Truth Archive - This Moment Counts

Why do we try so hard to talk people into things?

I have three core values:
Honesty. Empathy. Trust.

And I’d argue they’re all you need to know about communication.

If you take these three values seriously and apply them to how you speak and write, they become the most ruthless, demanding communication strategy you can possibly use.

Honesty requires a true story worth telling.
If you commit to only ever saying what is true, you lose your ability to spin. You can’t use clever words to dress up a bad idea. You can’t hide behind corporate jargon. Your words have to be attractive strictly because of what you are saying, not how you frame it. Honesty forces you to dig until the plain truth is actually useful all on its own.

Empathy requires words others effortlessly understand.
It is never enough that a thought is clear in your own head. Empathy means you care deeply about how others hear it. You care about what they see and how they feel when the words land. You don’t make them do the hard work of decoding what you mean. You do the hard work of making it as easy as possible for them to understand.

Trust requires genuinely useful stuff.
This terrifies people. You tell the truth. You make it easy to understand. And then? You let go. You trust your audience to decide. But because you know the choice is completely theirs, it forces your hand: you have to make absolutely sure that what you are asking them to do is actually a good choice for them.

You want a communication strategy that works? Stop trying to talk people into things.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

What if I’m not a charismatic speaker?

“I’m not a charismatic speaker. Really. I’m an operator.”
Well, I don’t believe that matters.

I hear this “apology” all the time. Usually from the people who actually run the business.

They say things like “I’m too quiet. I’m not funny enough. I hate the spotlight.”

Good!, I say.

Because your team doesn’t need another entertainer. They have Netflix for that.

Don’t forget that you aren’t doing a TED Talk. You are doing Leadership.

A TED Talk is designed to entertain strangers for 18 minutes.
Leadership is designed to guide your people for 18 months.

These are two completely different sports.

And if you care about your business … if you truly give a damn about getting this right, you have the only “fire” that matters.

You are an operator? Perfect.

That means you know how the machine works. You know what matters to your team, your customers, your partners. That means you aren’t selling a dream; you are engineering a reality.

A quiet person speaking the plain and simple truth is infinitely more powerful than a funny speaker shouting a fancy slogan.

An operator explaining why we need to change is more inspiring than a motivator saying that we can do it.

For example, regarding your strategy what your team needs to know is:

Where are we going?
Why there?
Why us?

No theater necessary to explain this.

You don’t need to light up the room. You just need to light the path.

Keep doing that,
Michael

Do you dare to ask that question?

There’s one question that’s almost ridiculously obvious to ask. And yet, in so many meetings no one dares to ask it. It’s this:

→ Wait a second, what’s actually true right now?

When Alan Mulally took over as CEO of Ford, the company was a mess. They were heading toward a $17 billion loss.

But that wasn’t their biggest problem. Because most problems can be fixed.

As long as you know what the problem is.

Not knowing that was Ford’s problem.

They were using the infamous traffic lights system that every team on this planet hates. And they were the quintessential example for why everyone hates it.

Mulally tells a fascinating story about his experiences with it in this video from a Stanford lecture.

In their progress meetings, they had only green charts.

Not a single issue was marked.
Not a single risk was marked.
Nothing.

It was all green.

Now, that is obviously BS (and everyone knows it). But the culture at Ford was so broken that no one dared to flag an issue. Everyone thought that when you flag you get made responsible for it. And you don’t want to live through the consequences of that.

So, even the most senior team members, masked issues to make them appear green.

The brilliance of Mulally wasn’t that he found the solution for the $17B loss. It was that he changed the demonization of the colors red and yellow.

At one point, he stopped the meeting and asked the line you see in the visual.

All the charts are green. I stopped the meeting and I said, Guys, we’re gonna lose $17 billion, is there anything that’s not going well?

You should really watch the video I linked to above. He’s a great storyteller and the way he tells how the situation unfolds is hilarious and eye opening at the same time.

A few more words from Mulally:

“You weren’t red, the issue you’re working on is red.”
It’s a leadership failure if you confuse the two.

“The data sets you free, right? Data tells you everything.”
Honestly, I take this as a shot against the storytelling industry. Stories are great if they serve the data. They are terrible if they dilute it. The spin we saw at Ford was storytelling at it’s worst.

“You can’t manage a secret. People can’t help if they don’t know what the real situation is.”
As it turned out, people were happy to help. Which is what ultimately turned Ford around. Because together you can achieve more than anyone ever could alone.

What happened after that pivotal meeting?

A few weeks later the charts looked like a rainbow. Not because things got worse, but because people finally told the truth.

And so, that meeting was the turning point. The moment Ford stopped pretending and started facing the truth.

In 2009 Ford reported a full-year net income of about $2.7 billion.

That is the power of a leader who makes it safe to show what is true.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

PS: The latest issue of “What the Best Leaders Say” goes deeper into the same question that unlocked the Ford turnaround. What is actually true right now? If you want to explore how leaders surface truth without fear, here’s the link.

How to deliver hard truths

Some leaders sugarcoat the truth because they think it’s kinder.
But sugar melts. And when it does, all that’s left is a sticky mess.

One of the reasons they soften the bad news is because they want to protect their people.

They think a spoonful of sugar makes it easier to handle.

But here’s the problem: when the coating melts (and it always does), what’s left is the mess: the sense that something’s missing, that something doesn’t quite add up.

The wondering that now follows is often worse than the truth.

People will try to piece things together. And pretty quickly, the version that spreads in their conversations sounds much scarier than the real story ever was.

That’s why I always prefer clarity. Transparency. Honesty.

It might not taste as sweet as the sugared version.
But it’s far healthier.

Trust me: People can handle the truth.
Doubt is a lot harder to handle for them.

It makes people sick.

So if you want to light the path, don’t sweeten the truth.
Say it as it is. Plain and simple.

To me, that’s way kinder than serving a spoonful of sugar.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

The “real” meeting

Clarity is when a meeting ends and no one needs the “real” meeting afterward.

It’s when the targets are missed and you can still say it out loud.
It’s when the slide shows the gap, not the sugar-coating.
It’s when the nods in the room mean understanding, not pretending.

It’s when disagreement still leads to a next step.
It’s when the team walks out aligned, not divided.
It’s when the hallway chatter matches the official decision.

It’s when meetings stop being theater.
And start creating progress.

👉 Join me and Harald in our live session “How to Lead with Clarity” as we explore how to make this possible, even in a system that doesn’t seem to want it.

Keep lighting the path!

Ambiguity in a nicer outfit

Have you ever settled for consensus because it felt easier than saying the uncomfortable truth out loud?

We all have.

And often it feels like progress in the moment.

The plan sounds good enough.
No one raises another concern that would pause the process.
So we move on.

Finally.

But then, at some point… someone quietly questions the direction. Others openly debate about what was “agreed.”

Clearly, something’s off and everyone can feel it.

That meeting clarified nothing. It just covered the tension below the surface.

Of course, we don’t do this because we’re careless.
It happens because we care.
About keeping the team moving.
About not being “that person” who slows things down.
About keeping the energy up.

But every time we choose that kind of comfort, we trade progress for it.

That’s not clarity.
It’s ambiguity in a nicer outfit.

Scrum doesn’t need more consensus.
It needs courage.
It needs words that drive progress … even when it’s messy. Even when it’s hard.

That’s what the Clarity Cheat Sheet for Scrum Masters is for. It contains 8 shifts to help you find words that make progress possible and truth speakable. It’s free, no email required. Download it now.

Do you know someone who would benefit from this? Please share it with them!

Keep lighting the path!

Space for Truth

The higher you rise, the quieter the truth becomes.
Which is a problem if you want to lead with clarity.

It only works if you’re hearing what you need to hear.

It’s not that people stop knowing the truth.
Or that they would even be dishonest.

But they only give you a filtered version.

Because your role has changed.

Your title alone makes people second-guess themselves.
Your presence shapes the conversation before you say a word.

Even if you invite honesty, people hesitate.

“Is this really safe to say?”
“Do they really want to hear this?”

If you don’t notice this early, the conversation empties out.
You stop hearing what matters most.
And start hearing only what feels safe to share.

The usual advice won’t change that.
“My door’s alway open.” ← Yeah, but what happens when I’m out again?

“Don’t hesitate to speak up.” ← Yeah, but what happens when I actually do?

You want to prove it’s welcome.

→ When someone raises a difficult point, and you lean in with curiosity — not defensiveness.
→ When you thank people for uncomfortable feedback, instead of brushing it aside.
→ When you share uncomfortable truths yourself, showing it’s safe to speak openly here.

In other words, you go first. When you signal that you welcome uncomfortable truths, people start to trust you with theirs.

They learn:

This is safe.
This is valued.
This matters.

That’s when meaningful conversations happen. After you create the space for them.

Keep lighting the path!

The mirror of trust

Trust is like a mirror. Once it’s cracked, no matter how much you try to fix it, the reflection is never quite the same.

Honesty has a difficult standing in some leadership circles. People believe they can’t trust their team or customers with the truth. Or that they’d need to protect their team from it. And so, they avoid it.

And I get it. It’s tempting to promise the moon in the moment to give a little extra motivational boost. Or to beautify the situation to give some false assurances.

But that’s like tapping a hammer against that mirror. Each small crack harms the surface. Until at some point it eventually shatters.

The strongest teams I’ve worked with, had a very different approach.

People can handle uncertainty far better than they can handle broken promises. Honesty, even when it’s uncomfortable, keeps the mirror intact.

If you’re unsure, say so. If the road ahead is unclear, admit it.

Every time your team sees that your words and actions are perfectly aligned – even in difficult times – they trust you a little more. And that means that trust is intact when it matters.

Keep lighting the path!

Your truth, their truth

Your truth, your words.
Their truth, their words.

If you want someone to see your truth, it’s not going to work using your words.

You need to find their words. A way of speaking about your truth in a way that it makes sense for them.

That’s true for the foundational things you believe.

But it’s also true for:
→ The way you communicate your vision.
→ The way you navigate tough negotiations.
→ How you pitch your ideas to stakeholders.
→ How you frame feedback so it actually lands.
→ How you gain buy-in for a bold new direction.
→ The way you rally your team around a strategy.
→ How you position change so people embrace it.
→ The way you make people feel heard and valued.
→ How you resolve conflicts without escalating them.
→ The way you shape culture, not just enforce policies.
→ How you turn abstract goals into compelling narratives.
→ How you align diverse perspectives toward a common goal.
→ The way you sell – not just products, but ideas and decisions.
→ The way you challenge assumptions without alienating people.
→ The way you make your message stick long after the meeting is over.

It all comes down to this:
People don’t act on what makes sense to you.
They act on what makes sense to them.

The moment truth hits you

If you asked every member of your team, “what do you think is our strategy?” how many different answers would you get?

Well, wait a second. What if I asked you?

Could you give a concise answer?

And that’s a bitter pill to swallow for many businesses … when they realize that, well, honestly, we don’t even have a simple way of explaining how we make a difference!

We can’t tell the essence of our strategy in plain and simple English.

But I tend to think that that’s actually good news.

Because it likely means that it’s not the strategy itself that’s the problem.

It’s the words you use to describe it.

And the moment you see that, you can look for better words.

You can find words that align your team on that shared path.

Posts in Tag: Truth