Playing the A Game in Conversation

Excuse the the stutters, stumbles, and stammers: here’s a one-take recording of this edition if you prefer to listen: Spotify link

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It's far too easy to shift into that peculiar meeting autopilot where I'm there but not really here. Especially when it's a topic that I need to care about, but don't find all that interesting, because, well … work …

So I've been excited to put Caroline Fleck's A Game in play. In her role as a clinical psychologist, she gives attention to a lot of things that aren't all that interesting to her.

The A Game, a game you play against yourself, and described in her book Validation, is played by silently answering two questions when someone else is speaking:

• What's a better way to make this person's point?

• Why does it matter to them?

The rules are straightforward. You can ask questions and make statements, but only those that demonstrate genuine interest in understanding their experience better. Questions like: "What do you think they meant by that?" or "Were you surprised?" or "How did that land with you?" Or statements like: "Wow." or "Tell me more." or "Say that again."

"To win the A Game," writes Fleck, "You abandon the assumption that it's the other person's job to explain everything to you." Instead, it's up to you to figure out their message and why it matters to them. You become "an active constructor of meaning" by reconstructing their perspective from the inside out, rather than a passive absorber of information.

This kind of listening—what Fleck calls "attending"—requires you to pay attention in a specific way. You're not just hearing words; you're trying to understand the logic behind them. You're tuning into both what they're saying and why they're saying it.

It helps. (That's been my experience.)

The A Game works because it gives your brain something specific to do. Rather than drifting or judging, you're playing. What's this person really trying to say? What would make their case stronger? Why does this particular thing matter to them?

You might discover that the person who loves talking about data isn't just into numbers—they're trying to find patterns that could help. The colleague who always brings up policy isn't being bureaucratic—they're trying to prevent problems they've seen before. And the person who keeps mentioning "best practices" isn't trying to sound important—they're genuinely worried about improving quality.

Sometimes at work we have to care about things we don't actually care all that much about. Or things we don't have the power to change, at least in this moment. 

Your brain wants to check out during these conversations. But when your mind wanders, you miss opportunities to understand what's happening. You miss details that you might need in the future. You miss the potential to contribute.

But the A Game gives you a tool to stay in the moment. Instead of mentally composing your grocery list while someone explains the new badge access procedures, you're asking: How could they make this point more compelling? What about badge access keeps them up at night? 

Business jargon is a useful tip-off for playing the A Game. The moment someone says "synergies" or "actionable insights" or "let's take that offline", it's game on.

Consider this workplace scenario: someone in your meeting is passionate about process improvement for a particular workflow. They're using words like "optimization" and "workflow efficiency" and "cross-functional collaboration" with the enthusiasm of a public address announcer announcing the evening's starting lineups.

The A Game gets you asking: What would make their argument about process improvement more persuasive? Why does streamlining this particular workflow matter so much to them?

Maybe you realize they're not just obsessed with efficiency—they're trying to give people their time back. Maybe they've watched colleagues stay late because of a broken system, and they're trying to fix something that actually matters.

Or consider the administrator who keeps talking about "stakeholder alignment." Instead of mentally translating this into "more meetings," you ask: What's the stronger version of their stakeholder point? Why does getting everyone on the same page matter to them right now?

You might discover they're not creating busywork—they're trying to prevent the kind of miscommunication that derails projects and wastes effort.

And maybe, just maybe, the next time you're on autopilot, you can flip the switch and make yourself engaged instead of showing up, saying hi, and tuning out.

Around The Water Cooler ⛲

I was desperately wiping my tears as the beverage cart came trundling down the aisle. You should click “Watch” on your next flight, too. BOB TREVINO LIKES IT

“Organizational psychologist Karl Weick demonstrated through his pioneering research on sensemaking in the 1960s that humans don't simply process information; they actively construct meaning from ambiguous cues, and the sensemaking process is fundamentally social.” Sensemaking: A Leadership Superpower That Creates Hope in Uncertainty by Michael Hudson

Thanks for reading. Hit reply and let me know your thoughts.

How To Work is healthcare-focused work design inspiration (from the experts!) to nudge your perspectives and practices into better alignment with the world of work as it is, and away from what it was. Here’s my take on what we’re working through.