Say the Thing You Think You Cannot Say
Detoxify your inner monologue into a question that puts the unspoken issue on the table.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 92%
Fred Kofman's 'left-hand column' exercise says our brains run a private commentary alongside every conversation — judgments, suspicions, irritations — and most workplace dysfunction lives there. The method has two moves. First, detoxify: float above yourself and recognise that issuing a raw judgment on someone's work or motives will make them defensive and close the conversation. Second, convert the judgment into a specific hypothesis phrased as a question: 'I'm hearing a concern about this other team's work — are you concerned?' The question keeps everyone in curiosity rather than defence, and explicitly invites the other side to bring contradicting data. Too general ('is there something you're not telling me?') reads as paranoid and fails. Done well, one question can change the trajectory of a meeting, a team, and its roadmap.
Origin
Claire Hughes Johnson learned this from Fred Kofman, an Argentinian accountant-turned-MIT-professor-turned-leadership-coach whose firm Axialent was hired by Sheryl Sandberg to run management bootcamps at Google around 2005, when Claire was a senior manager there.
Core principles
- 01Every conversation has a silent left-hand column running underneath it.
- 02The unsaid thing is usually the thing blocking the group.
- 03A judgment spoken aloud closes people down; a hypothesis invites them in.
- 04Leadership is naming what everyone sees, not holding the title.
- 05Specific beats general — vague probing reads as paranoia.
How to run it
- 1
Catch the left-hand column
Notice the private monologue running while you listen — the thing you're concluding about the person, the team, or the work but not saying.
Pro tip You hear it most clearly when you are NOT close to the material — outsiders catch what insiders have normalised.
- 2
Detoxify the judgment
Recognise that saying 'you're clearly threatened by that team' is a verdict on another human's work or motives. Strip the verdict out before you open your mouth.
Watch out People super don't like being judged out loud. A raw judgment guarantees defensiveness and blowback.
- 3
Convert it into a specific hypothesis
Restate the judgment as a named, testable observation tied to something you actually heard or read in the room.
Pro tip Use the words 'I'm hearing…' — it signals evidence rather than accusation.
Watch out Too general is worse than silence; it triggers suspicion instead of disclosure.
- 4
Ask, don't tell
Put the hypothesis out as a question that opens the aperture: 'Can I just ask if there's something we're not talking about here?'
- 5
Invite the counter-data
Explicitly say you want them to validate it or fight it: 'Tell me no, I have data to the contrary, and I'll happily revise.'
Pro tip Naming that you will revise makes it safe for a junior person to disagree with you.
- 6
Follow the thread to the structural fix
Keep asking until the real constraint surfaces, then name the change it implies — who should be in the room, what scope should be deduped, what decision is actually needed.
Pro tip Often the right answer is 'we don't have the right people in the room' — stop the meeting rather than force a bad decision.
In the wild
Sitting in a Stripe QBR for a product area outside her org, Claire sensed the team was defensive or angry about another team doing similar work. Rather than assert it, she asked: 'Can I just ask if there's something we're not talking about here?' The team deflected — 'no, it's fine.' She kept going: 'I feel like you're concerned about this other team. Is it the same thing? Should that team be in the room right now? It feels like there's asymmetrical information.' Eventually the room agreed they didn't have the right people present to have the conversation and stopped the meeting to reconvene properly.
→ The overlapping scope was ultimately deduped; an engineer on the periphery caught her on the stairs afterwards and said 'that was refreshing.'
The same move works outside work. Instead of announcing 'you and your husband clearly have a problem and I'm going to solve it' — the judgment version — you take the risk with a friend and ask the narrow question: 'Have you told your husband that you feel that way?' The judgment stays in the left-hand column; the question opens the conversation.
→ The friend gets to disclose or deflect on her own terms rather than defend against your diagnosis.
Common mistakes
Asking a vague fishing question
'Is there something you're not telling me?' makes people think you're paranoid or trapping them, and they close down. The hypothesis has to name the specific thing you heard.
Speaking the judgment instead of the hypothesis
Issuing a verdict on another person or their work product triggers defence, not disclosure. Detoxify first.
Waiting until you have the title
People assume calling out the unspoken thing is a VP or COO privilege. It is a leadership act available to anyone in the room, including an IC or a guest.
Is it for you?
Best for
Managers, board members and senior ICs who can read a room but hold back for fear of blowback.
Not ideal for
Environments where you have no standing or trust, or where the observation is pure speculation with no evidence.
From the transcript
“how do you take what he calls your left-hand column... detoxify the left-hand column and actually say it like say the thing”
“it's usually a question that opens the aperture of the conversation but keeps them in a mode of curiosity”
“I'm going to name the hypothesis I have and then I want you to validate it or by the way fight with me”
From the episode
#724: Claire Hughes Johnson — How to Take Responsibility for Your Life, Create Rules That Work, Stop Being a Victim, Set Strong Boundaries, and More