I only recently discovered something that is probably obvious to most other people: someone’s immediate verbal reaction to a message is often different than th

I only recently discovered something that is probably obvious to most other people: someone’s immediate verbal reaction to a message is often different than their long-term behavioural response to it. “Your team isn’t pulling their weight” The immediate reaction might be “Yes of course we are, how dare you!” Now you have two options. It sounds like they have rejected your premise. Do you double down and try to force a verbal capitulation? “No, you are all really doing nothing!” Or do you leave the seed you have planted: “Oh, alright then, good to hear it.” The second option works way better. What they said in their immediate reaction is not predictive of the longer-term response. The longer term reaction might be that the team quietly increases their performance. If you went the confrontational approach, you would have ruled that out.