The Sweet Spot: Where Candor Meets Curiosity

This article is adapted from Ted's Smart Thinking podcast episode 370: A Conversation with a Conversation Expert: Craig Weber.

There's a moment I'll never forget from working with one of our district leadership teams. We had just introduced Craig Weber's conversational capacity framework, and I watched a seasoned administrator lean forward in her chair, take a deep breath, and say, "Okay, I want to be very... I'm just going to try. Okay. I'm going to do my... okay."

"Just say it," someone encouraged.

"Well, I want to be candid here, but I'm being cautious."

"Just say it."

And she did. And you know what happened? Absolutely nothing bad. The sky didn't fall. Relationships didn't shatter. Instead, everyone in the room leaned in, curious and ready to engage. Someone responded with, "Well, why was that so hard?"

She paused, looked around the table, and said, "You know, I've never really said stuff like that before."

That's the moment everything changes.

The Buffalo Knows: Sometimes You Have to Face the Storm

Here's what I've learned working with educational leaders across Wisconsin: we spend our entire careers building relationships, developing trust, and creating collegial atmospheres. And ironically, that's exactly what can keep us from having the conversations that matter most.

Think about it like a buffalo in a blizzard. When a storm rolls across the plains, cattle turn and run from it, trying to escape the wind and cold. But they're running in the same direction as the storm, so they stay in it longer, burning precious energy the whole time. Buffalo, on the other hand, do something remarkable. They turn and face the storm, walking directly into it. They get through it faster and conserve their strength.

We need to be more like the buffalo. We need to walk directly into our most difficult conversations, not because conflict is fun, but because avoiding them keeps us in the storm longer.

The Paradox of Good Relationships

Craig Weber tells a story that perfectly captures what I see in schools and organizations everywhere. He worked with an executive team in Silicon Valley, people who genuinely liked each other. Their families knew each other. They did birthdays and barbecues together. By all accounts, they had built the kind of positive culture we're all striving for.

But their marketing VP pulled Craig aside and said something that stopped him cold: "The problem is we get on really well. It's a collegial atmosphere. What's great about this team is there are no jerks on it." Then he paused. "The problem is there are all sorts of really critical issues and decisions we need to be grappling with as a team because of the growth we're experiencing and an IPO we're gearing up for. And none of these issues are hitting the table because no one wants to become the team's first jerk."

Read that again. They were so focused on maintaining their positive culture that they were avoiding the very conversations that could help them succeed.

If that hits close to home, you're not alone. The longer people work together, the more hesitant they often become about stepping into authentic dialogue. We don't want to hurt feelings. We don't want to look stupid in front of people we respect. We don't want to damage relationships we value. And ironically, it's the quality of the relationship that can actually lower our conversational capacity.

Welcome to the Sweet Spot

So what's the answer? Craig calls it the sweet spot, and it's become one of the most powerful concepts I've ever introduced to leadership teams.

Picture yourself in a really difficult meeting where something important is being addressed. The sweet spot is that place where you have bright, smart, committed people around the table, and simultaneously, you're getting full access to their smarts. Those are two different things.

Here's what makes the sweet spot so productive: it's this balance between two variables. We need high candor so the conversations are honest, open, forthright, and very direct. You're not wondering what your teammates are thinking about the issue being addressed. But raw, unadulterated candor alone isn't a good thing.

In the sweet spot, candor is balanced with lots of curiosity. People are open minded. They're inquisitive. They're intellectually humble. They're eager to learn.

Here's how you know when a team has high conversational capacity: when there's a strong difference of opinion, you don't see people getting defensive, upset, or argumentative. You see them getting interested.

"Oh, interesting. Ted hates my idea. This just got interesting. The guy's smart. He's got tons of experience. And he thinks my idea is boneheaded. This just got interesting."

That shift in perspective changes everything.

The Language of Wonder

After we read Craig's book and implemented it with several teams, I noticed something beautiful happening. People started using what I call the language of wonder. Instead of saying "I'm accusing" or "Who do you think you are?" they started saying "I'm wondering."

It's such a simple shift, but it's incredibly powerful. "I'm wondering" is non-threatening. It invites dialogue. It creates space for someone to share their thinking without feeling attacked.

But here's what's equally important: curiosity without candor is just as problematic as candor without curiosity. I've seen people weaponize false curiosity. They ask leading questions designed to trap rather than understand. They use "I'm just curious..." as a passive-aggressive way to criticize.

Real conversational capacity requires both. You need the courage to be candid about what you think, and you need the humility to be genuinely curious about what others think. That's the sweet spot. That's where the magic happens.

When Authority Walks Into the Room

Let me share something that might make some leaders uncomfortable: nothing lowers conversational capacity more predictably than the presence of authority.

Think about that. If you're a superintendent, a principal, or a director, your job is to build a team that really works well. You walk in the room, and it works less. That's a real management conundrum.

Craig shared a story about an executive at an engineering firm who recognized this problem. He was super smart, owned the company, and had a very aggressive personality. He said, "I got the smartest engineers in Silicon Valley, and no one's telling me anything." He tried asking, "Tell me, what do you think? Where am I off base?" Nothing. It did not work.

So he tried something different. He said, "Here's the decision I need to make. Let me lay out my reasoning. Here's why I think it's the best decision to make. Here's what I'm going to do. I want to get your input on this before I make the decision. To help you do that, I'm going to leave the room for 30 minutes. When I come back in a half hour, let's have at least three concerns up on the board, and let's work them through together one at a time."

Brilliant.

He gave his team time in his absence to wrestle with the issue, speaking in candid ways. Putting the feedback on the board made it more neutral territory. And when he came back, he didn't sit in the captain's chair at the front of the room where he would normally hold court. Instead, he left the front of the room to his engineering team and sat at the far corner of the table with a blank pad of paper. All he said was, "What'd you come up with?"

He called it the best meeting ever. He couldn't believe how much more value he got out of that team.

There's a quote from David Cote, the CEO of Honeywell, that captures this perfectly: "My job is to be right at the end of the meeting, not at the beginning of it."

Leaning Into Difference

One of the core ideas in Craig's framework is something we desperately need in education right now: we must lean into our differences. We're not just tolerating people with different views. We're actually seeking them out.

Think about it. If you've got a really strong finance orientation, what does the marketing person think about this issue? Where's HR at on the decision? If you've been somewhere for 20 years and tend to have pretty strong opinions about how things should work, what do the newer members on the team think? They might be looking at this with fresher eyes.

And yes, that includes generational differences. Every generation complains about the next generation coming up. And by the way, they're the generation we created. But instead of complaining, what if we looked at generational differences as just another lens, another framework? What might it teach us about the problem we're trying to solve?

Research shows that younger generations bring a different mindset to the workplace. They have different expectations in terms of the quality of the work, the meaning of the work, and how engaged they want to be. They tolerate less meaningless work. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so.

So let's use that as a new lens to look at the work we're doing and see how we might ratchet it up a notch or two and make it more engaging. We may not be able to give them everything they want, but let's have a conversation about it that might help us make some smarter choices than we would otherwise.

Differences are like Easter eggs scattered throughout your organization. "Ooh, I found another Easter egg. There's an insight I would have been completely blind to if I hadn't been curious and leaned into difference."

Creating Your Conversational Code of Conduct

Here's something practical you can do right now with your team: create a conversational code of conduct. Don't leave it to chance that people understand the structure. Codify the behavioral norms you want to try to adopt in your team, school, or organization.

One of the things we evolved off of Craig's framework is this: at the start of big meetings, we ask what are things we should or shouldn't do while we are together. So we should be candid. We should be curious. We should not hold back. We should not let Ted tell stories or wander on ideas. (Okay, that one's specific to me, but you get the point.)

It's immediate. It's relevant to whoever's in the room. It creates the culture for that specific meeting.

Then we close out the meeting assessing: did we live by our shoulds and shouldn'ts? Why or why not?

Another team I know holds up their hands at the end of every meeting and rates themselves on a scale of one to five. How good a job did we do today at staying in the sweet spot? Okay, looks like we gave ourselves a three. What do we need to get a higher score in the next meeting? More curiosity. Great. So the next meeting starts with: okay, last time we gave ourselves a three, we said we were somewhat lacking on the curiosity side. Let's see if we can get ourselves a higher score today.

They track this over time with a simple trend graph. Takes about 30 seconds. But it has a huge effect because they're actually paying more attention in a consistent way to those agreements they came up with.

The Constructive vs. Destructive Dividing Line

I want to close with something Craig said that completely reframed how I think about disagreements, whether in the workplace or in the broader world.

He was quoting Steve Jobs, who said in a conversation with Rupert Murdoch that the dividing line in American politics (and I'd argue in any organization) is not between progressives and conservatives, between Republicans and Democrats, or between any traditional opposing groups. That's a false distinction.

The dividing line is between people who are constructive and people who are destructive. That's where the fight's taking place.

There are constructive, good people on every side of every issue. And there are destructive people who are in it for themselves or for reasons other than making their community, organization, or team a better place.

The question isn't whether someone agrees with you. The question is whether they're trying to build something or tear something down.

That's a lens I want you to carry into your next difficult conversation.

What This Feels Like in Real Life

Let me bring this full circle. When you implement conversational capacity with your team, here's what it feels like: it feels good. Really good.

An unspoken expectation can never be met. Craig's framework gives people permission to lead. It gives them permission to be honest. It gives them permission to be curious without it seeming like a challenge.

I've watched teams transform. I've seen the relief on people's faces when they realize they can finally say what they've been thinking. I've watched curiosity replace defensiveness. I've seen people lean into differences instead of avoiding them.

Does it always work perfectly? No. Some conversations will be messy. Some people will resist. But here's what Craig taught me: you cannot control every variable in a conversation or meeting, not even close. You can try your best to be a constructive variable. How do you make this conversation a little less defensive, a little less messy, a little less off the rails than it would have been if you weren't there?

Is it perfect? No. Can you control all the variables? No. But can you at least lay your head on your pillow at night and say, "I didn't make the situation worse. They came at me really hot. At least I didn't get defensive and argue back. I handled myself as well as I could have."

Yeah. That'll work.

Your Turn to Step Into the Storm

So here's my challenge to you: identify one relationship or one team where you've been avoiding a difficult conversation. Not because you're a coward, but because you care so much about the relationship that you don't want to risk it.

Now ask yourself: what's the cost of continuing to avoid it? What opportunities are you missing? What problems are you allowing to persist?

Then practice the language of the sweet spot. "I want to be candid with you about something that's been on my mind. And I'm genuinely curious about your perspective on it."

That's it. That's the buffalo turning to face the storm. That's the sweet spot in action.

Because at the end of the day, our job as leaders isn't to be comfortable. Our job is to be right at the end of the meeting, not at the beginning of it. Our job is to create spaces where the smartest people we know can bring their best thinking to the most important challenges we face.

And that only happens when we have the courage to be candid and the humility to be curious.

Let's do some smart thinking together.

Want to learn more about building conversational capacity in your team or district? Reach out to discuss how we can help you create a culture where candor and curiosity thrive together.