PART 03: THE TAO OF COMMUNICATION // TAKE IN

03 Understand Without Judgment

When we mix taking in with analyzing, we immediately shift the focus to our point of view; we shape our insights, ideas, and opinions before we fully understand those of our partners. Adding premature judgment into this mix eliminates any chance for deep communication. When we are judgmental in a real-time conversation, our partners feel they are not heard or misunderstood. As a result, they will be less inclined to listen to what we have to say next. But even when we engage with content shared with us offline, passing judgment before taking it in causes us to absorb less information and diminishes our ability to process it. As a result, our understanding is shallower. Instead of building our ideas on strong foundations, we build them on our shallow perceptions. 

Unfortunately, I know that from experience. For a long time, whenever I read an email, I immediately thought, “I know what comes next,” or worse: “I’ve heard it all before.” When I looked at a piece of data, I knew in under ten seconds, “It must be wrong” or “This is not surprising at all.” My reactions in face-to-face conversations weren’t all that different. I tried not to tell anyone what I thought about what they had just said (or were planning to say) before they had finished, but anyone could have seen right through me. When you are passing judgment in your head, you cannot hide it. Gradually (and understandably), the people I talked with became impatient. No one likes to speak with someone who thinks they know it all, even less so when they really don’t. 

I knew I didn’t “know it all.” My reactions resulted from rushing too quickly (practically simultaneously) to analyze what I read or heard. However, apart from harming my relationship with my colleagues, this communication mode was ineffective. It didn’t matter if I was right in my reaction 50% or even 90% of the time — I missed something 100% of the time. It didn’t matter if I rejected or accepted what I heard or if it seemed right or wrong. There was always a nuance that could have refined or reshaped my perspective if I had taken the time to understand it deeply. I didn’t keep the door open to learning something new. 

The only way to learn something new is to understand without judgment. Even if we later realize that a piece of information is not helpful or that something said is wrong, it can always teach us something valuable. In fact, we must assume any interaction can teach us something. Otherwise, we could have made progress on our own.

Taking in and understanding without judgment doesn’t come naturally to most people — especially in fast-paced environments. We act as if our goal is to understand faster and not necessarily better. We treat our interactions as a race, focusing on quick conclusions rather than thorough understanding. I know I did. So, at some point, I decided to reframe the challenge. I knew my mind was working non-stop, whether reading, watching, or interacting with others. Instead of letting it work to understand faster, I set a new challenge: uncovering as many insights as possible. I replaced the judgment mindset with a curiosity mindset. My brain is anything but idle when I am engaged in a conversation, but my goal is not to evaluate what is being said and move on quickly. My goal is to learn and perhaps even be surprised. I ask questions and follow-up questions. I make observations (not evaluations) to verify that I understand correctly. I try to approach what I believe I already understand from different directions to reveal nuances that are not obvious. I am anything but passive. Understanding without judgment does not mean nodding quietly. 

My ultimate goal during this stage of the interaction is to better understand my partners’ perspectives, the information they share, and their insights and ideas. I will have plenty of time to decide what to do with this knowledge later. 

As strange as it may sound, our partners might misinterpret our genuine curiosity. Our questions and observations might come across as judgmental. To mitigate this risk, we must explicitly state our intention: “We want to understand better.” When this goal is clearly articulated, we send a positive message to our partners and ourselves: We are not judging; we are learning.