Listen first. And record it.
As the Clarity Brand Design process is rooted in listening, I spend a lot of time engaging stakeholders in dialog. To make sure I catch their point of view, and not my projection of their point of view, I both take notes and record the calls. I record calls with a free account from Uber Conference. This company is incredibly generous with the concept of freemium. 
#cooltool: uberconference.com.