I was no longer the ‘sage on the stage’ but was instead transitioning into the ‘guide on the side.’ More than anything, in those first few months, I just listened and watched intently with as little judgment or ego as possible.

His method for taking the measure of a room was saying something definitive and outrageous - “These charts are bullshit!” or “This deal is crap!” - and watching people react. If you were brave enough to come back at him, he often respected it - poking at you, then registering your response, was his way of deducing what you thought and whether you had the guts to champion it. Watching him reminded me of a principle of engineering: Sending out a sharp impulse - like a dolphin uses echolocation to determine the location of a school of fish - can teach you crucial things about your environment. Steve used aggressive interplay as a kind of biological sonar. It was how he sized up the world.

I don’t think that my actions changed in a way that prompted this; my position did. And what this meant was that things I’d once been privy to became increasingly unavailable to me. Gradually, snarky behavior, grousing, and rudeness disappeared from view - from my view, anyway. I rarely saw bad behavior because people wouldn’t exhibit it in front of me. I was out of a certain loop, and it was essential that I never lose sight of that fact. If I wasn’t careful to be vigilant and self-aware, I might well draw the wrong conclusions.

As O’Barr had predicted, slight differences in wording changed how the witness was perceived. Speaking like a professional made the witness seem more credible. Listeners saw them as more trustworthy, competent, and convincing, and were more likely to believe what they had to say.

My attempts to mold him failed, and I felt increasingly frustrated. He thought I’d fire him. Fortunately, for him and me, I began to grasp that he had not failed me; rather, I had failed him by putting him in a role out of frame with his encodings. Furthermore, I felt somewhat responsible for his future; I did not want to see this wonderful young man start his professional life getting fired. So, I began making a series of iterative steps, testing him with different tasks that drew upon what I sensed to be his intellectual gifts, and he showed signs of flourishing.