This is Human Skills Edition, the newsletter providing insights and frameworks to sharpen the soft skills that set you apart and give you greater influence and opportunity in the AI Era.

Seth Godin recently dropped a piece called "Kinds of Fast.” It’s short, but man, it hits hard.

He basically breaks down all the ways speed shows up: like the drag racer's speed that’s built for purpose, but oh so fragile. Or the marathon runner's speed, slower per mile but sustainable for hours. Even the craftsperson's speed, where most of the time goes to studying and sharpening before the work even begins.

Each one represents a different strategy, a different set of trade-offs chosen on purpose. And then Godin names the thing that ties them all together: "What they all have in common is intent."

Intent. Not velocity…Not effort. Intent.

That line reminded me of a coaching session with a team leader colleague who had a difficult conversation with a direct report about missed deadlines.

She'd rehearsed it over the weekend and knew her exact talking points. Even practiced her tone, firm but fair, and walked into that meeting more prepared than most people.

But…within four minutes, she was in a completely different one.

The direct report got emotional.

He brought up a project from six months ago where he felt unsupported. Then mentioned that another teammate wasn't pulling their weight and questioned whether the deadlines were realistic in the first place.

Because she's empathetic and cares, and the kind of leader who listens, she followed him down every one of those side roads. By the time it was over, she'd validated his feelings, explored the old project, and agreed to revisit the timeline.

Forty-five minutes later, they walked out of the room on good terms. The only problem was that the actual issue, the missed deadlines, had never been addressed.

Not directly or in any way that would change behavior going forward.

When she debriefed with me afterward, I asked her one question: "Going into that conversation, what was your intention and what was your desired outcome?"

She paused. "I wanted to talk about the deadlines."

"That's the topic," I said. "What was the outcome you needed?"

She couldn't answer. And that's when it clicked. She'd walked into a difficult conversation knowing what she wanted to talk about, but not what she wanted to walk out with.

The topic was clear. The destination was not. So when the conversation shifted, she had no anchor. Every detour felt equally valid because she hadn't defined what "staying on track" actually meant.

She had preparation, empathy, and skill. What she didn't have was intent. And without it, she'd defaulted to what Godin calls the slow of "let's see what happens."

Sun Tzu wrote that "every battle is won before it is ever fought."

He wasn't talking about aggression or domination. He was talking about the clarity of knowing what you're trying to achieve before you step into the arena. Without that clarity, even the most skilled communicator becomes reactive, following the conversation's energy instead of guiding it.

In every difficult conversation, we need to know two things before we open our mouths: our intention and our desired outcome. Lose track of either one and the conversation will choose its own destination, and it almost never chooses the one you needed.

We all too often confuse preparation with intention.

Preparing the content (the facts, the examples, the diplomatic phrasing) is a no-brainer, but we often skip the strategic layer underneath. Intention is not what you plan to say. It's the relationship you're trying to build or preserve through the conversation.

The desired outcome is not the topic you need to address. It's the specific change, agreement, or understanding that needs to exist when the conversation is over.

Without intention, you lose your tone.

You get pulled into defensiveness or overcorrection because you're reacting to the other person's emotions without a compass for your own. Without a desired outcome, you lose your direction.

The conversation becomes a tour of every adjacent grievance and tangent, and you walk out feeling like something happened without anything actually changing.

When I coach folks through difficult conversations, I always give them three moves to lock in before the conversation starts.

Experienced folks may recognize these principles, but applying them under pressure is the real challenge. Many overestimate their ability to apply them, mistaking knowledge for practice. The framework isn't about learning new concepts but about keeping things simple for instinctive use. When stressed, complex methods often fail; simple ones endure.

That’s the key message.

Let’s get it…

The first layer is purpose: Why does this conversation need to happen, and what am I here to accomplish? This isn't the topic.

"We need to talk about the deadlines" is a topic.

The purpose is sharper than that: This conversation needs to happen because the current pattern is unsustainable, and the team can't move forward until it changes. That clarity matters because it's what keeps you from getting pulled into tangents that feel productive but aren't.

When someone steers the conversation toward a side issue, your purpose is what tells you whether to follow or redirect.

The second layer is relational: What kind of relationship do I want with this person after this conversation is over? This matters because difficult conversations are where relationships are most vulnerable.

The content of what you say will be forgotten within weeks. How you made the person feel will last for years. Without a relational intention, the pressure to accomplish your purpose can push you toward a tone that gets results today but damages trust tomorrow.

Before you walk in, complete two sentences.

Those two sentences work together. The first keeps you on course when the conversation drifts. The second keeps you humane when the conversation gets tense. Without purpose, you'll walk out with a warm handshake and nothing resolved. Without relational intention, you'll walk out with a result and a relationship that may not recover.

You need both.

The payoff: you stay anchored to why you're there and who you want to be while you're there, which means the conversation can be both productive and respectful.

Both extremes fail for the same reason: they don't give you a clear, achievable threshold for what "done" looks like.

The fix: define the smallest meaningful result that makes this conversation worth having. Not the ideal outcome. Not everything you wish would change. The one shift, whether in understanding, agreement, or next steps, that moves the situation forward.

For my colleague, the minimum viable outcome wasn't "he never misses a deadline again." It was: "We both leave this conversation with a shared understanding that the current deadline pattern isn't sustainable, and a specific plan for the next two weeks."

That's concrete enough to know whether you achieved it.

It's modest enough that the conversation can actually get there. It's also specific enough to keep you anchored when the other person steers toward a tangent, because you can hear the detour for what it is and gently bring it back.

Try: "This conversation is successful if, when it's over, we've agreed on ___."
Fill in the blank before you walk in. Write it on a sticky note if you need to.

That one sentence will do more for the conversation than an hour of rehearsing your talking points.

The payoff: you know when to land the plane instead of circling indefinitely.

The other person will get emotional, bring up something unexpected, or ask a question that pulls you into territory you weren't prepared for. This is normal. The issue isn't that the conversation drifts. It's whether you have a way to return.

A return phrase is a pre-built sentence that acknowledges the detour without abandoning your destination. It sounds like:

"I hear you, and I want to come back to that. Right now, the thing I want to make sure we land on is ___."

Or: "That's important, and I don't want to brush past it. Can we set up time to talk about that separately? Today I want to make sure we walk out with ___."

Notice what the return phrase does: it validates without following. It tells the other person their concern matters without letting it hijack the conversation.

Most of us, when a difficult conversation drifts, either follow the drift (because they don't want to seem dismissive) or try to shut it down (because they feel the outcome slipping away).

The return phrase is the third option. It honors the tangent and protects the destination at the same time.

Think of it as the Godin equivalent of the well-maintained craft, something that rarely gets sidelined by a crisis because the systems for staying on course were built before the crisis arrived.

The payoff: you can be flexible without losing your direction.

Every difficult conversation has a kind of fast. The question is whether you chose yours on purpose.

Know your intention: the purpose that makes the conversation necessary and the relationship you're protecting while you pursue it.

Know your outcome: the one thing that needs to be true when it's over. And build a return phrase for the moment it drifts, because it will.

The slow of "let's see what happens" isn't flexibility. It's forfeiture.

Choose your kind of fast before the conversation chooses it for you.

Thanks for reading. Be easy!
(You are the advantage.)