To listen well, get curious | benkuhn.net
When I’ve listened the most effectively to people, it’s because I was intensely curious—I was trying to build a detailed, precise understanding of what was going on in their head.| benkuhn.net
When I started dating my partner, I quickly noticed that grad school was making her very sad. This was shortly after I’d started leading an engineering team at Wave, and so the “obvious” hypothesis to me was that the management (okay, “management”) one gets in graduate school is totally ineffective. Most graduate students, including Eve, start school right after college, i.e., without much clue about how to effectively do self-directed work.| benkuhn.net
When I’ve listened the most effectively to people, it’s because I was intensely curious—I was trying to build a detailed, precise understanding of what was going on in their head.| benkuhn.net
My favorite thing about working at Wave is knowing that what we’re building makes a massive, tangible improvement to the lives of millions of people. This matters to me for a few reasons: It pushes me to do my best work. When I know that what I’m working on is going to be useful to lots of people, it makes it easy to focus on what’s important, and to stay determined when things aren’t going well.| www.wave.com
