“They don’t argue your logic. They don’t see it.”
After a week of experimenting with daily planning there was one unexpected side effect. He noticed how many decisions were made on the fly without a clear framework, any real logic - it just felt right at the moment.
“This person said one thing, that person said another. And in the end, I just did what felt right. But what’s the right choice anyway? No one knows how it’ll turn out. So I choose something and then we deal with it. Some agree, some disagree. But the truth is nobody knows, even me, for sure either way.”
That’s the thing with leadership.
You often have to make calls under pressure, time constraints, with limited information. And when you're busy putting out fires, it can feel like you’re doing the important work - serving clients, solving their problems first, overdelivering.
All the right things!
But here’s the question to explore:
Are you putting out fires caused by clients who don’t even belong in your business anymore?
Clients who drain your time, reduce your margin, and stop you from building something more strategic for the clients that will build your future business?
In the moments like this, turning down a client - or “firing” one - might look like madness to your team.
That’s because they can’t see what you’re aiming for, where you are going with this.
And that’s how the phrase came to be,
“They don’t argue your logic. They don’t see it.”
We often assume disagreement means someone else has walked the same path in their mind, looked at the same data, the same exact way, and still decided differently.
But that’s rarely true. More often, they simply haven’t seen what you’ve seen.
You’re thinking: A → B → C → … → Z
They’re thinking: A → F → M → …
And now YOU sound like a crazy person in their mind.
The reality is, in most cases, people’s decisions make complete sense - once you understand their inputs.
2 thoughts to hold onto:
-
There’s no single “right” answer.
But there is a better decision-making model for the outcome you want.
(That’s what we are going to work on next with the client) -
Don’t argue your point. Help them see your path.
Most conflict is perspective mismatch, not logic mismatch. Show people what you’re seeing before trying to convince them you’re right. (Warning: you might discover you aren't right after all)
PS Here are a few books I recommend to start with:
Thinking in Bets – Annie Duke
The 80/20 Principle – Richard Koch
Decisive – Chip & Dan Heath
Clear Thinking – Shane Parrish
4-Hour Week – Tim Ferriss
But honestly? Almost any book on decision-making will outperform your default settings, especially when they help you spot the cognitive biases you didn’t even know were running the show.
