Management Craft

The Whisper List

Andy Sparks

The Whisper List is a quickly accessible note where you capture hunches and small positive or negative signals before a busy day erases them. Write one line now; return later to decide which whispers deserve investigation.

By Andy Sparks · written together with AIAndy dictated the ideas and judgments; an agent produced the first draft; Andy revised it, rewriting and adding sentences by hand. · Published · V1.0

What is The Whisper List?

Startup life is an assault on your senses. Something catches your attention, but the next meeting starts before you can work out why. Steven Spielberg describes intuition this way: “The hardest thing to listen to, your instincts, your human personal intuition, always whispers. It never shouts.” [1]

The Whisper List is a note you can open in seconds and close just as fast. When something feels important but you cannot yet put your finger on it, write down one line: “Didn’t like how Roadrunner treated Coyote (Tue Feb 17).” Capture pleasant whispers too: “Bugs ran the smoothest pipeline review in months. Why? (Thu Feb 12).” The list gives the signal somewhere to wait until you have time to investigate it.

Keep the list wherever capture is quickest for you: paper, Apple Notes, Notion, or anything else you will actually open. Write the event or reaction in one line and add the date. Do not try to solve it while you are hurrying into the next interview.

Return to the list during a quiet hour. Start with the whispers that feel most important or keep recurring. Then run the fuller Turning whispers into standards loop: notice the signal, interpret it until you can name the preference underneath, and systematize what you learn. The list is the capture tool, not the whole practice.

The Whisper List is a Management Craft original from my coaching practice. Years ago, after I shared Spielberg’s line with a client, he began keeping a list of his own. He returned to it so often that I began recommending the practice to other CEOs. The name credits Spielberg’s description of intuition; the list itself grew out of using that idea with founders.

1
Steven Spielberg, interview by Alice Winkler, What It Takes, Academy of Achievement, December 2017 (transcript, VOA Learning English, January 26, 2018).
https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/what-it-takes-coach-steven-spielberg/4155025.html

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