I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the position senior leaders occupy in strategic conversations. How do you play your part without filling the room?
The instinct of many leadership coaches — speak last, let others contribute first — is understandable. The most senior voice has a habit of setting the ceiling for what gets said after it. If the boss speaks first and signals a direction, the room often follows. Independent thinking becomes, at best, a courtesy.
But there’s a cost that goes the other way. A conversation that goes too far in the wrong direction before anyone corrects it wastes time and energy, and can be difficult to redirect gracefully. Redirecting it early doesn’t just keep the conversation on track. It spares the speaker what they may perceive as a public correction of a fully articulated thought — pulling the rug out from under them at the end, when you could have shown them a different door to walk through at the beginning.
I’ve been trying to thread this needle for longer than I’d care to admit. Finding ways to contribute (and sometimes guide) conversations without stifling other voices can be genuinely difficult. Depending on the characters in the room, sometimes it feels close to impossible. But something I’ve learned recently has given me a new way to approach it.
My CEO, Eric, uses a word I’ve started to borrow. When he wants to introduce an idea into a discussion, particularly early on, he calls it a provocation. Not a question, not a suggestion, not “my initial thinking is.” A provocation.
A question invites an answer. A suggestion invites agreement or disagreement (usually the former). An idea invites endorsement. A provocation is something different: it invites a response, and places no constraint on what that response looks like. It signals that the contribution is designed to generate thinking, not restrain it. It changes the social contract of the moment: independent thought is invited, not merely tolerated.
The speak-early-or-hold-back question is a false dichotomy. The key to playing your role in a strategic conversation isn’t when you contribute; it’s how you frame your contribution. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to that, but the elegance of Eric’s mechanism has already made it a permanent feature of my toolkit.