What people don’t tell you can kill you.
Fear is the flip-side of longing. Uncertainty is the unease of confidence. Doubt is the sabotage of strategic risk. The three have been coined as FUD, and everyone has them, including your CEO and stakeholders. They usually aren’t quick to tell you what they are.
The person who leads you and the people around you have longings: to be effective, to be respected, to do what is great, to leave a legacy. If there is a longing, then there is a fear lurking. Decisions and directions are determined by avoidance of loss as well as attainment of desire. Everything is a threat but not everything is an opportunity.
Uncertainty is a warning. It disconcerts us. It challenges the predictable. Fear doesn’t want to fall; uncertainty doesn’t want to sit in the chair. Fear focuses on possible results; uncertainty focuses on the path.
Doubt haunts the journey. Fear is avoidance; uncertainty is hesitation; doubt is memory, and anything might serve as a trigger of what I never want to experience again.
When you are in front of anyone, these three dynamics are always present: They have a desire, they want a solid course of direction, and they seek smooth sailing to get there. The opposite is true: they have threats, tests and triggers.
Most people cannot articulate what their own fears, uncertainties and doubts are.
Unknowingly, you can present yourself as a threat, fail a test or press a trigger.
Unless you know how to not.
A person cannot not tell their story.
I once took a course on listening. Yes, it’s a thing. And this was the first lesson, repeated often: you will tell me what is going on in your life without knowing you are telling me. I just have to get you talking about anything. Eventually, a theme will emerge.
This is not the space to prove the premise or give examples of it. Instead, if you will grant me the assumption, let me share from my experience of how I get people to reveal their FUD.
- What are you excited about?
- Where are you seeing room for improvement (start with the organization overall, invite feedback on your area, and when appropriate, ask about what the person is working on).
- What is something you would like to see happen or brought in?
- What questions have you been asking lately?
It’s rare that these questions can be asked at the same time, unless there is a formal context for it. But uncovering FUD is not an urgent task, it’s a critical understanding. It isn’t a rapid dig for treasure, it’s a careful archaeological find.
Ask these four questions, and you will discover a theme. People cannot not tell their story.
An example: You hire a department lead. After a few months, you want to be aware of their FUD. She tells you that she is excited at her team’s positive response to her ideas and vision. She would like to see improvement in the way decisions are made within her team, and she admits that she is working on her ability to communicate better. She would like to bring in a system she once used for peer feedback so that she isn’t the only one evaluating a team member’s work. Lately, she has been wondering what she can do about her team missing deadlines.
The theme: she is feeling stonewalled because her team is saying one thing and doing another, and you know she is concerned that lack of progress will reflect on her competence.
Which brings us back to your CEO. This works for her or him too.
It isn’t listening if you aren’t responding
Fear, uncertainty and doubt are not facts to be known, they are enemies to be overcome, for the sake of the CEO, and, definitely, for your sake. Your experience rides on their FUD.
See that again, please: You can be aware of your own FUD, addressing your own threats, tests and triggers, and be frustrated because your self-awareness slams into someone else’s unawareness.
Unless you know what to do with what you know.
- Turn their theme into a statement of importance. “In talking with you lately, I sense it is important to you that______.”
- Determine a clear outcome (not an entire solution, but a step in the right direction). “What is one thing that would be a positive sign that progress is being made?”
- Insert yourself into the picture. “What is one thing I can do that will move things forward for you?”
- Posture yourself as in it with them and bring up the negative. “What is a concern that I can be watching out for with you?”
Please notice two things: I keep the issue “outside of them.” I’m not addressing their internal fear. We rarely have that relationship base. They are projecting FUD, so I concentrate on their need, not the root.
Second, I keep the focus on the positive outcome while recognizing that concerns are real.
Why do we want to uncover what our CEO and others wouldn’t otherwise tell us? Because we care, of course. And because we have a healthy dose of self-preservation. You don’t want to be perceived as a threat, assessed as weak or associated with a bad memory.
And you will be if you aren’t listening.
You can employ this in all aspects of your life. I guess people would call this a soft-skill. I don’t. I call it survival.
And love. I still say we could use more of that too.
