How To Give The Hard, Kind Truth

Welcome back to the 42nd issue of Disrupting Conversations!

Have you ever been hesitant to ask a tough but thoughtful question that you knew would help the other person? Or maybe struggled to find the courage to share a valuable but difficult observation with someone? 

I recently coached a client facing this exact dilemma. His prospect clearly needed to make a change, but a 20-year relationship with their current provider had created a wall that logic couldn't penetrate.

My client had the perfect solution—but the prospect couldn't see it because of something invisible happening beneath the surface (how they were filtering and interpreting the conversation). 

I shared with him a simple technique that transformed the dynamic almost immediately. It's something you can use in virtually any difficult conversation—with prospects, clients, colleagues, even family members.

It took just one sentence to change everything.

Let me show you how this works.

– Dan

Breaking Sales is my podcast to connect with those who are ready to break free from the chains of old sales methodologies that don’t work.

Title of Episode: Is Your Need to Prove Your Value Actually Destroying It? 

🎙️ In this episode, Pam and I introduce a powerful technique for getting past resistance in high-stakes conversations: explicitly asking to remove role labels. We discuss why people naturally react to the roles we represent rather than what we're actually saying, and how this creates invisible barriers to trust. By inviting your prospect to drop those roles you can transform the dynamic and create space for honest dialogue about what truly matters.

How To Give The Hard, Kind Truth

We live in an increasingly skeptical society. Some of this skepticism is well-earned—we're naturally suspicious of politicians and, yes, sales professionals. This suspicion is actually innate, but it doesn’t serve us the same way it used to serve our ancestors thousands of years ago—when violence was a common experience. Back then, interactions could mean life or death if you didn’t read the tea leaves correctly. In today’s modern world, suspicion creates barriers to meaningful conversations and trust.

What was the one sentence that transformed my client's interaction? It was simply this:

"Would you mind if we have this conversation where I'm not playing the role of the sales professional, and you're not playing the role of the decision-maker? Can we strip those roles and titles away for a minute?"

The results were immediate. By explicitly removing the roles from the conversation, he created space for a human-to-human dialogue that cut through the skepticism and defensiveness.

This approach works beyond sales too. I've used it with my children, starting conversations with: "Take this being a dad-son relationship out of it." The change in their attention and openness is remarkable.

The Psychology Behind Why This Works

Why does this work? Because we naturally view people through the lens of their roles, not as complete individuals. This default mode of thinking creates immediate bias and defensiveness.

This tendency might be rooted in our evolutionary psychology. Our ancestors needed quick ways to categorize people to determine potential threats or allies. While this helped them survive, today it often prevents us from having authentic conversations.

When someone approaches us as a salesperson, manager, or even as a parent, we're not just hearing their words—we're filtering everything through our expectations of that role. We're considering potential consequences, wondering about hidden agendas, and carefully measuring our responses.

One of my team members recently shared a powerful insight about this: she's not afraid to be honest, but she's afraid that her words won't come across as intended. "It's not that I'm scared to be honest—I'm scared that the way I word something won't come across the way I actually meant it. And then it's out there and completely out of my control."

This anxiety is magnified when we're speaking within the constraints of a defined role relationship. We worry not just about what we say, but about how it might affect our job, our relationship, or our standing with the other person.

By explicitly removing these role expectations, we create a temporary space where authentic communication can happen. We give the other person permission to speak more freely without fear of judgment or consequences.

The next time you need to have a difficult conversation or ask a challenging question, try removing theinfluence and weight of roles from the equation. You might be surprised by the difference it makes.

Thanks for reading!

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