Most founders walk into a new meeting listening for the pitch. The polish. The credentials. The track record being laid out across the table like a deck of cards.
I've learned to listen for something else entirely.
Three signals. Small, quiet, almost invisible – the kind of things that slip out in the first few minutes, long before anyone has had a chance to rehearse who they want to be in the room.
And in those unguarded moments, the person across from me tells me almost everything I need to know – often without realising they have said anything at all.
The word that gives the whole game away
Here is the first signal, and the one I apply every single time.
I listen for how someone refers to the people they lead. Not their strategy. Not their numbers. The people. And specifically, I listen for one of two words: "staff" or "team".
It sounds small. It is anything but.
"My staff" tells me I am sitting across from someone who sees the people around them as instruments – hired to perform a function, replaceable if they don't.
"My team" tells me I am sitting across from someone who sees those same people as a community – in it together, shoulder to shoulder, building something shared.
One word. Two entirely different leaders. Two entirely different cultures. Two entirely different outcomes when the pressure lands and the wheels start to wobble.
I have yet to meet a "my staff" leader whose business I would want to bet on for the long haul – and I have yet to meet a genuine "my team" leader who didn't eventually build something worth being part of.
Humility you cannot fake and curiosity you cannot perform
The second signal is harder to describe but just as reliable once you've learned to spot it.
I look for real humility and real curiosity. Not the performed kind. The real kind.
Real humility sounds like "I don't know" said without flinching, without apology, and without the little laugh people use to soften the admission.
It is the quiet confidence of someone who has made peace with the limits of what they understand – and is far more interested in learning than in being seen to know.
Real curiosity sounds like a question asked because the person actually wants the answer. Not because they are building a case. Not because they are setting a trap. Not because they are waiting for their turn to speak. Just genuine interest, in the answer, for its own sake.
Both qualities are rarer than they should be. And both, in my experience, are more predictive of how someone will behave when things get tricky than almost anything else you could measure.
Watch how they treat the people who cannot help them
The third signal takes about ten seconds to read and is almost impossible to fake.
Watch how the person across from you treats the waiter. The receptionist. The most junior person in the meeting. The people who, in that moment, have nothing to offer them – no deal to sign, no decision to influence, no favour to return.
That tiny, unguarded window of behaviour will tell you more about who you are dealing with than any reference ever written. Because it is the one moment when the person is not performing for anyone who matters to their ambition. And what they do in that moment is who they actually are.
What the track record hides but the signals reveal
A track record tells you what someone has done. The signals tell you who they will be when the pressure lands.
And make no mistake – the pressure always lands. The contract falls through. The key client walks. The market turns. In those moments, their polished pitch is worthless.
What truly matters is the character of the person beneath the surface – specifically, whether the way they treat their team, handle uncertainty, and interact with those who cannot help them forms a solid enough foundation on which to build a business.
The founder who learns to listen for that one word, watch for that unperformed humility, and read those split-second moments of unguarded behaviour will make dramatically better decisions about who to trust, who to hire, and who to build with.
I have learned that the hard way, over thirty years of building businesses, and I would stake every future decision on it.
Start listening. The signals are already there.
