We’re worried about…

That was the phrase that stayed with me after spending time last week with the people helping build a new experience—product, tech, user experience, project managers and business partners.

For many of us, our conversations had mostly lived on Zoom and Teams. Being together in the same room was different. I could see how deeply everyone cared about getting this right. Then I sat with someone who will actually use what we’re building. They shared what they liked, talked about a feature they really wanted, and then….

…they told us what they were worried about.

That may have been the most important thing I heard all week. It wasn’t a complaint. It was context: I have a job to do, and here’s the part I’m worried might make that job harder.. Years ago, an executive told me I would be good at stakeholder engagement because I have a great deal of empathy. Believe me, empathy can be both a blessing and a curse. I worry. I pick up on how people are feeling. But in this role, that may be the very thing making the greatest difference.

Empathy means resisting the urge to defend what we’ve built or explain why it works the way it does. It means understanding what sits underneath the worry. Everyone involved in change carries a different version of it. The people building may worry about getting it right. The project team may worry about timing. The product team may worry about delivering what matters most. And the person using it may simply worry about being able to do their job well.

None of those worries are wrong. They’re information.

Maybe one of the most valuable questions we can ask is also one of the simplest: What are you worried about?

And then comes the harder part…Can we listen long enough to really understand the answer?