Have you ever walked away from a conversation and realised — too late — that you missed what it was really about?
The argument was never about the dishes. The pushback was never about the curfew. The silence was never about being fine.
If we had only known what was really going on, we would have had a completely different conversation.
Someone I was working with had a tough negotiation coming up. His client had been coming in hard on price. Every conversation started the same way: "This needs to be cheaper."
He was ready to negotiate the number. That is what most of us would do.
I asked him one question: "What do you think is really driving that?"
He paused. He had not considered it.
So instead of conceding on price, he went in and asked.
It was not about budget. It was about optics. The client needed to show his board he had negotiated hard. He did not need a lower number. He needed a story that proved he fought for value.
They reframed the offer. Built in performance metrics. Gave him language he could use internally. The price did not change. The story did. And the deal closed with pride on both sides.
If he had only negotiated what he could see, he would have solved the wrong problem — and never known it.
This is where Curiosity sits on the Compass. Not as a technique. As a practice.
The first answer is rarely the real answer. And if we stop at the surface, we may never reach the conversation that actually matters.
What if, instead of stopping at what someone says they want, we took steps to understand why it matters to them? What might be underneath?
What if we asked one more question than we thought we needed to — and then actually listened to the answer?
Who you are is how you negotiate. How you show up shapes what happens next.
Conversations are where trust is earned or lost. Where relationships are strengthened or weakened. This is true for every family, every organization, and every community.
The conversations that matter most ask more of us than words alone can provide. We need to have better conversations for a better world.
Before your next conversation, ask yourself: what might I be missing?
If this shifted something for you, forward it to someone who needs to hear it.
— Howard