Will Larson has the idea of inspected trust, when someone brings a problem you trust that it is a problem and then verify it independently through inspection. This directly applies to people management problems but can be generalized to any type of work1.
Will presents the example of a manager telling you that an employee is under performing. You trust that manager’s assessment is correct but verify it by inspecting yourself (talking to others or having a one-on-one with the direct.)
Types of Inspection
- Forum Inspection: Operating reviews
- Data: prepared data that may contain bias, this is second hand inspection
- Learning Spike: drilling deeply into a problem by talking to as many people as possible about it. You must go to the source and not intermediaries such as middle managers
- Fundamental intolerance for misalignment: when a leader drills into any confusion or misalignment in meetings or otherwise. Careful on use as it can be read as immaturity.