A break with a client: why it matters what exactly was cutA break with a client:why it matterswhat exactly was cut

A break in a business relationship is the cutting of one of three things: affinity (how much the two sides like each other), reality (what they agree on) or communication (what passes between them). When you know which of the three was cut, you move from a general feeling such as he is angry to one precise action, and the person who knows best what was cut is the other side.

What a break is, exactly

The booklet's definition is worth reading slowly. According to it, a break happens when the affinity, reality or communication between a person and someone else, or something else, suddenly drops or is cut. The source adds that every upset with people or things comes from one of these weakening or being severed, understanding included.

Notice what the definition leaves out. It says nothing about the person being too sensitive, being like that, or about some general problem between you. What it does say is that exactly one of three things was cut, and you can put a name to it.

That changes the direction of the whole conversation. As long as the explanation is that the person is sensitive or just like that, the only thing left is to wait for it to pass, and the booklet calls that kind of explanation almost always wrong, because it describes the person and says nothing about what happened between you. Once the explanation is that something specific was cut, there is finally something to look for.

In a business it looks like this. A client finds that the price went up and nobody told him: what was cut is reality, the agreement on what had been agreed. An employee is left out of a decision that concerns him: what was cut is communication. A supplier hears you talk dismissively about him in front of others: affinity was cut.

Three people were hurt, and in each of them a different thing was cut, so what repairs the relationship is different in each case too.

Why give it a name at all

A natural question comes up here: what difference does the name make, if the client is unhappy anyway?

The source answers it when it explains why it chose this term. If you discover which of the three was cut, it says, you can bring about “a rapid recovery in the person's state of mind.”

The difference is between two sentences. He is angry leads to no action, because nothing in it can be fixed. The agreement on the date was cut leads to one precise action.

Suppose an owner who described it to himself as a disappointed client and stayed stuck, with no idea what to do about it. Once he redefined it as a cut in the agreement on what the price includes, the action was obvious.

Or a partner who felt distant. When it was looked into, she had simply stopped receiving information, so the issue was communication and affinity was fine. What solved it was a weekly update, and a long heart-to-heart was never needed.

Without the precise name, both of them would have tried to repair something that was not broken.

You are guessing, they know

Two practical notes from the booklet matter here. The first is that usually only one of the three corners was cut, so there is no need to fix everything at once.

The second is easy to miss: when the other side corrects you, they are right. Say you think it was a communication problem and they tell you that for them it is more about agreement. Their version decides, because it is their reality, and it is the one that has to be repaired.

Suppose a garage owner who was certain the client's problem was the price. The client told him the price was fine and that what bothered him was never being kept informed. The owner repaired what the client said, and left his own guess alone.

Or a designer who assumed the client took offence at a remark. In fact he took offence at three days without a reply. Two different corners, and two different repairs.

This connects to a warning the booklet raises in chapter 4. According to the source, denying a person's reality is one of the quickest ways to knock him off balance. Someone who meets the other side's correction by arguing over the version (I never said that, you are exaggerating) wipes out the very reality he is supposed to repair, even when he is right about the facts.

Your assumption is a starting point for the conversation. A person who walks into a repair conversation with a finished conclusion repairs what he thought, and leaves what the other side felt.

What the booklet adds

This chapter of the booklet has three questions that locate which corner was cut and a six-step repair sequence, together with two exercises: a spot-it exercise and a do-it exercise. In the chapter after it, the booklet explains how to raise a corner using the other two.

A break with a name is a break you can close. One that stays at he is angry leads to no action, and so it stays open.

The booklet is general knowledge about communication, not legal advice for a business dispute. The repair also depends on the other side.