Make the invisible visible.
I was talking to a client recently who was feeling unappreciated by their manager because they were pushing forward on several different projects, and the manager didn’t seem to acknowledge that. I pointed out that the behind-the-scenes work they were doing was likely invisible to the manager, and suggested they provide an update to the manager to let them know what they were doing. They sent a Slack update to their manager on their current projects, and their next 1:1 was one of the most productive conversations they’d ever had.
We all fall prey to variations of this bias, sometimes called the Curse of Knowledge. We assume that others know what we know and see what we see, so we get frustrated they aren’t drawing the same conclusions.
I had another client who received feedback that they were too resistant to new ideas. But they had previously worked at a larger company and had seen what worked and what didn’t at scale, while their peers didn’t have that experience. Both sides were frustrated with each other. But when my client explained the risks of the suggested options by sharing what they had previously seen not work, the conversation became much more productive as their experience was placed into context, and they could discuss what applied to the present situation.
If you’re in a frustrating set of conversations with somebody, pause and consider what you know that the other person might not. Then share your information or knowledge that might be invisible to them. If nothing else, this will help to track down the source of the disagreement so you can talk about the real issue.