The Right Questions

Seven years. Six thousand hours.

Nobody needed me to give them the answer.

Not once.

A COO I worked with had been carrying a decision for eight months.

Whether to restructure his leadership team.

He could describe the right move in detail.

He just couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

One session I stopped asking questions and waited.

Thirty seconds of silence.

“I already know what I need to do, don’t I.”

Not a question. A statement.

“You knew it six months ago,” I said.

“Why couldn’t I just say it?” he asked.

“You just did.”

The answers are already there.

They were always already there.

What’s the thing you already know but haven’t said out loud yet?