This is Johanna Rothman’s April 2026 Pragmatic Manager Newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this newsletter.
During a recent conference, I was on a panel with some really smart colleagues. One of the first audience questions was, “What's your most valuable management tool?”
Some of the other panelists mentioned how they use their LLMs to validate product ideas. That's a good one because the faster a team can validate a product idea, the less they might need to do. (Ideas are not the problem—we all have many ideas. But knowing which ideas will entice more buyers? That's useful—and validation can help.)
Another panelist explained how they used spreadsheets against their senior leaders. We all laughed at that.
Then, it was my turn. I said, “Listen to your people. Active listening, not trying to figure out how to respond. But listening so you understand what they're really saying.”
I then told two stories of active listening.
Active Listening Story 1: Consult to Probe for Hidden Risks
Early in my consulting career, I taught a series of project management workshops at a Boston-area company. Because they felt as if they could not afford the time for my full workshop, they wanted to decide which parts of project management I would teach and to whom.
Dan, the CIO, and his half-dozen directors and I gathered in a conference room. I handed out the initial options sheet as a strawman proposal. They discussed each option in depth, explaining which options each of their teams needed. They each told a story about which aspects of project management they needed.
At the end of the discussion, Dan asked everyone for their opinions. (I had never seen a senior leader do that before.) Then, he asked more insightful questions as each director explained their position.
Since I'd worked with these people before, I could see that they felt comfortable, even with Dan's probing questions. Then I realized why.
Every single person in that room had the same objective: How to provide the most practical learning for the shortest time invested. If they could expose any hidden risks, that would help the CIO make the final decision after hearing everything. This management approach, of consultation with experts, required that everyone listen to everyone else.
Up until then, I'd only seen managers tell me their decision. Or worse, blame me when they said the decision was mine. Active listening helped Dan decide what to delegate and where to find risks.
I learned as much from them as they did from me.
Active Listening Story 2: Receipt for Comprehension
At one of my director-level jobs, the entire organization seemed to lurch from one chaotic event to another. But one manager, Tom, seemed to have a level of serenity no one else did. At one point, I asked Tom his secret: why was he able to manage so capably when we were all frantic?
He smiled and said, “When I delegate, I always check on receipt for comprehension.”
I am sure I looked at him a little sideways. “I don't understand.”
Tom grinned even more widely and said, “Exactly! I want you to ask questions when you don't understand. That's why receipt for comprehension works so well for everyone, including managers.”
I nodded slowly, sure I was going to learn something important.
He continued. “You had a question. Since you told me you didn't understand, we can now discuss this specific problem.”
I nodded, still unsure of where he was headed.
“We will continue to discuss this until you tell me that you understand. If I ask you to do something and then walk away, do I know that you know what to do? No. I do not. That's not sufficient delegation because I have not checked your receipt for comprehension. Instead, if I check with you on each step—which requires that we both listen to each other—then, at the end of our conversation, you know what to do. In addition, we probably know when to check in with each other. That might not prevent chaos, but it decreases it dramatically.”
I said, “Oh, so the receipts go both ways. You check that I understand you. I get to check with you, to understand what's unclear or I have concerns about. Then, you and I both know that I understand, that I comprehend.”
Tom beamed. “Exactly. Receipt for comprehension goes both ways. Never one way. Both. That's the value of listening to each other.”
From the audience's reactions, I was sure they had not heard of receipt for comprehension. But this listening story made sense.
That's when I went a little meta, explaining how stories allow us to listen better.
Stories Can Help with Active Listening
While these stories might have been new to this audience, I am sure the audience had seen or experienced similar interactions. Now they had terms to go with those interactions. While stories have entertainment value, they help us learn from one another and listen more carefully. Part of what we learn is the context that is relevant to the story. That's why stories work when facts might not.
I could have said something like this to the audience: “When managers listen, they build more trust with the people they lead and serve.”
That's true. And does anything in that fact prompt you to change how you listen? Probably not. Worse, we've all seen people “discuss” when all they actually do is marshal their arguments against each other. That's not active listening. It's active arguing.
But in each of these conversations, Dan and the directors focused on their overarching goal. When Tom explained “receipt for comprehension,” he focused on explaining the idea so I could learn, so I could understand his overarching goal
When we offer each other stories, we tend to wait to hear how the story ends before thinking about how to respond. As we learn the context, we can see where our goals match the speaker's and where they do not. That allows us to integrate this information with our experience and choose our next action.
Active listening has become one of my most important management and consulting tools. You might find it useful, too.
Read More…
This newsletter touches on ideas in these books:
- All three of the Modern Management Made Easy books
- Successful Independent Consulting: Relationships That Focus on Mutual Benefit
- Effective Public Speaking: How to Use Content Marketing With Stories to Show Your Value
Announcements
If you are part of the agile community, consider checking out The Enterprise Agility Network. Also, don’t miss out on discounted membership options. Use Discount Code: ROTHMANPMC33 to get 33% OFF all memberships.
Now that the Kickstarter is over, I am getting Effective Public Speaking: How to Use Content Marketing With Stories to Show Your Value out to all the stores in all the formats. I expect to have the ebook and audiobook in my store this week.
Links of Interest
New to the newsletter? See previous issues. (I post these newsletters to my YouTube Channel a few days after I send them.)
Here are other links you might find useful:
- Managing Product Development Blog. (Yes, I offer an RSS feed so you can read everything in a newsreader.)
- Create an Adaptable Life Blog to see the weekly question of the week.
- My Books. You can also buy my self-published ebooks and audiobooks on my store.
- Johanna’s Fiction
- Tip Jar. (My newsletters will remain free. And I do want to offer you an option for you to show how much you value my work.)
Johanna
© 2026 Johanna Rothman
Pragmatic Manager: Vol 23, #4. ISSN: 2164-1196