The Thing We Didn’t Say and Should Have

We were trying to staff a big project.

One of those major accounts, great brand, great revenue potential, and likely a long-term client if we got it right. But it wasn’t simple. This wasn’t just a spreadsheet exercise of matching availability to need. There were people involved. Politics. Pressure.

The client? Tied into people we knew. Colleagues. Ex-colleagues. Some of the history was good. Some of it wasn’t.

The salesperson? Deep relationship. Shared wins, shared scars. That added another layer.

Then the internal pressure started to bubble up.
One person wanted the lead role because it was a clear step up, CV gold.
Another wanted it for the learning opportunity, finally, something different.
And a third? They were frustrated. Burnt out. On the verge of leaving unless they got this one, claiming they couldn’t take one more misaligned assignment.

So here we were trying to staff the project based on partial truth.

Because all of this was swirling in private 1:1s.
Some of it personal. Some of it political.
Some of it legitimate, and some of it… not so much.

And our resourcing team? They didn’t know any of it. They were doing their job blind. Planning by numbers. Making logical decisions based on partial inputs. Because we weren’t bringing them into the context.

Why?

Because some of it felt too sensitive.
Because we didn’t know how much to share.
Because we thought protecting confidentiality was the right call.

And we do still believe in discretion. You can’t just air everything. But this situation reminded us of something critical:

Context is king.

Without it, good decisions look bad.
Without it, trust erodes.
Without it, the system breaks down.

When people don’t understand why a decision was made, they’ll start making up their own stories. And that’s what happened. The team questioned the assignment. They were confused. Some were frustrated. Because it didn’t add up. The person we picked was fully booked. Other projects had to be rebalanced. It looked irrational from the outside.

And the worst part? We couldn’t explain it.

Not in full. Not without breaking trust in the other direction.

So here’s what we’ve learned:

You don’t have to give every detail. But you do have to acknowledge when something’s driving a decision that can’t be fully shared.

Even just saying,

“There are sensitive factors here that we can’t go into, but they are real, and they’re influencing how we approach this,”
goes a long way.

It brings clarity to the gray. It lets people know there is a reason, even if they don’t have all the details. And most importantly, it preserves trust, both ways.

Now, when we hit moments like this, we pause. We talk as a leadership group. We ask:

• What’s confidential?

• What’s contextual?

• What can we share and what should we share?

Because operations isn’t just about logic. It’s about people. And people work better when they’re trusted with the truth, even if it’s partial.

Clear beats clever.
Trust beats control.
And context beats confusion. Every time.

Richard