We’ve been taught leadership backwards.
“Build trust first. Then have the hard conversation.”
It sounds wise and responsible.
And yet, in real organizations, real teams, real pressure, it’s often the very advice that keeps people frozen.
I hear it all the time:
“We can’t talk about that yet — the trust isn’t there.”
But here’s the truth I’ve witnessed again and again in my work with leaders and teams:
You don’t need trust to start the conversation. You need skill, presence, and a willingness to stay in it.
Fruitful Friction® doesn’t ask you to wait for trust. It gives you a way to lead because trust is fragile, broken, or hasn’t been earned yet. And for many leaders, that realization alone is a game-changer.
Leaders Get Stuck
Here’s the bind no one names:
You’re told you need trust in order to have the conversation.
But you need the conversation in order to repair the trust.
So leaders wait.
They schedule coffees.
They invest in team-building.
They hope time will soften things.
Meanwhile:
- Decisions stall
- Information gets withheld
- Frustration goes underground
- The work still needs to happen
Damaged relationships don’t get a hall pass from reality.
Conversations still need to occur — even when trust is thin, fractured, or gone.
And when we burden those conversations with the requirement that trust be rebuilt first, we often remove the very possibility of moving forward.
What Fruitful Friction® Is — and What It Is Not
Let’s be very clear, because this matters. Fruitful Friction® is not:
- Permission to push harder
- A justification for bluntness
- “We don’t need trust, so let’s just say it.”
- Emotional bypassing
- Forcing resolution
This work is not about powering through discomfort.
Fruitful Friction® is about staying present, skilled, and responsible for impact, especially when trust is fragile. Without that boundary, leaders can weaponize the idea and unintentionally create more harm. With it, they create structure inside tension — and structure is what prevents conversations from blowing up.
If Not Trust, Then What Does Come First?
Leaders always ask this next — and rightly so. If trust isn’t the foundation, what is?
Here’s the sequence:
- Presence — the ability to stay regulated and engaged
- Self-awareness — knowing your default traction style and terrain
- Skillful technique — how you enter, acknowledge, respond
- Commitment to stay in dialogue — not retreating behind avoid or attack
Trust doesn’t start the process. Trust emerges from the process.
When Waiting for Trust Isn’t an Option
A founder and a CEO I worked with needed to have a series of urgent conversations.
The trust between them was long gone. Their perspectives were wildly different. And the company’s survival depended on dialogue.
Traditional coaching would suggest:
Individual work. Exercises. Relationship repair before the real conversations.
Not possible.
Not feasible.
Not useful.
Using the Fruitful Friction® construct, they entered the conversations anyway — with clear tools, clear structure, and a shared commitment to stay present.
They didn’t spiral.
They didn’t go in circles.
They didn’t retreat behind walls.
They moved the company forward before trust was restored.
When Teams Hide Behind Walls
Another team had stopped sharing information. People kept things to themselves. Transparency disappeared, all classic trust busters.
Their individual talent was being wasted in the void of non-communication.
If they’d waited for trust to be repaired first, it would have meant:
- More failed attempts at conversation
- Lost momentum
- Compounding frustration
Instead, they practiced Fruitful Friction® tools while the trust was low. Traction returned first.
Collaboration followed. Trust came back much later — and it did come back. In that order.
The First Non-Negotiable Move: Acknowledgment
In low-trust conversations, there is one move that matters more than any other:
Acknowledgment.
Not agreement.
Not reassurance.
Not fixing.
Acknowledgment reduces defensiveness.
It regulates the nervous system.
It creates just enough safety to keep going.
It says: “I see you. I’m here. I’m not disappearing.”
And that — more than comfort — is what makes trust possible over time.
A Personal Moment from the Messy Middle
I experienced this recently in a group that had clearly defined the rules of engagement before I joined. When I was invited in later and tentatively spoke, I was swiftly attacked (from my perspective). I retreated behind the wall of avoid. Here’s what changed everything:
A couple of group members acknowledged what had happened.
They named the impact.
They didn’t debate my perception.
That acknowledgment allowed me to ground myself.
Then they took it a step further, they let the person know the impact of their words. The response was immediate: acknowledgment, apology, ownership. No excuses. Just respectful responsibility for impact.
The shift was palpable. I chose to re-enter the Messy Middle. They chose to meet me there.
The entire group benefited, not because trust was perfect, but because presence, transparency, and skill showed up in real time.
That’s confidence.
That’s humility.
That’s leadership maturity.
Fruitful Friction® Requires Skill — and That’s the Point
This work is powerful and not casual.
Presence under pressure is a skill.
Good technique matters.
Poor application can create more harm.
That’s why Fruitful Friction® is practiced, trained, and embodied — not just talked about.
And it’s why leaders don’t have to be perfect to begin.
Small, skillful steps matter.
You can leave the Messy Middle — and come back.
Repair is part of the process.
What This Means for You as a Leader
If trust is eroded, it is not the priority.
Staying present is.
Staying in dialogue is.
Not hiding behind walls of avoid or attack is.
We need the friction of differing perspectives. That energy can create pearls or dust, depending on how we work with it.
Fruitful Friction® gives leaders a way to lead before trust is restored, and often because it isn’t.
So if you’re avoiding a conversation because “the trust isn’t there yet,” pause:
That conversation may be exactly where trust begins.
I just worked with a leader who said, “Wow, not needing trust first is a game changer!”
It is –
Fruitful Friction® changes the conversational landscape — not by avoiding tension, but by teaching leaders how to stay present, skilled, and human inside it.
If your organization is ready to stop waiting for trust and start creating traction, we invite you to explore how Fruitful Friction® can be brought into your work — from keynote experiences to deep, practice-based certification.
Hilary Blair is a leadership keynote speaker based out of Denver, CO, and is the co-founder of ARTiculate: Real & Clear. She is also a highly regarded actor, improviser, facilitator, voice-over artist, and voice expert coach.
