Influence Changes Everything

"We spent thirty minutes talking about my tone."

That's what a Senior Project Manager at a tech company told me last year.

A decision had been made that affected one of her projects.

She found out afterwards. So she asked a simple question:

"Can you help me understand what changed?"

A few days later, she was walking me through the conversation.

"Apparently I sounded frustrated."

"Were you?"

"A little."

"Did they explain the decision?"

"No."

"Did they explain why you weren't included?"

"No."

"What did they talk about?"

"My tone."

"Your tone?"

"We spent thirty minutes talking about how I asked the question."

"Not the actual question?"

"No."

"Did anyone ever answer it?"

"No."

The part that caught my attention wasn't the conflict. It was how she never got an answer.

And that's a leadership challenge I see all the time.

Not just with project managers.

Not just in corporate environments.

With smart, capable women who start questioning themselves when the conversation stops being about the issue and starts becoming about them.

WHAT

Most high-achieving women don't struggle because they don't know how to communicate.

They struggle because they're trying to have one conversation while everyone else is having another.

The project manager in the story wanted to understand why a decision had been made.

The people she was speaking with were focused on something completely different. Neither side realized it.

And that's why the conversation went nowhere. This happens more often than people think.

You leave a meeting wondering:

"Why didn't they answer my question?"

They leave the meeting wondering:

"Why was she so upset?"

Nobody gets what they need.

WHY

When something feels unfair, our attention naturally goes to what happened.

We want answers and context. We want people to see things from our perspective.

There's nothing wrong with that.

The problem is that influence doesn't come from getting other people to see things the way you do.

Influence comes from understanding what they're paying attention to.

Most people aren't waking up thinking:

"How can I frustrate Jaspreet today?"

They're thinking about deadlines, their priorities.

Risks they have to consider.

When we're upset, it's easy to forget that.

And that's often where conversations start going sideways.

HOW

One question I often ask clients is:

What does the other person care about most right now?

Not:

"What do I want them to understand?"

Not:

"How do I explain myself better?"

Instead:

What are they trying to protect, solve, avoid, or achieve?

Sometimes it's timelines. Sometimes it's resources or budget or risk.

Once you understand that, your questions get better.

Instead of:

"Why wasn't I included?"

You might ask:

"How does this impact delivery?"

Or:

"What risks should we be planning for?"

Or:

"What outcome are we optimizing for?"

Same conversation. Different starting point.

And often a completely different outcome.

ACTION

Think about a conversation you've been replaying lately.

Ask yourself:

What was I focused on?

Then ask:

What was the other person focused on?

The gap between those two answers often explains why the conversation didn't go the way you hoped.

And sometimes, it points directly to what to do next.

If navigating difficult workplace conversations is something you're working through right now, I've put together a resource that can help.

The Boundary Starter Kit will help you approach difficult conversations with more confidence, clarity, and influence, without second-guessing yourself every step of the way.

👉You can download it here

Until next week,

Jaspreet