"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." Alice Walker
Early in her career, Michelle was a financial analyst at a manufacturing company. In a meeting where she was the only junior analyst, a senior executive was arguing for replacing one supplier with a significantly cheaper alternative.
Michelle didn’t push back directly. Instead, she said: “We tried something similar at my previous company. The cheaper vendor looked great during procurement. Six months later, their lead times cost us more in overtime than we saved on pricing.”
The executive asked to see the operational data before making the decision.
One of the hardest professional situations to navigate is being right when you're not the most senior person in the room.
When you explain, you are asking people to follow your reasoning. But a story lets people see the situation for themselves. And when someone feels they have arrived at the insight on their own, they are far more likely to act on it.
It also changes how people see you. Your title tells people where you sit in the hierarchy. Your stories reveal how you observe, what you notice, and how you think.
What It Looks Like In Practice
A junior product manager’s team at a fintech company was close to shutting down a feature after usage dropped sharply over the quarter.
She didn’t start the decision meeting with a recommendation or metrics, but pulled up an old support ticket from a small business owner in Nebraska who had used the feature daily for two years before suddenly stopping.
One line stood out: “I don’t have time to enter the same data twice.”
The team dug deeper and discovered an API change on the customer’s side had quietly broken the workflow. The feature stayed and the integration got fixed instead.An operations coordinator in a healthcare network kept seeing the same scheduling conflict across three clinics.
The initial assumption was that teams simply weren’t coordinating properly. But at the next review meeting, instead of arguing the point, she played a voicemail from a frustrated staff member:
“This is the fourth time we’ve booked two patients into the same room. The system just lets it happen.”
The discussion changed immediately. Within a week, the scheduling rules were updated across all three clinics.
Try It This Week
Before your next meeting where you are not the most senior voice, find one story from your own experience that makes your point better than a summary could.
Don't save it for after you've explained the context. Use it instead of the explanation. Open with: "Can I share something I've seen?" or "This reminds me of a moment a few years ago…"
Watch what happens when you stop trying to be heard through argument and start trying to be understood through experience.
From Elsewhere - Seny
The Catalans have a word, seny, that does not translate neatly into English. It is more than common sense and less than wisdom. A National Geographic anthropologist described it as "a kind of refined good sense and self-realisation" — the ability to read a situation clearly, respond with integrity, and resist the pull of impulse.
Catalans consider it one of the highest qualities a person can posses - the quiet capacity to see things as they are and act accordingly.
In a world that rewards speed and volume, seny is a useful thing to keep close. Read more »