Flow control…

Yesterday, I had a flash back to my previous work at CompuServe.  I was listening to my client tell me about his desire to talk less when he’s with his team.  He is a consummate learner with a ton to tell.  Pablo would have been proud of what came out of my mouth next, he just would.

I told my client that he needed to practice some “flow control.”  I borrowed the term from some technical training, “back in the day.”  Way back.  The CompuServe cloud, if you will, was one of the ways we described our network and one of the key features of this “shared” network was the smart micro-nodes that were distributed throughout the world.  They kept the integrity of your data intact a number of ways, one of which was by “flow controlling” itself so it didn’t get over-run.  It was smart enough to slow down the transmission in and out to get the job done.  Funny, huh.

The same is true for us.  When we send all that we’ve got to our team, even when it’s really good stuff, they get overwhelmed.  They lose data.  They oftentimes miss the message or have it so garbled up that they can’t make sense of it when they try to process and put it back together on their own.

Today, with your teams, practice flow controlling yourself.  Let them “send” to their hearts content.  You, not so much.  Receive all their signals, take them in, ask them good challenging questions, and give them your belief that they can get it done.  AND, send them about 2% of what you’ve got.  2%.

2%.

I think that’s actually where the saying “my two cents worth”  originated.  I just do.

Leaders, send 2% and receive 100.  I’m not certain, but I think I need a bigger micro-node…