The 6 Lenses I Use to Read People (and the One Conversation That Changes Everything)

Six Lenses and One Conversation

A Leadership Talk for Rising Managers

(The speaker walks to center stage, no slides, no notes. They stand still for a moment, scanning the room.)

Good morning.

I'm not going to use slides. I'm not going to tell you how to hit your quarterly numbers. You already know that part. I'm here to talk about something messier: how to see people clearly, and how to make sure the people above you see you clearly. Two sides of the same coin. I've spent over twenty years in management—tech, finance, a couple of startups—and I've made enough expensive mistakes to boil it down to six lenses for judging others, and one story about talking upward.

We'll do the six lenses first. Then I'll tell you about David Fang.

Lens 1: Watch what they become, not what they can do

Early on, I hired a brilliant engineer named Alex. In his first three months, he fixed two legacy bugs that had haunted us for over a year—hero stuff. Six months in, he started grabbing projects, elbowing people out of the way, and shooting down every idea that wasn't his. I sat him down. "What's going on?" He said, "I want to own something bigger." I asked, "What does 'bigger' mean to you?"

Silence.

Turns out, he didn't want bigger responsibility. He wanted everyone reporting to him. When he left, he quietly took a core module's documentation with him—not out of malice, but because he genuinely believed "I wrote it, so it's mine."

I stopped asking "What can they do?" I started watching "Who do they become after they get what they want?"

• People driven by money stay as long as the check clears.

• People driven by recognition fold on tough calls.

• People driven by power will use you as a step.

• People driven by getting things done are the ones you keep.

Skills can be taught. The deep architecture of desire cannot.

Lens 2: Don't listen to what they say—watch what they choose

When things are good, everyone's a saint. The real filter shows up in three moments.

First, how are spoils divided? I had a sales manager, Kevin, who always volunteered to give up his bonus—except he only gave up the part that wasn't really his. When it was his own money, he gave up nothing and made sure the entire room heard exactly what he'd contributed. That's not humility. That's calculation.

Second, who steps up when things go wrong? I once promoted a consultant, Brian—articulate, sharp, the whole package. A client project crashed. At the post-mortem, Brian said: "Requirements weren't aligned upfront." "Resources lagged in the middle." "Testing was rushed at the end." Three sentences, three different subjects—none of them himself. Everything he said was true. But his first instinct was "not my fault." Right there I knew he couldn't lead.

Third, what do they do when no one's watching? It's late, after a long day. Do they just shut their laptop and walk out—or do they turn off the lights, push in their chair, and pre-load tomorrow's materials? First is smart. Second is reliable. Smart people perform for the boss. Reliable people execute to their own standard.

Put these three together, and you see a person's behavioral inertia. No amount of eloquence can mask it.

Lens 3: Don't judge whether their answer is right—watch how steady they are when challenged

I use a little test. In meetings, I interrupt and point out a flaw in someone's proposal—sometimes real, sometimes a straw man. Then I watch.

Type one: immediate pushback. Louder, faster, pulling up spreadsheets to prove they're right. Smart but fiercely defensive. Every piece of feedback from then on is a fight. Huge communication cost.

Type two: silence, then explanation. "Well, at the time…" Their first move is to find external reasons. They're not defending against "I was wrong." They're defending against "I'm imperfect." You can coach them, but it's exhausting.

Type three: pause for one or two seconds, then ask, "What would you suggest I change?" Rarest of all. Their first instinct isn't "me." It's "the work."

I later learned a term: cognitive bandwidth. How much mental capacity is left when you're under attack. Narrow bandwidth freezes up, protecting ego. Wide bandwidth treats the challenge as new information. The real danger isn't low ability. It's high ability with narrow bandwidth—smart but unreachable. They'll cause a blowup sooner or later.

Lens 4: Don't look at how long they've done something—watch how they approach something they've never done

I rarely pick the candidate with the "most relevant experience." Experience expires.

I hired a junior named Sarah, fresh out of college, thrown into a project where we had no playbook, no benchmarks, nothing. Week one, she read everything. Week two, she wrote a list of "what I know for sure I don't know." Week three, she started cold-calling—peers at other firms, upstream vendors, people in completely unrelated industries that had solved analogous problems. Three months later, she was the most knowledgeable person in the company on that business.

She said: "I never studied this. But I did study how to learn something."

Give someone something completely out of their wheelhouse, and watch their opening move.

• "I need training" — student mindset.

• "Who knows this? I'll find them" — networker mindset.

• "Let me build a minimum viable test and iterate" — founder mindset.

Don't pick the smartest. Smart people are often afraid of exposing ignorance. Pick the one who isn't afraid of the unfamiliar.

Lens 5: Don't look at how brilliant they've been—look at whether they can overthrow themselves

This is the hardest truth. I've seen too many people stop growing after forty. Not because they can't learn—because they can't delete. Their past successes become armor. Heavy, thick. They snap at anyone who taps on it.

I had a VP, Robert. Sterling track record, three-quarters of overachievement. Then the market flipped. His old playbook stopped working. I suggested a pivot. He showed me three decks of slides, all "proving" his original approach was still valid. He wasn't lying to me. He was lying to himself. Admitting "I'm no longer right" would mean admitting "I've been wrong for two years." Too high a price.

I replaced him. The new guy, Mark, came in and, in his first week, tore down the entire previous plan and rebuilt from scratch. Someone asked, "Aren't you afraid of being wrong?" He said: "It's better to be wrong and fix it, than to be right and have no one listen."

Whether someone can be kept long-term doesn't depend on how right they've been. It depends on how quickly they can say "I'll change" once they realize they've been wrong.

Lens 6: Don't look at whether they obey—look at whether they're stable

Many people think leaders want obedient employees. The truth: we want stable employees. Stability doesn't mean always saying yes. It means:

• If I give you a task, I have a reasonable idea of how you'll handle it.

• If there's a tempting offer, I have a reasonable idea of where you'll draw the line.

• If there's a sudden crisis, I have a reasonable idea you won't run.

• Even when you oppose me, I know it's logic-based, not emotion-based antagonism.

That's predictability. Management is about reducing systemic uncertainty. The business has enough uncertainty already. When I select people, I'm desperately looking for certainty. This person's emotions are stable. Their delivery is stable. Their way of disagreeing is stable—no sudden betrayals, no backstabbing, no walking off at a critical moment.

I won't use someone with extraordinary ability but huge behavioral variance. On a battlefield, that person is more dangerous than the enemy. But a predictable person—even if they occasionally make mistakes—I'll keep giving chances. Because I know where their boundaries are, and the cost of covering for them is calculable.

(The speaker pauses, takes a sip of water.)

So. Six lenses.

• Lens 1 tells you how far someone can go.

• Lenses 2 and 3 tell you whether they can go with you.

• Lenses 4 and 5 tell you how fast.

• Lens 6 tells you whether they'll fall apart along the way.

Now flip the camera. You're not just evaluators. You're being evaluated upward, constantly. So I want to tell you about David Fang.

The Art of the Update: A Story About David Fang

David Fang reported directly to our CEO, Sullivan. He didn't work late—by Silicon Valley standards, he left before seven most nights. His team wasn't the biggest. His budget was middle of the pack. But every promotion cycle, Sullivan wrote Fang's name first. At quarterly business reviews, Fang used plain slides and a flat voice. Yet after every meeting, directors from other divisions would walk over and whisper, "David, that phrasing about the retention curve—can you send it to me?"

One year, Fang led an internal workshop called "Upward Communication for Mid-Level Leaders." Forty-two people showed up. He walked in, no greeting, and said:

"When you walk into Sullivan's office, are you trying to make him understand—or are you trying to make him say yes?"

Silence.

"Most people think an update is about explaining what happened. It's not. You walk through that door to deliver a judgment, not a status report. If you don't deliver a judgment, Sullivan will make one himself. And once he makes your decisions for you, he stops calling you in."

Fang said ninety percent of people made the same mistake: they told Sullivan what had happened. "Project A shipped. Numbers are in the deck." Sullivan nodded. Then what? Nothing. Sullivan knew, but he didn't know what to do next. So he set down his strategic plan and started picking through execution details with you. You came to make his life easier. You left him doing your job. That's reporting, not persuasion.

Here's persuasion: "Project A shipped, but numbers are flat—only five percent month-over-month. The bottleneck is supply chain approvals. If we don't fix it, we're looking at a stock-out next quarter. My call: bump Supplier B's allocation from thirty to fifty percent, and I'll fly to their plant Wednesday to lock in the Q4 contract early. I need you to approve expedited shipping costs." Sullivan only had to nod.

Fang broke updates into three layers.

• Layer one: facts. You say what you did. No value added. An intern can do it.

• Layer two: analysis. You say why it happened. Now Sullivan thinks you have a brain.

• Layer three: decision. You say what should happen next. You draw boundaries, make clear what you need from him. Now you're an extension of his brain.

Most mid-level leaders get stuck at layer two. They find problems but can't prescribe. They're afraid of the weight. Fang said: "A wrong call costs you face. Never making a call costs you your seat. Sullivan hired you to carry the weight of judgment. If all you do is put plates on the table without telling him which one to eat and which one has gone bad—you're worth exactly what a waiter earns."

He gave us a structure. Clunky, but it works.
First sentence: the conclusion. One sentence that plants what you want Sullivan to walk out with. No setup. No context. Sullivan's attention span is thirty seconds. "Sullivan, I'm recommending we move Q3 marketing dollars from digital to physical events." Period.

Second: evidence. Numbers, not adjectives. "Physical event traffic is pretty good" is useless. "Digital acquisition cost has gone from fifty to a hundred twenty dollars over three months. Physical events hold at forty-five dollars per lead with eight points higher conversion." Data stands. Sullivan can argue with your judgment. He can't argue with the numbers.

Third: conclusion repeated, with action items. This time the repetition carries weight. "Based on that, I'm strongly recommending the shift. My team has scouted three locations. We can move next week. I need you to approve a fifty-thousand-dollar contingency budget and sign off on legal review." Sullivan can't say no without dismantling the data first. He won't do that. He nods at the logic.

Fang listed four self-destructive moves.
One: bringing a problem without a solution. Sullivan isn't Google. His job is to choose between options, not generate them. Walk in with two paths, even if they're stale.
Two: weasel words. "Probably." "Roughly." "Maybe." Every one is a trust grenade. Your uncertainty stays outside the door.
Three: burying bad news. Bad news is a cheap firework. It sits there waiting for the quarterly review, the client dinner, the board briefing—then it goes off. Deliver it with aspirin: "We hit a problem. Loss about fifty thousand. I've started Z plan. We'll recover eighty percent within three days. If not, it comes out of my bonus."
Four: making Sullivan guess. Translate. He doesn't care about your database migration. He cares whether the system stays up, whether customers complain, whether money was well spent. "Refactored the backend" becomes "page load time cut in half, projected churn reduction fifteen percent."

Someone asked, "How often should we update?" Fang said it's not about time. It's about triggers. Milestone hit. Budget crossed seventy percent. Key team member gives notice. Sullivan mentioned a new direction externally. These are forced moments. The rest of the time, don't surf for visibility. One scheduled update a week, plus triggers. Stable. Predictable. Non-intrusive.

And then he said something about posture that I'll never forget.

"I've watched dozens of you walk into Sullivan's office. You lean forward, shoulders hunched, eyes darting, like you're about to beg or be hit. Who are you when you stand in front of that man? You're not there to apologize. You're not there to ask for a raise. You're there to help him decide. He's got the authority. You've got the ground-level view. You're his second brain, not his subordinate organ. The more you shrink, the more anxious he gets. He already doesn't know what's happening on the ground. If you look like you don't know either, he's lost. The steadier you stand, the steadier he stands. And the steadier he stands, the more he'll hand you the things that matter—the critical projects, the promotion slots, the resources he doesn't give to anyone else."

And then he said the line that stuck: "The end of an update isn't when he understands. It's when he relaxes."

After that workshop, I changed one habit. I used to message Sullivan on Slack with three screenshots, two hundred words of background, and a trailing "so there's still some risk." He'd read it. No reply. Four hours later, a question mark. Now my first message is one sentence: "Sullivan, Project X at eighty-five percent, two days behind, but contained. Want details?" His reply went from half a day to seconds. Because in three seconds, I saved him ten minutes of reading, decoding, worrying. I spent half an hour organizing my information. He spent thirty seconds making a decision.

That's translation. Taking noise from the front line and turning it into a map the command center can read.

One Last Thing

(The speaker steps closer to the edge of the stage.)

Now, I want you to do something uncomfortable. I want you to take all six lenses, and all of David Fang's advice, and turn them inward. Not on your team. On yourself.

What do you want? Who do you become when you get it?
How do you divide credit when it's your turn?
When something goes wrong, what's your first reaction?
When someone challenges you in a meeting, do you pause or do you push back?
When handed something unfamiliar, does it scare you or energize you?
How long has it been since you last said, "I was wrong"?
When people work with you, do they feel secure? Do they know what to expect?

These questions are harder than any KPI. But the people who can answer them don't need anyone to "read" them. Their path widens on its own. And when they walk through the boss's door, they aren't just delivering information. They're delivering peace of mind.

You step out. The door hasn't fully clicked shut behind you.

The people outside look up.

You say nothing. You give a single nod.

They go back to work.

They know. The thing is done.

Thank you.