The Crisis: The Urge to Explain
Yesterday, I got pulled into one of those “difficult” conversations with my client, Sim. She’s the type: relentless with follow-ups—a total pressure-driver. She launched straight into a list of five separate tasks she felt I hadn’t completed. The whole thing felt like a direct, sustained attack.
In that moment, my immediate, primal urge was to defend myself. I was literally about to jump in, justify, and debate every single point.
But then that internal alarm went off—the one that whispers: The more you explain, the more you seek approval, and the more power you lose. If I started explaining, I knew I was just handing her the microphone and the control of the entire conversation.
The Turning Point: Deploying the Friction Question
My defense mechanism flared up again when she challenged me on a project staffing issue, claiming my team member, Vee, had agreed to the project after I had gotten a firm ‘no’.
Instead of offering an explanation (which would have been a waste of energy), I deployed a calculated Friction Question:
“That’s interesting, Sim. Help me understand: How do you think he went from a blocked calendar to a firm yes this morning?”
What followed was a deafening silence—a total pause that felt like two or three seconds. I did not rush to fill that void. Silence is your sword. I let the question hang there, forcing her limbic brain to process the awkward truth I’d just exposed.
The Resolution: Asserting the New Protocol
I didn’t loop back to the original five issues. I took the control I’d just gained and redirected the energy entirely to the future. I made her responsible for the next step, asserting a New Operating Protocol:
“Okay. I’m trying to see things from your side of the fence. What would it actually take to move on from these issues and establish a predictable working cadence?”
The shift was complete. We stopped debating the past and immediately started building the future, with me now leading the structure. The physical laws of conversation hold true: When challenged, don’t justify. Interrupt the pattern with a precise, low-emotion question, and then immediately pivot to the desired next step.