You’ve been here before: you bring an idea to the table, feel the room go flat — and a month later, someone else says the same thing and leadership lights up.

The frustrating part isn’t the idea. It’s that you showed up to deliver, not to discover.

Check the container before you spill the content

When most people enter a high-stakes conversation, they’re running a private agenda: How do I get this person to see what I see? The problem is, the other person is running one too.

In fact, when people are evaluating competing offerings (like where to spend the capital budget, who to hire, what new strategic initiative to take on), they are sometimes looking for reasons to eliminate options. In the end, people hate to be sold; but they love to buy (that’s why shopping is the number one activity for people on vacation!).

Here’s what can change the dynamic: Before you share a single idea, ask what they need:

“Before we get started — what would make this conversation valuable for you?”

Simple. It shifts the dynamic from pitch to exchange in one sentence.

I had a client recently who put it well. Frustrated with his team’s sales effort, he said:

“We go in hoping they like what we offer. It’s Us vs. Them. Wouldn’t it be great if we were on the same side, looking for ways for both of us to get what we want?”

That instinct is exactly right — and it starts before you say a word about your idea.

Questions move people further than arguments

Once you’re in it, the instinct is to make your case — more data, more reasoning, more conviction. That instinct is almost always wrong.

What actually moves people is feeling like they’re thinking alongside you, not being persuaded by you. Harvard Business School research on high-stakes conversations found that question-asking builds more trust and forward movement than presenting arguments does. People like the person who asks them questions more than the one who answers them.

The key is the kind of question. “Don’t you think this approach makes sense?” is just a dressed-up assertion. Powerful questions are open-ended, begin with ‘what’ or ‘how’ or ‘tell me about’, and come from genuine curiosity:

• “What would be a great outcome from this conversation?”

• “What’s the part of this you’re most uncertain about?”

• “What would need to be true for this to work?”

When someone is thinking out loud with you, they’re no longer defending against you.

Objections are information, not obstacles

When someone pushes back, the instinct is to overcome the objection. The better move: get curious about it.

An objection is almost always a signal — something important to that person hasn’t been addressed yet. Three responses that work:

• “That’s interesting. Say more.”

• “Help me understand what’s behind that concern.”

• “What would need to shift in this plan to make it more effective?”

I work with two co-founders — both gifted, both struggling to stay collaborative. A breakthrough came when one of them, instead of going defensive, went curious:

“When I was presenting my idea, I noticed you winced. What was that about?”

So simple. But it required choosing the relationship over winning the moment.

This works across the table — and around it

Most people read these ideas as tools for customer conversations or making recommendations to senior leadership. But the same dynamic plays out inside leadership teams every day. When a CFO presents a budget cut, when a CPO advocates for a platform investment, when a co-founder pushes a strategic pivot — the instinct is identical: make the case, provide the data, overcome resistance. And the result is often identical too: people dig in.

The leaders who move their executive peers aren’t the ones with the best slide deck. They’re the ones who ask:

“What would need to be true for you to feel good about this direction?”

— and actually listen to the answer. Curiosity isn’t a soft skill. At the executive level, it’s a competitive advantage.

The real shift

You don’t need a better pitch. You need a different posture.

The leaders who consistently bring people along aren’t the most persuasive ones in the room. They’re the most curious. They treat every conversation as something to participate in — not win.

That’s harder than a sharper argument. And it’s the skill that actually moves people.

ne helps them understand what’s happening.