I think this is one of Eric Ries' better posts this year: he is outlining a risk startups face AFTER some early success, when your guard is down and you are more inclined to believe that you know what you are doing--and as a result you do not believe that you need to be as diligent at framing your hypotheses and how you plan to verify them.

I think LinkedIn is violating this rule now, making a number of unilateral changes to group functionality that have deleted features and made the entire concept much less useful. They are not interested in a conversation at all, the decision has been made and they have and moved on.

Good post. I would go as far as saying that not listening is the cardinal sin of any kind of management - I have seen some of the same issues come up with employee management. Basically, don't fear to explain your problem and your proposed solutions to those affected; best case scenario you will gain valuable insight; there is no worst case scenario.