Can you say more about that
“Often I will carry a conversation back to details a client provided but then rushed past. I am particularly interested in those that are not required elements of the story, those that might seem unimportant but for the fact that they were mentioned. I call these extra details satellites, shot off into space, later to beam back valuable information. I always follow them.” – Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear
A while ago (editor’s note: terrifyingly, it’s been two years) my friend Tracey and I were talking about the phrases we use a lot as managers.
Our conversation was about the exact words — how you say things matters, and as you build experience as a manager (and communicating to your boss and across a company) you start to build up a little toolkit of specific words that apply in specific situations.
The one I want to talk about right now is the one that’s both the most valuable and that takes the most discipline to use consistently, because it requires me to shut the fuck up.
“Can you say more about that?”
For many reasons, it’s the rare person who tells you exactly what they think all of the time.
Sometimes you’re talking to someone brilliant who doesn’t realize you haven’t leapt to the same brilliant conclusion as them
Sometimes the person isn’t totally uncomfortable sharing exactly what they think, but is on the edge (and a little nudge will get them to spill the tea)
Sometimes they just don’t want to bother you with details — but you would love to be bothered!
As the de Becker quote says, people leave little breadcrumbs in their conversations that there are details not being shared.
These are small moments with a big impact — asking for more details can reveal project-stopping problems, uncover potentially really good ideas, and build trust with your team (not to mention limit resentment).
I like this phrasing specifically because it’s nonspecific. It’s not leading the witness by implying what you want to hear, and (unless you have the delivery of Cruella Deville) it’s probably not going to feel judgmental.
Half the time I say this it word avalanche — the person clearly had well-formed thoughts they just wanted permission to share. The other half the time it leads to a pause and some consideration — the person has thoughts, even if they weren’t expecting to share them.
These are the two situations it comes up most.
1) You have heard someone’s conclusions, but not how they got to those conclusions
Whenever I, or any other consultant, start to work with an organization, the first thing I hear about are all the personality conflicts. Most of these arise from the fact that people do not know what other people are doing and how they do their work, or what contribution the other people are concentrating on and what results they expect. And the reason they do not know is that they have not asked and therefore have not been told. – Peter Drucker, Managing Oneself
Direct report: “I think we should do XYZ”
Manager: “Nah that doesn’t make sense, let’s do ABC.”
DR (silently): “..........................................ok…………………………………..”
Especially as you get more senior, it’s easy to miss how big it is when your team (or just people more junior than you) share their ideas. As I wrote in “how (not) to present an idea” especially more junior people sometimes share their ideas in unstructured ways that wind up getting them dismissed out of hand. I still think they should learn how to share their ideas better, but managers can also be better at recognizing when a pitch is happening.
Sometimes “I think we should do XYZ” is an idea that came in the moment — but a surprising amount of the time your report has been thinking about it for a while and is just choosing to bring it up now.
(Related: if the same idea comes up in an unstructured way more than once, it’s something they think about a lot. You should follow up.)
This is tricky as a manager because I get pitched ideas I have to say no to all the time. I’ll hear the idea and pretty instantly know:
“That won’t work”
“It might work, but it’s not worth the resources”
“Regardless of whether it works or not, we logistically won’t be able to execute it because it takes work from another part of the organization”
“Not a bad idea, but we have to stay focused on our top priorities”
And a lot of the time (not always) I’m right. But if I just move on I’ve still fucked up.
I should ask “can you say more about that” so that I can understand the reasoning that got this person to their suggestion. Why?
Incredibly, I’m not always right. I know, wow.
Even if I’m right, the idea has probably been raised because the report sees it as an answer to a problem. It might not be the right way to solve that problem, but I would benefit from knowing the problem.
Even if the idea isn’t quite on target, there might be a version of it that really works. If I get the context from my report (the person who sees the front lines of day-to-day work), I can mix it with my larger view of the organization’s priorities and we can come up with something that does work.
Even if the idea isn’t quite on target — or is just straight-up outright a shit idea (we all have them) — asking for follow-up makes sure my report feels like I’m listening to them.
A report says “what if we ran a website building contest for our customers and then shared the best websites.” Because we’ve run contests before, I know that this is 1) probably not going to get many people to participate 2) be a ton of work to do well 3) not get results for the business. I could ax the idea right here.
But when I follow-up, I find that what my report is really saying is “I’ve been going through our customer feedback and finding that people really struggle to use our website builder.” Wow! Different problem. If we talk about that problem, we can talk about help documentation, tutorials, onboarding resources, support, and all sorts of other things.
Plus, they’re more likely to raise an idea the next time they have one.
2) You have heard why something is *not* happening, but it’s light on details
“Instead of seeing people as untalented, we can see them as phobic, and this completely changes the teacher's relationship with them.” – Keith Johnstone, Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
Direct report: “We were doing XYZ, but then leadership pulled back”
Manager: “Huh ok.”
[end of conversation]
When people are frustrated about things not happening, they very frequently don’t come right out and say it. Some people do (and some people do it a little too much), but often frustrations stay bottled up because:
The person doesn’t want to be seen as “difficult,” or point fingers
They are second-guessing themselves and assume there is a good reason for the way things are
They just assume the issue is in the past and not relevant anymore
Sooooooo often, a frustration will “leak” into a passing phrase. “This didn’t happen because the design team said no” or “but we couldn’t get the data we needed from product,” or whatever the reason. The report will phrase this as the end of their thought — but it implies a whole world of more information for you to discover.
“Can you say more about that?”
I can’t stress how often it happens that I go to two teams that are having trouble working together — only to find they both want to solve the same problem in the same way.
Or some manager didn’t ask “can you say more about that” and rejected a good idea (which they would have agreed with) without hearing the rationale.
Or I learn that “leadership” pulling back was actually one specific person on leadership, whose mind could have easily been changed. As I wrote in one of my first articles here, remember that teams don’t make decisions. People do!
To get things done in an organization, you need to understand how that organization gets things done.
Pulitzer Prize committee, I will be waiting for my award in the mail for that sentence.
So like, duh. But “can you say more” is so valuable because — in addition to making the person feel listened to and building trust — it gives you more info about the barriers to getting things done. If you’re going to advance your own projects, it sure is helpful to know where similar projects have flamed out!
That’s the crux of the question. People don’t always share info that could be helpful to you. “Can you say more” helps pull it out of them at the same time as it strengthens your relationships.