A View You Cannot Support
Saying you do not know is a real answer and is almost never the one given. What to say instead of a guess.
three things · one reached them · one with no channel at all · the room side is not counted
The three questions a promotion panel will ask.
Somebody will ask what you think of a person on your team, informally, in a corridor or on a call, and for the person you rarely see the honest answer is frequently that you do not have enough to go on.
The evidence problem in “A View You Cannot Support” is easier to discuss when the underlying record can be inspected and corrected. A nonprofit reviewing how to monitor employees without being intrusive for how to monitor employees without being intrusive should use time and project context as one input, explain the collection to staff and volunteers, and keep consequential judgements with an accountable manager.
Almost nobody gives that answer, and the substitute does real damage.
The questions raised by “A View You Cannot Support” can also be compared with Bridgespan nonprofit guidance. A useful review identifies a responsible owner and a practical change rather than copying a generic checklist.
The shape of the request
Casual and consequential. "How is he getting on?" asked by somebody who will remember the answer, repeat it, and act on it when a name comes up later.
It does not feel like an assessment and it functions as one.
Why the honest answer is rare
Because it sounds like a failure of management. A manager who does not know how one of their people is getting on appears not to be doing their job, and the questioner is unlikely to hear the structural explanation.
So something gets said. Usually something mild and general, which is then repeated without the mildness, and within two moves the team's view of somebody has been set by a sentence their manager invented under mild social pressure.
What the substitute usually is
An impression dressed as a judgement. "Fine, I think — quiet, but fine." "Solid. Not sure he has really found his feet yet."
Both are guesses and both will be quoted.
The answer that does the work, beside the one usually given:
Her written work is the strongest on the team and I can show you three examples. I see less of how she handles people than I would like, because we are not in the same building.
Fine, I think. Quiet, but fine.
Why these phrases travel so well
Because they are short, memorable, and faintly negative, and faintly negative travels further than positive. "Has not quite found his feet" will be repeated verbatim six months later by somebody who has never met him.
The person it is about will never hear it, cannot answer it, and will experience only its effects.
The answer that works
Say what you actually know, say what you do not, and say why. "Her written work is the strongest on the team and I can show you. I see less of how she handles people than I would like, because we are not in the same building."
It is two sentences and it is accurate.
Why it works better than hedging
Because it gives the questioner something usable and tells them the limits of it, which is what they actually need. It also makes the missing part visible as a gap in your information rather than as a deficiency in the person.
That distinction is the entire point.
When you have nothing at all
Say so, and say what you will do about it. "I have not read her work properly this quarter and I am not going to guess. Ask me in three weeks."
The three weeks has to be real.
The version to avoid entirely
Repeating somebody else's unattributed impression. "I have heard she is a bit hard to reach" passes along a claim you cannot source and makes you its new source.
If it matters enough to repeat, it matters enough to check, and checking takes one conversation with the person concerned.
Who asks these questions
Frequently somebody deciding something: whether to put a name forward, whether to ask somebody to join a piece of work, whether to raise somebody in a calibration meeting.
Treat every one of them as though it will be acted upon, because several of them will be.
What to do afterwards
If you gave a thin answer, go and get a better one. The question has told you that somebody is forming a view of your person on the basis of what you say, which is a reason to have something to say.
Then go back to the person who asked.
Telling your own person about it
Where somebody has been asked about and you gave a limited answer, it is worth telling them — not the content, but the fact that these questions circulate and that your answer is only as good as what you can see.
It usually produces an offer to show you more of their work, which is exactly the right outcome.
What this cannot prevent
The conversations you are not part of. Other people will form views of your team members from fragments, repeat them, and act on them, and you will hear about perhaps a fifth of it.
What is within reach is not being the source of a guess yourself, and making sure that when you are asked you have something real to say about everybody rather than about the people you sit with. That is a small discipline with a long reach, because a manager's offhand sentence about somebody is frequently the most influential thing ever said about them, and it is almost always said without preparation.