Explore, Don't Lecture
Inspired by on Lenny's Podcast
When your kid comes to you with a problem, resist the urge to teach - explore instead.
Claire Hughes Johnson, Stripe's COO, has a fundamental management belief: too many people think their job is to be the expert and tell people what to do. Wrong. Your job is to enable people to be their very best.
Parents make this mistake constantly. Your child struggles with something, and you immediately shift into lecture mode. Here's what you should do. Here's how to handle this. Let me explain why that didn't work.
Claire's approach is to be an explorer, not a lecturer. Be curious. Say: 'I've noticed this pattern. Have you noticed it too?' Ask questions. Share observations. Explore together.
With your four-year-old: 'I noticed you got really frustrated when your tower fell down. What was happening right before it fell?' You're not teaching them about structural engineering. You're helping them notice their own patterns.
Claire uses what she calls 'hypothesis-based coaching.' You don't need a million data points. You form a hypothesis from what you've observed, and then you explore it together: 'I wonder if you were stacking them too fast. What do you think?'
The magic is in the exploration. You're standing beside them, discovering together - not above them, dispensing wisdom.
PM Theme: Coaching and mentorship
Parenting Theme: Supporting problem-solving
“Too many people think your job as the manager is to be the expert and tell people what to do. No, actually, your job is to enable people to be their very damn best on your team.”Claire Hughes Johnson · 00:38:05
“I think intuition as a word gets kind of a bad rap... But guess what a scientific hypothesis is? It's a well-informed piece of intuition. And I think too many managers wait until they have a million pieces of data to make an observation to someone about an area for improvement.”Claire Hughes Johnson · 00:39:11
