Intuition can be a skill
I had a really difficult conversation the other day with one of my coworkers who I deeply respect and value. I had heard some feedback from a few different people that might not land well and no one seemed particularly interested in talking to this person about it directly.
I shared this feedback with this person and do you know what they said? “I’m so glad you told me, thank you, I appreciate you so much.”
This is where integrity begins, in difficult, transparent conversations. This is where trust is built. Having a culture where we can have direct conversation without being emotions driven is crucial as you develop your career. Don’t have this where you are yet? START! You don’t need to wait on leadership to build a culture of transparency for you!
Have I always been good at this? Absolutely not. In fact, I’d share transparently about how I FEEL about a situation, thinking I was doing the right thing, but in business and I’d argue that 99% of the time in life, feelings simply are not facts. When you let your emotions drive your conversation, you are setting yourself up for failure as a leader, colleague, friend, etc.
This isn’t to say that you cannot be authentic! In fact the opposite. Oftentimes your INTUITION (which I believe is completely different than EMOTION) can be backed by data. This is especially true if you have been in a role for a while, you have been practicing in whatever industry you are in for some time. I encourage you to seek out information you need to back up your gut feeling and begin honing in on your intuition as a skillset. When you are able to have data and analytics back up your intuition, you can approach tough conversations head on not only with empathy, but with confidence.
Learning to speak truth in love at work is a learned skill. Delivering information with grace AND data is a sweet spot I attempt to find when having conversations in my career and I’d encourage you to seek out as well.
Once developed, you might be surprised at where this skill can take you. Can you identify areas you might be able to practice this the next few weeks? Is there opportunity for you to seek out additional information to make more data driven decisions?
