“I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to make something up. So I just stopped talking.”
That’s not defensiveness. That’s someone trying not to lie.
It looks like attitude. It gets labeled as “defensive.”
But most of the time, it’s something else entirely: they don’t have the answer. And when someone doesn’t know why a policy exists, the safest thing to do is say less.
This episode is about what happens when the reason behind a decision never reaches the person who has to explain it.
In this podcast episode:
Two real stories where managers thought staff were being difficult—until they heard what was actually happening
Why “that’s just our policy” makes guests push harder
Why explaining the “why” costs minutes, not thousands
A simple format you can use this week to close the gap
A question to sit with:
Where is your team guessing right now—and what’s the one sentence that would end the guessing?
🎧 Listen above or wherever you get podcasts.
📝 Grab the template: Download the One-Sentence Briefing Template — the same format from Thursday’s reset, ready to fill in and hand to your team.
