I am a problem solver by nature.

When something is broken I want to understand it, name it, and find the path to fixing it. That is just how I am wired. When I enter a difficult conversation I am carrying tools. Questions that get to the root. Observations that name what is actually happening. A genuine interest in arriving somewhere better than where we started.

The problem is that not everyone comes to a hard conversation carrying tools.

Some people come carrying scorecards.

And when a problem solver sits across from a point scorer the communication breaks down almost immediately because they are not playing the same game. The problem solver is asking — what happened and how do we fix it. The point scorer is asking — how do I win this.

The problem solver says something intended to illuminate. The point scorer hears something they can use. The problem solver asks a clarifying question. The point scorer treats it as an admission. The problem solver offers a concession to build goodwill. The point scorer banks it as a point and presses harder.

By the time the problem solver realizes what kind of conversation they are actually in they are already losing it. Not because they were wrong. Because they were playing a different game with different rules and nobody told them the rules changed.

I have been the problem solver in that scenario more times than I can count. I have sat in conversations I thought were about finding a solution and realized too late that the other person had no interest in solutions. They wanted a verdict. They wanted to be right. They wanted the moment where I said — fine, you win.

Some people are not looking for resolution. They are looking for surrender.

Those are two very different destinations. And you cannot reach them on the same road.

Stephon Rudd