The most powerful thing I do in any difficult conversation isn't a framework.

The three-chair exercise I use in every difficult conversation.

The most powerful tool in twenty years of leadership and coaching isn't a framework.

It's three empty chairs.

A client came to me last year. Second-generation leader of a family business. Smart. Capable. He had grown the organisation significantly in the years since joining.

And he was completely miserable.

"I want to talk to my father about bringing in a professional manager," he said. "But I don't know how to start the conversation. I think he will be disappointed in me."

I could hear it in the way he said it — the resignation, the rehearsed dread. He had been carrying this conversation in his head for months. Maybe longer.

We could have spent the session on communication tactics. How to frame the message. How to manage the reaction. All of it would have been useful.

Instead, I asked him to try something different.

The Three Positions

I asked him to imagine three chairs in the room.

Position 1 — Yourself. Speak your reality. What do you actually feel? What do you want? Not the polished version. The true one.

He spoke about exhaustion. About a life that looked successful from the outside but felt like a cage from the inside. About a dream he had quietly buried — to travel, to build something that was entirely his own.

Then I asked him to move.

Position 2 — The other person. Step fully into their world. Not what you assume they feel. What do they likely value? What do they fear? What are they trying to protect?

He shifted in his seat. Paused. Then spoke slowly, as if finding the words for the first time.

"He worked his whole life to build something. He wants to pass it on. He wants me close because... he trusts me."

Then I asked him to move again.

Position 3 — The observer. You are no longer inside the conversation. You are watching it from the outside. What do you notice? What is each person not saying?

He went completely quiet.

Then he said something I will not forget.

"I think the father loves his son. He is not trying to trap him. He is trying to protect him by keeping him close."

He paused.

Then he cried.

He had spent months preparing for a conversation about disappointment. About failing to be the son his father needed. About letting go of a legacy he never chose.

And none of that story was real.

It was a narrative he had built entirely inside his own head, from his own vantage point, and never once tested from the outside.

The Shift

Most leadership bottlenecks are not knowledge problems.

They are not strategic problems. They are not even communication problems.

They are perspective problems.

When we are inside a situation — and the more we care about it, the more inside it we are — we stop thinking clearly. We react to the loudest signal, the most immediate pressure, the most frightening interpretation.

We cannot see the architecture. We can only feel the friction.

I have used this technique throughout my career: managing up, influencing across, and leading down. Before difficult conversations with senior stakeholders, I mentally run through all three positions. It often changes what I say and how I understand what is actually at stake. It helped me lead larger teams and take on complex work without getting lost in politics.

The three-chair exercise does not give you answers. It gives you angles.

And sometimes, one angle changes everything.

Try This Yourself

Think of a conversation you have been avoiding, or a decision that keeps feeling stuck.

Work through all three positions. If writing feels too formal, use the voice-to-text on your phone and just speak. Let it be messy. No one is judging you — the goal is honesty, not polish.

When you're done, paste your notes into an AI conversation and ask it to play the role of the person in Position 2. Let it challenge your assumptions. Ask what you might be missing.

But do your own thinking first. AI sharpens your perspective. It cannot replace the work of finding it.

The client had that conversation with his father the next day.

It did not go the way he had rehearsed it for months.

It went better.

Not because the conversation was perfect. But because he walked in seeing his father differently: not as a barrier, but as a person who loved him and did not know how to say it.

That is what perspective does. It does not remove the difficulty. It changes what you are actually dealing with.

What is one conversation you have been running entirely from Position 1?