What do you think?

~5 years ago I moved into a TL role in a team environment that was operating with a lot of contention. Team members were talking past each other, opinions were heavily at play, and it was difficult to get changes landed.

If this sounds familiar, I’ll share one tiny little tool I introduced that was deceptive in its effectiveness.

That tool? Simply end your opinions / comments / emails with one question:

“What do you think?”

This simple question opens the door for discussion by transforming what would otherwise have been a monologue into a dialogue. Even if you did just write a long, opinionated comment, simply asking this question can significantly change the energy of the communication.

At the end of the day, most of us just want to know that other people care about us.

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