The hard questions aren’t ones that you just need to think about harder, to get to a binary answer.
Binary answers.
“What the other party wants to hear” answers.
“Feel good” answers.
Wrong answers.
Right answers.
The compelling issue is not that the questions are hard, or that they are scary.
The issue is that the answers frighten you because of their implications around responsibility, accountability, safety, and security.
But the only way out of a conflict is to go further in.
Thinking harder about a binary answer isn’t the way to get to more resolution.
Neither is thinking about how to structure the answer to get the other party on your side.
Sometimes, answering the hard question really requires you to pick an answer, stand up, and courageously defend it.
