Take a Journey of Discovery Together

The CFO had stopped making eye contact with the VP of Sales about twenty minutes in.

I’d been brought into a mid-sized manufacturer whose growth had stalled for two years.

Around the table sat four smart, well-intentioned people — and four completely different convictions about what needed to happen next. One wanted to enter a new market. Another pushed for adding services to the product line. A third wanted to cut out distributors and sell direct. The fourth believed none of that was necessary — better service and quality would get them where they needed to go, with less risk.

The CEO had his own views, but he was new, and the team didn’t yet trust him. So the stalemate held.

I didn’t take sides. Instead, I asked if they’d be willing to take a short journey with me — not to prove anyone right, but to find the right answer together.

My main tool on the journey was questions. They tend to expose the assumptions driving the disagreement. Here are a few examples:

• What would have to be true for your colleague’s view to be correct?
• What data would settle this — and do we have it?
• How might we test the most promising options? And what would we need to see in six months to stay confident we’re on the right track?
• Where are we most likely to be surprised — and in which direction?

The room shifts when those questions land. The argument stops being about who’s right and starts being about what’s true.

That’s the journey worth taking.