Lean In

with a group of Facebook employees who were native speakers. One might think that Mark’s limited language skills would have kept these conversations from being substantively useful. Instead, they gave him greater insight into what was going on in the company. For example, one of the women was trying to tell Mark something about her manager. Mark didn’t understand so he said, “Simpler, please.” Then she spoke again, but he still didn’t understand, so he had to ask her to simplify further. This happened a few more times. Eventually, she got frustrated and just blurted out, “My manager is bad!” She was still speaking Chinese, but simply enough that Mark understood. If more people were this clear, the performance of many organizations would improve dramatically.
    The ability to listen is as important as the ability to speak. From the time my siblings and I were very young, whenever we had arguments, our mother taught us—or more like forced us—to mirror each other, which means restating the other person’s point before responding to it. For example, one day my sister and I were fighting over a lollipop. “Sheryl ate the last lollipop!” Michelle screamed. “But she had a lollipop yesterday and I didn’t!” I screamed back, making an
excellent
point. My mother sat us down facing each other. I was not allowed to explain how gravely inequitable the lollipop allocation wasuntil I acknowledged my sister’s feelings. “Michelle, I understand that you are upset because I ate the last lollipop and you wanted it.” As painful as this was at the time, reflecting someone’s viewpoint clarifies the disagreement and becomes a starting point for resolution. We all want to be heard, and when we focus on showing others that we are listening, we actually become better listeners. I now do this with my children. And while they probably dislike the process as much as I did when I was their age, I love hearing my son explain to my daughter, “I’m sorry you’re upset because you lost at Monopoly, but I’m older than you so I should win.” Not bad for a seven-year-old. (Although Fred would caution my son to take out the “but” and everything after, since it tends to deny the preceding statement. Imagine someone saying, “I really like you, but …”)
    Being aware of a problem is the first step to correcting it. It is nearly impossible to know how our actions are perceived by others. We can try to guess what they’re thinking, but asking directly is far more effective. With real knowledge, we can adjust our actions and avoid getting tripped up. Still, people rarely seek enough input. A few years ago, Tom Brokaw interviewed me for a piece on Facebook. Tom is a magnificent interviewer, and I felt that I stumbled through some of my answers. After we wrapped, I asked him how I could have done better. He seemed surprised by my question, so I asked him again. He then told me that in his entire career, I was only the second person to ask him for feedback.
    The strategy of soliciting input broadly was first demonstrated for me by Robert Rubin, secretary of the Treasury when I joined the department in 1996. During my first week there, I was invited to a meeting on restructuring the IRS. About ten senior staffers were sitting at the table when we entered. Since I knew nothing about the topic, I took a seat in the back corner of the room (yup, not even close to the table). Toward the end of the meeting, Secretary Rubin suddenly turned and asked, “Sheryl, what do you think?” I was stunnedsilent—my mouth opened but nothing came out. When he saw how shocked I was, Secretary Rubin explained why he had put me on the spot: “Because you’re new and not fully up to speed on how we do things, I thought you might see something we were missing.” Apparently not in my case. But Secretary Rubin sent a powerful message to all of us about the value of soliciting ideas from every corner (literally).
    Secretary Rubin was also aware of the dangers of blindly following leaders, or in his case, being blindly followed. Before becoming Treasury secretary, Rubin served as co-chairman of the board of Goldman Sachs. At the end of his first week as co-chairman, he noticed that Goldman was heavily invested in gold. He asked someone why the firm had taken such a big position. The startled employee answered, “That was you, sir.” “Me?” Rubin replied. Apparently, the day before he had been taking his initial tour of the trading