Baggage Kills Deals

Words like guarded, uncomfortable, vague and awkward.

That's what the room said today when I asked how the unspoken feels in a commercial conversation.

And yet those elephants in the room end up trampling all over projects, relationships and deals, not because the issues are unfixable, but because nobody tackles them.

Unlike wine, baggage doesn't get better with age. Even airports know that untended baggage is a problem.

What do we think works? Don't mention the war. Hold your breath. Hope it settles.

What actually happens? It doesn't settle. It festers. And then it overflows.

What could we do instead? Handle the baggage before it handles you. That could be yours. That could be theirs. Either way, it's a problem to solve.

And one thing to mull over: what baggage have you inherited?