How to help someone grow after making a mistake without telling them what to do differently.
On Day 10, I said that people are always doing what makes most sense to them at their current level of understanding.
This is always true. Even if it's something that doesn't make sense to you.
If you can be curious about what must be true for whatever they did to make sense to them, you can stay out of judgement.
In itself, that's valuable because it doesn't destroy psychological safety.
But there's something else that can happen.
For example, let's imagine a team member has made a not-so-good decision.
That decision made sense to them at the time. But it has had a negative impact.
If you, their manager, are settled and curious, you can help them safely explore - in some detail - what made sense about it at the time.
Then keep listening but stay quiet.
If you're both in a good feeling, the chances are something magical will happen.
They will have an insight and see something fresh and new.
That insight will change their level of understanding.
And something else will make most sense next time.
Our job as leaders is not to tell them what the insight should be (because it wouldn't be an insight).
Rather, it's to create an insight-friendly space where they can see it for themselves.
This is the most effective way to create lasting change.
