We needed priorities. We uncovered three Black Swans.
Black Swans are what the other side is holding that changes everything. You get them once you have trust-based influence.
Advisory board, spring 2025. Cold room, early morning, six of us.
Call him Rupert. Lawyer. White shoe firm, then years at a global CPG. He has sat through depositions. He came in to represent the leadership team with a laptop he never opened.
Someone asked a question. Someone asked a second before he finished the first. Then a third with an edge on it.
Three questions in two minutes. A boulder starting downhill. Still slow. Already too heavy to put a hand on.
Rupert went Analyst. Flat and measured.
“The roadmap changed in March because” and then nothing.
He looked at the table. “There were reasons that I’m not.”
Then the color left his face.
We were four sentences from a fracture that takes a year to fix.
My chest went hot, and I wanted to explain the board’s position. When you are explaining too early, you are losing.
So I stopped the meeting and ran an Accusations Audit. You say the worst thing out loud before they have to.
“This is going to feel like we brought you in here to put you on trial.”
“You’re probably thinking this board already decided it knows better than your team.”
“And there are things you cannot tell us. We are asking anyway. That is not fair to you.”
He exhaled through his nose. First full breath since he sat down.
Then the Summary. Nine things, in his order, in his words. Then I stopped talking and let it sit.
Eight seconds.
“That’s right.” Then again, two points later. Then a third time, quieter.
Then he told us three things he was “hiding” and had not planned to share. All three were material. All three changed what we decided.
We never wrecked. It felt like the ABS and the collision avoidance took over.
This is why we train Tactical Empathy. The Accusations Audit and the Summary grab the wheel in the two seconds you would have spent making it worse.
We got our priorities. Rupert got a room that heard him.
He walked in ready for a fight.
Nobody threw a punch.
Stay Curious,
JBS