Chad Silverstein explains a leadership communication discipline: asking team members to "play back" (repeat) what they heard. He argues that mixed messages are common, people interpret messages through their own context, and leaders should pause, watch for micro-reactions, and request playback to catch and correct unintended meanings before they cause conflict.
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There are certain disciplines that leaders can adopt that are so powerful, and one of them is play it back. Play back what you heard. Because communication is at the root of so much conflict on so many teams, and there are so many mixed messages being sent every single day. And if you're a leader and you stand up in front of your team, or if you have a huddle or if you are calling people and having meetings one on one, you can be sure that most people are not hearing what you want them to hear. And they may shake their head that they are listening, but they're thinking what they think and they're hearing wherever they are. And there's nothing worse than having people sabotage on your team or walk away after hearing something and not catching what you wanted them to hear. And a lot of times it may be the leader's fault because they're sharing too much information or because they sandwiched in what they wanted to hear between. Between two other pieces of information because they were scared and they were kind of being a wimp around hitting something really hard, so they were sandwiching it in. And when you can stop and pause and slow down and ask someone, play back what you heard. And I usually do this when I can pick up those micro messages, I see someone wince. They kind of like, you could see their face expression change, they shift in their chair. You could tell you said something that kind of struck them and you're thinking, wait, what did I just say? Ask, ask them, what did you hear? Tell me what you heard. And I would say, more times than not, you're going to be able to course correct whatever it is they heard, and it'll save you so much time and energy down the road when something bubbles up and you're getting called out for something you said months ago or weeks ago, and meanwhile, you didn't even remember what you said. But they do. And so if you just build into your discipline to ask the team and ask your teammates what they heard when you're talking and make sure that you don't go too long without asking that question, you'll be able to catch so many mixed messages that you did not intend to send. And again, there's just nothing worse than having someone walk away thinking something that you did not want them to think. And actually in your brain you were thinking, I said the exact opposite. But again, people hear things wherever they are, and everybody is unique and has a story and has something going on, and they can miss part of what you said and just come to their own conclusion and assume and I'd say in this context, the leaders have to be good leaders and have people play back. But if you're listening to a leader, even if you're a leader yourself, you've got to make sure that you clarify things that you hear that don't sound right. And if you hear something that makes you upset because it didn't feel right, then you should follow up and confirm what you heard is right so that you're going to give your leader an opportunity to correct whatever they said. Because again, if you're assuming something and it's not true, there's nothing worse. People quit their jobs, people ruin relationships because of these mixed messages that get sent. So again, if you lead and you're standing up in front of people, half the people hearing one thing, half the people hearing another, playback what you heard, you're going to give everybody in your target audience a gift by being able to repeat what you said. And unfortunately, people need to hear things repeated 10,000 times before it sinks in. And the curse of knowledge that a leaders have that everyone should just know because you've said it so many times. If you're hiring people and you got people in there that are brand new, they haven't heard it, and you may have feel like you've said it 10,000 times, but it doesn't matter. And it's not the reality of what people have heard from you. So play back what you heard. It's a powerful, powerful discipline. Adopt it.
