforcements, and feedback mechanisms to drive lasting behavioral change.

“Books are great at building knowledge... but you need to have powerful learning experiences and reinforcements and practice and feedback.” ([33:28])

Conclusion and Additional Resources

Dr. Dave Stachowiak wraps up the episode by highlighting related resources and encouraging listeners to explore further episodes that complement the themes discussed with Jeff. He also promotes the Coaching for Leaders membership, offering access to a vast library of episodes, weekly leadership guides, and exclusive content to support continuous leadership development.

“If this conversation was helpful to you, three related episodes I'd recommend...” ([34:25])

Key Takeaways:

• Challenge Assumptions: Leaders must recognize and question their preconceived notions to foster genuine connections and uncover hidden insights.
• Recognize Hidden Feedback Cues: Subtle behavioral changes in team members can indicate underlying issues that require attention.
• Cultivate Curiosity: Asking the right questions opens avenues for deeper understanding and strengthens leadership effectiveness.
• Utilize AI as a Tool: Leverage AI to generate meaningful questions that enhance human curiosity and decision-making processes.
• Engage with Continuous Learning: Initiatives like the ASK Project underscore the importance of integrating curiosity into organizational culture for sustained growth.

Notable Quotes:

• “What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so.” – Mark Twain ([00:00])
• “What might I be missing?” ([17:46])
• “Curiosity is a team sport.” ([29:03])

Final Thoughts

Episode 732 of Coaching for Leaders offers a deep dive into the nuanced aspects of leadership that often go unnoticed. Jeff Wetzler’s insights on uncovering what’s missing through intentional curiosity and questioning provide invaluable strategies for leaders striving to enhance their effectiveness and foster a more empathetic and responsive organizational environment. Whether you’re navigating complex team dynamics or seeking to build stronger interpersonal connections, this episode equips you with the tools to lead with greater awareness and understanding.

Transcript

[Dave Stahoviak]

We place our organizations at risk when we miss stuff. Often the things we miss aren't what we don't know. Instead, they're the assumptions we don't even question in this episode, the practices that work to find what's missing. This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 732, produced by Innovate, Learning, Maximizing Human Potential. Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders and I'm your host, Dave Stahoviak. Leaders aren't born, they're made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. Mark Twain said, what gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so. Today's guest mentioned that quote in his TED Talk. And it is the reality of leadership for so many of us that it's not even the things we don't know, it's the things we don't see coming because we're so sure of it and we haven't found the things that we're missing. Today's guest is going to help us to actually do a bit more, to be intentional about finding what we're missing so we can lead better for our organizations. I'm so pleased to welcome back to the show Jeff Wetzler. He is co founder of Transcend, a nationally recognized innovation organization and an expert in learning and human potential. His experience spans 25 plus years in business and education as a management consultant to top corporations, a learning facilitator for leaders, and as chief Learning Officer at Teach for America. He's the author of Tap into the Hidden Wisdom of People around you for Unexpected Breakthroughs in leadership and life. Jeff, welcome back.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Thank you, Dave. It's really great to be back with you.

[Dave Stahoviak]

I loved getting back into your work from a year ago. As you know, I'm a big believer in asking questions. Yes, I know that your book appealed to me right away when I first came across it a year ago in our first conversation and when we last talked. I asked you what you changed your mind on, as I often do for folks, and a story about taking an Uber ride a while back. And I've learned more about that story since that first conversation. And I actually would love to start our conversation where we left off last time on that Uber ride. And for those who didn't hear the past episode, I'm wondering if you could put us in that situation you were a few years ago and what happened and what you noticed when that ride began.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Sure. I had just Spent a week on vacation with several of my guy friends, and we had had just a very relaxing week. We were paddling canoes and, you know, in the remote wilderness and just had spent a whole lot of time reconnecting with each other, getting to know each other, asking each other questions. And then when we finally got back to civilization, I needed to get to the airport. So I called an Uber just like so many times before, thought nothing of it. And as the Uber is pulling up, I take a look at its bumper sticker. And on the bumper sticker I see a symbol of a black and white American flag with a thin blue line running through this. And then I looked up at the driver and I noticed on his hat he had that same Blue Lives Matter flag. Now, for many people, this may not mean anything as a symbol, but for me, I was coming from a context in various parts of my work and my life where that particular symbol really triggered me. It associated, I had it associated at the time, at least with things that brought up fears for myself, fears for the safety of the public, questions about racial justice, questions about white supremacy. It all came flooding up for me. And my immediate reaction was, I don't actually feel safe getting in the car with this driver because I don't know what's going to. Both happened to me, but also, you know, how could I be with someone who might have such abhorrent views as what I had as associations for the flag? And so I literally looked down and I thought to myself, should I cancel this car? Can you cancel a car right when it's pulling up right in front of you? And I decided to take a deep breath and get in the car. But what I immediately did when I got in the car is I just looked down at my phone and I dove into the emails and I just thought, maybe if I don't have to talk to this person, we could just get to the airport. It was about a 45 minute ride and it'll be okay. And then I would say maybe about 10 or 15 minutes into the ride, I realized something. I said, how often do I actually have the opportunity to be sitting one on one with someone who probably has a vastly different worldview, a vastly different set of values than I do? What could be the harm in at least, you know, starting a conversation with the person? Maybe there's something here. And I was. But I, I was, I was definitely conflicted because there was a big part of me that just said, you know, keep your distance, essentially, even though you're sitting in this person's car, don't even start it. But I, I decided to dip my toe in the water and I, and I just said to him, hey, I noticed your hat and are you affiliated with the police? And I didn't know where it was going to go. And I was, I kind of held my breath after asking the question and one thing led to the next and you know, lo and behold, he basically, in a very kind and very soft, surprisingly soft spoken way, shared with me his life experience as a police officer and as a member of a family who was really dedicated to serving the public through the law and shared some very, I would say to me, incredibly shocking stories of sacrifices that he personally made, that his family made, of violence that they endured, of threats that they endured to such a point where he actually had to step, to step away from the police force, given the jeopardy that he was in and that his family was in, based on his dedication to serving people. And I was really blown away. I just hadn't humanized, quote, the other side of a symbol before to, you know, to the point where I felt comfortable enough to say to him, and what do you think about some of the criticisms of the police? And what do you think of, you know, what, what do you make of that? Of people who would say we should defund the police? And the answers that I got from this guy were so non defensive and so balanced, where he basically said things like, I understand why people have those views, but I would have questions for them too, like who would they call if their house got robbed? Who would they want to call? What would happen? And I thought these were very fair questions. And then he talked about how his own personal commitment to anti bias and to fair policing and building relationships with the people he arrests and to especially valuing the dignity of the people that he arrests, including things like offering them a final cigarette before they get booked. And so my entire worldview really got, I would say, nuanced. It's not that I don't still have visceral reactions when I see symbols like this, but I then remember there's a person behind the symbol and that that person might have an entirely different life story or reality than I was assuming. And chances are, as it was the case in this situation, there's more that we share in common than I realize. So it was, it was definitely a humbling moment. It was a connecting moment. And it was a moment that I think truly changed me forever.

[Dave Stahoviak]

You say in your work that we perceive that what we've latched onto is the full Reality. And I think about the story you just shared and thank you for sharing it and how many situations come up for me as I think about that as well too. And how many times I miss things. We miss things because we just index on our first thing we've grabbed onto and we don't think about what we are missing, do we?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Totally. And that's the dangerous thing. As human beings, we're wired, and especially when we might be emotionally activated, we're wired to see one thing and just latch right onto that. Forget that we're missing tons and tons of other things going on and just assume that one thing is the totality. Quickly make it mean something. Quickly jump to a story, quickly that story can tell us, all right, this is danger or this is what I should do. When in reality there's so much more that we're, that we're overlooking. And even the things that we do latch onto can be interpreted in so many different kinds of ways. And so that's a lot of how I think about pathways into curiosity these days.

[Dave Stahoviak]

I'm sure you have had this experience as well in working with leaders as have I, that it seems as folks recognize more, get more experience, there's more of a consciousness around what am I missing? And being concerned about that in organizations and in teams. And one of the things that really struck me profoundly was noticing where we might be missing things. Because by definition, when we miss something, we miss something. But there are often times some cues that are a starting point for us, maybe taking a moment and a step back to find out more. And you point out some hidden feedback cues in your work and you say that one of those is repeated questions or suggestions about seemingly small details. Tell me a bit more about that. Why is that a cue? And what is it that noticing that helps with?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah, so the basic idea behind hidden feedback is that as leaders, we're surrounded by people whose perspectives and, and ideas and suggestions could be quite valuable to us. Sometimes are vital for us to know, for example, if our client is about to walk away from us or our boss is about to fire us or our top performer is about to leave. But even when those stakes are not quite that high, there's really important information that quite often we miss. It stays hidden because either people don't tell it to us or they think they've told it to us, but they haven't told it to us directly. Or maybe they've dropped some hints, but we haven't picked up on those hints. All of those are versions of kind of. Of the masking or the hiding of feedback. And so one example, as you just said, is sometimes people might express their feedback in the form of what seems like a micro suggestion, maybe a question about our timeline or a question about a certain angle of the data that we think is pretty insignificant. Why do they keep asking about this? Or a question about product readiness or whatever it might be, or maybe just suggestions that feel micro or overly tactical relative to the level that we should be operating about, operating at. And all of those signs can be masking a deeper concern, a deeper point of view, a deeper suggestion. And so if you see yourself dismissing what might seem like this is just a trivial question that keeps coming up or a trivial thing, that can be a cue to get curious. That can be, you know, a sign to say, is there something else going on here? And it's not always the case that there is, but quite often, if it continues to come up again, there's something underneath it.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Yeah. And I'm thinking, particularly if that's not common for how a person interacts with you in your role or your team, all of a sudden there's repetitive questions, these details, and I think all of us have come out of. I know I have times of like, why does she keep asking about this? Right, right. And. And like, our sort of, like, gut reaction to that, at least mine is like, like, what's going on with her? You know, and. And the invitation I'm hearing from you is like, hey, that's the time to, like, you know, maybe there is something going on with the other party, but that's the time actually to turn back at ourselves and to be thinking about, like, what am I missing? That's maybe triggering this person's behavior to change in a pretty substantial way.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Exactly, exactly. And I think, you know, if your gut reaction is what's going on with her, I would say that you're even more evolved than many, because that's still a question. Many of our gut reactions, I think, is just to be annoyed or just to put an end to it or just to try to, you know, redirect or whatever else. But I think the more that we can. That we can take it in the direction of, huh, there's something going on here. It's a sign. Let me get a little more curious about it. The better served we are.

[Dave Stahoviak]

One of the other things you suggest we watch for as a hidden cue is increased involvement and tactical decisions. What is it about? About that that's an indicator.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Well, if you, you know, let's say that your client Typically says to you, you know, I trust you to run with it, or, you know, I trust you to develop this final product or this final marketing campaign or whatever it is, or your boss in the same way, or your college or whatever. And they start to show up a little bit more. That can be a sign that they feel a need to show up more for some reason. And again, many of us can, you know, can dismiss that and say, you know, they're not making good use of their time, or don't they know? Don't they trust me? Don't have. I got it. But if they're. If we can look at it as a cue to say, huh, there must be some reason why they're feeling the need to do this. And we can get curious enough, that can start to give us kind of the mental degrees of freedom to open up a conversation with them and ask.

[Dave Stahoviak]

And there's a different lens to look at this through too, because you also say a cue is unexpected decreases in engagement. And at first glance, those may seem a bit opposite of, like, okay, someone's getting way more involved in the tactical stuff, but at the same time, or maybe in a different lens, like, decrease in engagement, Are those opposites? And if not, like, what's the distinction between them?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Well, I do think that they're opposites in some sense because the first one is people are getting more involved. The second one is people are getting less involved. What they have in common, though, is people are changing their pattern of behavior. And so on the less involved side, it can be a sign that people are deprioritizing this or handling it through some other means that doesn't involve you or thinking, this is not the right use of my time or their time or whatever. And so for a different reason, it's just as important to think about that as a potential cue to say, huh, is there a reason they stopped coming to the meetings? Or that they keep showing up late and can only stay for a part of the time, or that they are sending someone else in their presence instead, all of those can be signs to say, yeah, there might be something deeper going on here to get curious about.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Yeah, I don't think I've ever thought about it as consciously as I am right now of, like, I maybe subconsciously, like, people change behaviors and, like, ask. You know, it's sparking some questions or some wondering. But, like, this is really helping me think, okay, when I see a change of pattern of behavior, especially someone's like, somebody, a stakeholder or team member or employee that I work with all the time to really, like, come through the lens of, like, what might I be missing? And maybe nothing, maybe it's unrelated, but I think it's like, there's not a lot that can go wrong by being more curious.

[Jeff Wetzler]

That's exactly right. Yeah. And even if it's not a big deal, they may still have a small suggestion for what would make this a better use of their time, for example.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Yeah. And I think, like, I mean, one of the things you point out is, like, when we're curious about people, they actually like us more. Like, it creates more empathy. Like, curiosity makes us more resilient. So even if there isn't anything there, like, going in on the assumption of, like, how could I be a little more curious? How can I be maybe a little bit, like, take a step back and find out what I might be missing? There's a lot of benefit to that, regardless. In addition to figuring out what changed a hundred percent.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. Even if. Even if all you want to do is get people to like you more or all you want to do is be more influential to people, let alone putting aside what you can learn, curiosity has those benefits. And I think, you know, one of the side. And more which we can talk about. One of the side benefits, though, is you're going to learn something new if you're genuinely curious.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Yeah. Which is the. Which is like, so much of, like, what leadership is about. Right. It's like asking the right question. It's like seeing the bigger picture so we have a more accurate view. In fact, I was just having a conversation this past hour with one of our members, and we were talking about, like, an initiative they're working on and to build something. And the question came up of, like, well, what is it people are dealing with right now? That's. That you're trying to address. And there wasn't a clear answer to that. And it's interesting how often we do, like, go down the path of trying to put something together to answer a need, and yet we're not entirely 100% sure about what's there. Or worse to the Mark Twain quote. We think we know exactly what it is, and we haven't really stopped to ask the question.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Exactly. Well said.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Which brings us to some of the sparks for curiosity. And you've got a few of them that you invite us to do as far as, like, actually moving into the space on how could I find out a bit more if I'm missing? If we're seeing some of those cues. And one of the questions you invite us to consider is, what might I be missing? What's the power of that question?

[Jeff Wetzler]

So the power of that particular spark is it goes right back to what we were talking about a few minutes ago, which is that whenever we walk into a situation, we latch onto one thing out of, you know, hundreds, thousands of data points or pieces of information that we could be latching onto. And. And the dangerous thing is that we do it in split seconds, and we don't even realize that we're doing it. And so then the thing we've latched onto is our reality. But a spark like what might I be missing? Brings us back to that moment when we've latched onto something and reminds us there's more going on here than what. Than what we initially picked out to focus on. And especially if you can then start to kind of pull the thread on that question and say, all right, maybe let me think about what might I be missing that the other person could be up against? What might I be missing that could be about my own impact on the other person and how I'm contributing to their behavior? What could I be missing about their intentions? Because other people's intentions are, you know, opaque to us. We can't know them for sure. So you can start to get curious about those different kinds of things when you ask that question, what might I be missing? I mean, it just kind of jolts us out of our own certainty that there's anything we could be missing and begins to not tell us that our story is wrong or our beliefs are incorrect. But it allows us to just hold our beliefs a little bit more loosely to make room for new information to come in.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Yeah. And it gives us a bit of the thinking space to consider, like, yeah, I probably don't have it all here. And when you invite people to ask that question, I mean, part of it's like asking it to ourselves. Right. And I'm wondering if that ever, like, if you ever verbalize a question like that, either literally, like, what am I missing here? Or some version of that. And do you find that it's helpful to, like, just say that out loud and get. Get the other party maybe talking about that?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Absolutely. I mean, literally, you can sometimes just say, here, this is what I'm thinking. I think this is the direction we should be going in for these reasons. But I don't see everything. So what. What might I be missing? And when you ask a question like that, it creates an invitation for someone else to give you what's called disconfirming data. Essentially is information that might disconfirm your views and especially if there's any kind of barrier to their feeling safe to tell you that when you ask a question like what might I be missing? You begin to display a level of receptivity and humility and resilience to disconfirming data that begins to make it more comfortable for other people to take that risk and share that with you.

[Dave Stahoviak]

I've experienced that too, and I've. I find myself sometimes asking the question a slightly different way. What did I miss? Yeah, and it's very, it's just very assumptive. And it's interesting when I. And I'll often ask it in a context of like someone's just said a whole lot, like they've talked for a few minutes or they've explained a situation and there's sort of like a natural endpoint to the story or the situation or the context or whatever. And I'll just say, what did I miss? Or I'll reflect back and then I'll say, what did I miss? And it's interesting, like if I shut up after that and then be quiet about half the time, something else will come out that wasn't said already.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Absolutely. That's about my ratio too.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Oh, interesting.

[Jeff Wetzler]

I find the exact same thing. People will say, well, yeah, you kind of got some of it, but there's more to it here. And sometimes I'll even say, you know, and what else did I miss? What else should I know? What more is there? And just continue to be asking that. And oftentimes the most important thing doesn't come out the first or the second or the third time, but you have to really let them know that you deeply want to understand and to your point, give the space for that to come out.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Well, as you were saying that, I was thinking there's a whole lot of times, like when that question comes up in a conversation, either for me or someone else, people will just sort of default to saying, oh, you didn't miss anything. And that's the part where I've learned I need to really be quiet after that, because then if I just let that sit for a few seconds, that's where like about half the time someone will say, oh, actually there is this one other thing. And it's sort of like, it's interesting, especially when there's power dynamics at play, like how we've all sort of been conditioned to just like, say, like, oh, no, you didn't miss anything. You got it. Like, you know, and, and even when someone does make the invitation. And so, like, just, just like you said, like, just get it. Doing a little bit more of that, follow up a little bit more. That curiosity can go up, go, go a big way.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. You know, it reminds me, as part of the research for the book, I interviewed professional listeners, including psychotherapists, and they consistently talk about this thing that they call the doorknob moment, which is that if it's a 50 minute therapy session and they've been talking to the, you know, to their patient, quite often the most important thing comes out literally as the patient is walking out with their hand on the door. That's when they'll say, I'm thinking about leaving my spouse or whatever the thing is, that's like the real thing. And so I think to myself, if, you know, if trained therapists who are professional question askers and listeners still, they only get it out at the very last second, how much must the rest of us, who are mere mortals, be missing in our conversations?

[Dave Stahoviak]

I've had so many meetings like that over the years where, like, it's a 45 minute conversation and at a minute 42, all of a sudden someone says something, we're like, oh, this is what this meeting was really about. The last 90 seconds was what it was really about. And it's just, wow, it's so interesting that like, the same thing happens in a whole nother context.

[Jeff Wetzler]

The same thing totally happens. And people, you know, they have, they have all kinds of theories as to why does it happen. Sometimes they think, well, maybe the person was working up the courage to say it, or maybe the person was waiting to see how I reacted to other things. Or maybe the person was just working, clarifying their own thinking. I had one therapist recently say to me, I think it's because they really want me to think about them the whole week. And so they save it to the end, thinking that it'll keep them on my mind for the rest of the week. But whatever it is, the lesson is if we really want the real stuff from people, we've got to make space for it. We've got to ask again, we've got to pull the thread and say, what else? Tell me more. Can you elaborate? What am I missing to your point? And that significantly increases the chances that what, you know, that we're going to find the real stuff.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Such a powerful question. All right, and there's a couple others though, too. And one of the others is how else might someone interpret the situation? What is it that that question does differently than the what I'm Missing question.

[Jeff Wetzler]

So the what. The what am I missing Question reminds us there's other information, there's other things going on. Maybe the thing that we latched onto isn't the whole story. But then this next question basically says, okay, even if it was a thing that I latched onto, putting aside whatever else I might miss, there's many ways of making sense of that. Maybe the reason that that person pushed back on me, if that's the thing that I'm latching onto, maybe the reason they. They said no to the request that I made of them is not because they're lazy or a team player, but maybe they actually have a competing deadline. Maybe someone else in the organization asked them to do something. Maybe they're even making the right call that there's. So it reminds us there's lots of different stories we can tell about the same piece of information. And typically we're just so inside our one story that we forget to. We even forget to think that there's different ways. And so it really prompts us to expand our way of looking. And again, not to say that our story is wrong, but it may not be the only thing that's true or at play or the only way to look at a situation.

[Dave Stahoviak]

And you also invite us to consider how I might be impacting them as in the other person, in the context of this. And I think there's like a leadership power dynamic there, too, potentially, for a lot of us to navigate.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Absolutely. I mean, I think especially for those of us who are in any position of formal authority, we can absolutely underestimate the degree to which people feel unsafe in one way or another around us. I know even in myself, in my own leadership roles, I'm thinking it's just me, you know, I'm just trying to, like, you know, get through the life and make my way through the world. Why would anyone be intimidated by me?

[Dave Stahoviak]

Right? Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And other people are thinking, like, this person could fire me, this person could demote me, this person could end my career, and I can be blind to that, and I can forget that. And so, you know, it's. It's absolutely true. I mean, even literally just two days ago, I was debriefing with somebody who works in my organization a time when I had given her some feedback, and she immediately ran with it and. And just implemented it and later realized she didn't totally agree with the feedback. And I said to her, you know, so that was the impact that I had on her. I said to her, what might I have been able to do to help you make sense of the feedback more yourself. Because she said, you know, you, Jeff, you did ask me for my immediate reactions and I gave them to you. But then she said, you know what? If you had said to me, I want you to sit with this feedback, don't give me your reactions right now. I want you to just sit with it, think about it. I want you to tell me what resonates and what doesn't resonate, what will be hard about it. You would have gotten a better answer from me, But I didn't realize until she told me that, that I had such an impact that she just felt like she needed to agree and run with the feedback. So if we can start to get curious about the impact we're having on other people, we can realize how we may be complicit or contributing to situations that we wish were different.

[Dave Stahoviak]

And you say one of the most important questions is the last one, what can I learn from this person?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yes, this is, this to me is the, you know, the uber curiosity spark. Because if we can, if we can show up with this question, what can I learn from this person? First of all, it's just a reminder to us there is something to learn from every single person. And I truly believe that even somebody who totally disagrees with us, even someone we think is completely wrong, we could be learning how come they think that, why even someone that we think is dangerous and who's our, who's our total enemy. We can be learning what's their next move going to be and how do we need to navigate that next move, whatever it is. But, but in a more day to day situation, there's, you know, we can be learning what someone's ideas, what's their life experience, how are they seeing us? And so asking that question pushes out of our minds all kinds of other questions like why are they such a jerk? Or how could they be so wrong? Or how do get them to do this? Or how do I get out of here? It just starts to clear space to say, you know what, there's something here for me to learn. What can I learn? And it begins to change our mindset, it begins to change our energy. And I think others can sense that too.

[Dave Stahoviak]

You have been thinking a lot about AI as so many of us have in the last year since the book came out. And I was really intrigued by some of the things you're doing on helping AI to approach this and like enhance what we're doing as humans. Not to replace, but really think of how do we actually ask these questions better. And I'm wondering what you found that's been working to utilize the technology in order to do this more effectively.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. So of all the different curiosity sparks that we just talked about, sometimes it's enough to just run them. Run through them in your own mind or to your point, say them aloud or maybe journal about them. But sometimes we're so stuck inside our own certainty that it's hard to even use these sparks to break us out. And so I have a mentor, Phil MacArthur, who used to say, curiosity is a team sport. When you really need help, you should ask your colleagues and your friends to help you get curious. But now we have yet another kind of colleague or friend or mentor, which is AI. And so I discovered in writing the book that if you just take whatever, you know, strongly held point of view you have, Maybe it's a rant about a politician, or maybe it's a rant about your spouse, or maybe it's a rant about your business partner or a colleague or a teammate. Just dump it all right into AI. You can type it in. Nowadays, you can just say it in and then just ask the question at the end. What might I be missing? Or what could I learn here that I'm not thinking about all of a sudden? What comes back is fascinating. It will show you different angles on the situation than you had thought about before. And, you know, you may not agree with every angle, it may not be right about everything, but I can guarantee you it'll start to have you think about things you hadn't thought about before, and it will tend to loosen up the grip of your story on you. So the first way to use it is you can just use it to get curious. Then you can also use it, take it one step further and say to it, what are some questions I could ask my wife here? What are some questions I could ask my partner that I might not be thinking about? And it will generate a set of questions. We can generate infinite questions. But even if you ask it to say, just give me a dozen questions, you probably will cross off three to five of them that you just say, I don't like this. This is not applicable. But there will be a handful of questions in there that you had never thought to ask before that can be super powerful.

[Dave Stahoviak]

You completely changed my mind on this this week and using AI because I was reading one of your Psychology Today on AI and this practice and just to like, maybe reinforce, like, how maybe it's. I'm too close to it, Jeff, but like as much as I value questions, teach them in my work, like, professionally asked questions as a coach, like, I mean, I think about questions probably more than the average person, for sure. And when I use AI, though, at least up until this week, I would often be looking to AI for answers. And in fact, earlier this week, I had a situation where I was like, ooh, I, you know, here's some elements of the situation. I'm going to put an AI and like, ask for some insight on, like, what would I do in this situation? And it hadn't occurred to me until this week to do exactly what you invite us to do, which is to put in the situation and to say, what are the questions that either I should be asking of myself that I'm missing, or in one of the situations I was thinking of this week, it was a situation with someone else, what are the questions I should ask this other person who's, who's bringing this situation to me? And I tried that and wow, like, because oftentimes, like, the answers, I mean, we all have had the experience with AI if we've used it of like, oh, that's like, it's very generic or not relevant and like, or sometimes it is really helpful, but it's. It's a little more hit and miss. But, boy, if you get a good question out of it, then you can, like, really open up the what you're missing in the dynamic of what you're thinking about or with the other person. And it's. It really changed how I approach AI entirely this week.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Oh, I'm so happy to hear that. I had the same experience when I first started experimenting with it. And my greatest hope is that it. It's not the something that any of us will outsource our curiosity to, but that in the context of doing it, it can help to deepen our curiosity and it can help us to grow that curiosity muscle. The next time we hit a situation, we might be thinking about something we hadn't even thought about before, just like.

[Dave Stahoviak]

We did last time. We're only zeroing in on a few pages of the book, so I hope that if folks are hearing some really practical things, I hope you'll go get the book for the rest, and we're going to link all of it up in the episode notes, this week's weekly guide, of course. And Jeff, you're also starting something new that's coming out, like, as we're airing. I'm wondering if you could say a bit about that.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Sure. Yeah. So I have been collaborating on this ASK project for many years within an incredible collaboration, a collaborator named Emily Irving. She has been instrumental in the ideas and the research and the writing and the launch of ask. She is launching a new organization called Ask that is all about how to take these ideas of curiosity, of creating safety, of what are the best questions to ask, how do we listen, how do we make sense of things and really helping teams and leaders and organizations build this into their DNA of how they function on a day to day basis. And I'll be, you know, supporting and partnering and right alongside. But I came to realize that books are great at building knowledge and awareness and understanding and giving you tips. But if you truly want enduring impact, enduring behavior change, you need to have powerful learning experiences and reinforcements and practice and feedback. And that is what this new entity is going to be trying to bring to the world.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Jeff Wetzler is the author of ask. Tap into the hidden wisdom of people around you for unexpected breakthroughs in leadership and life. Jeff, thank you so much for your work and sharing it with us again.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Oh, it's great to be back with you Dave. I love how you just go so deep onto, you know, a key aspect of something. It just unpacks so much out of it. So really enjoyed the conversation.

[Dave Stahoviak]

Same right back at you. Thanks Jeff. If this conversation was helpful to you, three related episodes I'd recommend one of them is episode episode 520, how to inspire More Curiosity. Shannon Minifee was my guest on that episode, CEO of Box of Crayons, the firm behind the coaching habit by Michael Bungay Stanier. We talked in that conversation about the work Shannon and Michael have done to bring curiosity into organizations culturally in such effective ways over the years and some of the practices that they have used to inspire that episode 520. For more from her also recommended episode 654, how to help Others Be Seen and Heard. Scott Shigeoka was my guest on that episode and we talked about the principles of curiosity and how curiosity can help others to be seen. It's so important from a leadership standpoint that we do ensure that others are seen in our organizations and Scott and I talked about some of the key principles for doing that. Well, real practical things. A great complement to this conversation with Jeff. And then of course Jeff's last conversation here on the show is a wonderful resource as well. That's episode 679. Make it easier to Discuss Hard Things. In that conversation, Jeff and I talked about how we can actually make it easier for folks to say things to us again a good complement to this conversation. We talked a little bit more on what we do in this situation. In this conversation in that last episode, we talked more about what are the environmental things, what are the practices we can have that will help make it easier for other people to surface things to us. Episode 679 for that all of those episodes you can find on the coaching4leaders.com website. And if you have not already, I'm inviting you today to set up your free [e-mail] it's going to give you access to the entire library of episodes since 2011, searchable by topic. You can find all the episodes publicly on all the podcast apps, but what you can't do is search by topic. The resource you're looking for right now that'll be helpful for whatever you're thinking about right now. Maybe it's an opportunity, maybe it's a struggle, maybe it's something on a recent performance review or some coaching you're doing, but it's something you want to zero in on and you're looking for the right resource for that. The free membership is a great starting point for that. Just go over to coaching4leaders.com set up your free membership and once you do, you'll not only have access to the entire library by topic, but you'll also get my weekly Leadership Guide. It is a email that comes every single week to you with details about the key points of each episode. The recommended episodes I just mentioned many of the things I've been finding in the news and resources over that week. Other episodes from other podcasts, YouTube videos, articles from many of the publications out there that I think will help you in your leadership development. It's one of the key benefits inside of the free membership. To get more, just go over to coaching4leaders.com you know, one of the questions that I have gotten regularly for the last, oh, 20 years or so now, when I was teaching courses on communication and public speaking years ago with Carnegie, one of the questions I would get is, well, when do you stop being afraid of getting in front of a group and speaking in front of people? And today that question's a little different. Sometimes people ask me, well, how have you conquered fear in talking to well known people on the podcast? And the answer to that question is after 20 years, I haven't. It's not about conquering fear, it's about working through it. And that's why I've taken the invitation from Susan Jeffers book from many years ago of Feel the Fear and do it anyway. I expanded on that quite a bit in my most recent journal entry. Each week I'm writing a journal entry, just a couple of minutes to read that will give you insight on something from me, one of our guests. Something practically that I've learned from one of our members that'll help you to practically implement implement something in your work as a leader and continue to move forward. It's one of the benefits of Coaching for Leaders plus. If you'd like to find out more, go over to Coaching 4 Leaders Plus. Information on the journal plus. All the other benefits of coaching for leaders plus are located right there. Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Kroger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. Thanks as always for listening, and I'll be back next Monday with the next conversation.