The Coaching Habit

heavy hints you’d made were sufficient; or assumed that the
slightly passive-aggressive comment was enough. Sometimes the
responsibility for unheard requests rests with the people you’re
asking. They’re pursuing their own agendas, or their confirmation
bias means they hear something completely different from what
you’re saying, or they’re fake-listening and not really paying
attention at all.
But even if you know what you want, and you ask for what you
want, and it seems to be heard, it’s often hard to hear the answer
to your request, which might be not Yes but rather No. Or Maybe.
O r Not that, but this instead. And on the other side of the
conversation, it can be hard to understand that when someone
makes a request, when she tells you what she wants, you don’t
actually have to say Yes. You can say No. Or Maybe. Or Not that,
but this instead.
You can see there are many reasons that the ship of “What do
you want?” might never make it out of the harbour. George
Bernard Shaw put it succinctly when he said, “The single biggest
problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken
place.”

The illusion that both parties to the

conversation know what the other party

wants is pervasive, and it sets the stage for

plenty of frustrating exchanges.