Think about the last meeting you sat in that was built around a list.

A spreadsheet. A set of names. Numbers next to each one. The group moves down the list, identifies who needs attention, schedules a response, and moves to the next name.

Forty minutes in, someone keeps appearing on the list for the third month in a row. Nobody asks why. The meeting was designed to schedule responses, not to understand what's producing them. So you move on.

Michael Bungay Stanier wrote The Coaching Habit around a single observation: most people in leadership and helping roles rush to advice before they understand the real problem. He calls it the advice monster: the instinct to fix, suggest, and solve before you have slowed down long enough to hear what is going on. His most important question: What's the real challenge here for you? Not what does the data show. What is the real challenge underneath the number, underneath the behavior, underneath the obvious story?

Three questions to add before you open the data:

●  For each person who keeps appearing, have you asked why? Not what to do about them. What is producing this outcome, consistently, over time?

●  What do you know about this person that the data doesn't show? What are they carrying in through the door that no spreadsheet captures?

●  Is your response matched to what you found, or to the number? More of the same is a response to the score. It may or may not address what's underneath it.

Reflective Questions

●  Think about the last meeting built around performance data. Did anyone ask why, or did the meeting go straight to solutions?

●  Is there someone in your work or life who keeps showing up on the list whose real story you have not yet asked about?

●  What would it cost, in time and design, to add one honest question to your next meeting before the data goes up on the screen?

Listen to Episode 2 of Move Toward: Unlocked for the story of Grace, a student who spent over a year on the list before someone finally stopped and asked the right question.