Episode
Don’t "Get the Gist." Get the Details.
- Podcast
- The Buoyant Leader
- Published
- Apr 2, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 330
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Summary
You're in a one-on-one with a direct report. They're telling you about a problem — maybe a project that's off the rails, a team dynamic that's souring, or a client relationship that's circling the drain. About thirty seconds in, you get it. You can see the whole thing in your mind. You know what's going on, and you probably already know what they should do about it. Guess what? You're almost certainly wrong. Not about the general shape of the situation. You've been doing this long enough that your pattern-matching is excellent. But about the specific reality this person is living in? The details that actually matter? You're running on a movie your brain invented — complete with set design, lighting, and a cast of characters straight out of your brain’s best simulation of Central Casting. I see this constantly in my coaching work. A leader comes in with something like, "My team just isn't stepping up." Or: "I keep getting pulled into the weeds." Or: "I've got a senior person who's checked out." My instinct is to immediately start solving. I can see the situation. I can see the checked-out senior leader scrolling through their phone in a meeting. I can see the overwhelmed VP staying late to redo their team's work. I've constructed a vivid mental movie, and I believe it. But it's a total fantasy. My brain is constructing reality, like it always does. And that means that my solutions, which will work perfectly in the theater of my mind, always fall flat in the real world. As a coach, I’ve learned to insert a simple but powerful technique between an initial description of a problem and an in-depth diagnosis. I become a movie director. Instead of working from the generalized story, I ask for a specific scene. Not "tell me what usually happens" but "tell me about a specific t…