If you don’t get where they’re coming from, or their point doesn’t make sense, perhaps you haven’t listened carefully enough. Perhaps you weren’t really listening at all – maybe you were just about hearing, but filling with your own expectations and understanding.

It pays to make sure you’re aligned and calibrated around shared vocabulary and understanding, and listening pays dividends with that. Even it it’s you communicating your expectation to be followed, you have to listen to be sure you’ve been understood.

The same words hold different meanings, for different folks and in different contexts.

Sometimes you need to say a little less and hear a little more.