What a freaking week.
I started Monday believing I knew what today's newsletter would be about.
By Thursday, I realized I had been writing about the wrong thing all week.
Every Friday, I sit down to write the next Better Hiring Conversations newsletter. Usually by Monday, I think I know where it is going. By Tuesday, I have a pretty good outline forming in my head. Then Wednesday and Thursday bring conversations that either reinforce the idea or completely change it.
This week changed it. I thought I was writing about the time I raised my hand in the Army. Then I thought I was writing about a candidate who almost left his job because he was frustrated with his boss. By yesterday, I realized neither story was actually what had been following me around all week.
The real lesson was underneath both of them.
I've been reflecting on how quickly we assign meaning to what people do without fully understanding why they did it.
Years ago, while I was stationed at Fort Hood, I raised my hand for an opportunity. Looking back, it would be easy to tell that story as if I had some great sense of courage or purpose in that moment.
I did not. I raised my hand because I wanted to avoid dealing with my First Sergeant.
That was it.
I was not trying to change the direction of my life. I was not trying to become a leader. I was not thinking about serving anyone. I was simply trying to escape an uncomfortable situation. Yet that one decision placed me on a path that challenged me, changed me, and eventually put me in a position to help save another soldier.
The outcome became meaningful even though the original motivation was not.
Years later, I was sitting across from a candidate who had applied for one of our openings because he was frustrated with his boss.
On paper, there was nothing unusual about his application. It looked like every other resume that landed on my desk. He had applied, we scheduled a conversation, and everything suggested he was ready for a change.
At least that's what I thought.
But the longer we talked, the clearer it became that he did not really want a new employer. He wanted his current situation to change. Applying somewhere else felt easier than sitting down with his boss and having an honest conversation about what was bothering him.
I could have treated his frustration as an opportunity to recruit him away.
Instead, I encouraged him to have the conversation he had been avoiding. Those two moments happened years apart, but they have more in common than I first realized.
In both cases, the visible action did not tell the whole story.
My raised hand did not mean what someone watching from across the room might have assumed it meant. His application did not mean what a recruiter reviewing a resume might have assumed it meant.
The action was real. The assumption behind it would have been incomplete. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how often we do this in recruiting and leadership.
Someone applies for another job, and we assume they are ready to leave. Someone turns down a promotion, and we assume they lack ambition. Someone stays quiet during a meeting, and we assume they have nothing to contribute. Someone becomes frustrated, and we assume they have a bad attitude. Someone resigns, and we assume it is about money. The list continues when we really get granular.
Sometimes those assumptions are right. Sometimes they are completely wrong.
More often than not, we are looking at one chapter and convincing ourselves we know the whole book.
Maybe that is why recruiting has taught me so much about life.
A resume can tell me where someone has worked, and an application can tell me they were willing to take a step. An interview may give me the chance to hear part of their story.
But none of those things, on their own, tell me what is really happening beneath the surface.
That takes a conversation. It takes patience. It takes listening long enough for the first answer to become the honest answer. Sometimes it also takes being willing to hear an answer that may not benefit us.
A recruiter may realize the candidate is better off staying where they are. A leader may discover that an employee is not disengaged at all, but discouraged. A parent may begin to see that a child is not trying to be difficult. They just do not know how to explain what they are feeling. A spouse may realize the silence they took personally was really exhaustion.
Understanding someone does not always lead where we thought it would.
Sometimes it changes the outcome completely.
I've spent much of my career trying to become better at asking questions. This week reminded me that better questions are only part of it. We also have to leave enough room for the answers to challenge the story we've already written in our minds.
The older I get, the less interested I become in judging the first step. I'm becoming much more interested in what caused it.
Not every raised hand is an act of courage. Not every application means someone wants to leave. Not every resignation is about money.
Sometimes the first thing we see is only the beginning of the story.
And if we stop there, we may completely miss the conversation that needed to happen.