Are you seeking facts or assurances?

The “How is it going?” question can be a request for either facts or assurances.

When a boss or client asks the question, he/she typically wants both – the facts accompanied with the assurance that it will be okay.

It’s tempting to skip the facts and just give the assurance. Like most other things, giving assurances can become a habit, both personal and organizational.

The assurance culture is why large organizations fail to move unless they are threatened with extinction (some fail to move even then.). When that happens, you can be sure that the assurance culture has taken over. When everyone around says everything is okay, why would you believe otherwise? And, if you did continue to question the belief, you’d probably just get yourself fired.

The difficulty with making fact-giving a habit is that it requires a willingness to listen, to repeatedly dive in to solve problems, and to repeatedly brace yourself for news you may not want to hear.

The flip side is that it leads to better communication, faster problem solving and, a habit of actually doing something instead of simply talking about doing things. The facts may not be pretty, but we learn to see things as they are rather than how we would like them to be.