You don’t have to adopt Steve’s style to be a loud listener. Paul Saffo, an engineering professor at Stanford, describes a technique he calls “**strong opinions, weakly held**.” Saffo has made the point that expressing strong, some might say outrageous, positions with others is a good way to get to a better answer, or at least to have a more interesting conversation. I love this approach. I’ve always found that saying what I think really clearly and then going to great lengths to encourage disagreement is a good way to listen. **I tend to state my positions strongly, so I have had to learn to follow up with, “Please poke holes in this idea—I know it may be terrible. So tell me all the reasons we should not do that.”** Once I put a YOU WERE RIGHT, I WAS WRONG trophy on somebody’s desk after her position on something proved to be correct and mine dead wrong. --- **Tags** — [[quotes]] , [[challenging-others]], [[collaboration]], [[culture]], [[management]] **Source** — [[202303281533 - B - Radical Candor]]