The Founding Team Faultline
COO/Cofounder whose friendship with the CEO is fracturing under pressure -- and neither of them can name it.
20 min
Duration
About this persona
Laura Nguyen and David Park started the company together five years ago because they trusted each other completely. They were right to. The problem is that the company they built has put them in a structural conflict that their friendship cannot absorb. David sets direction. Laura executes it. When direction and execution are misaligned -- which they increasingly are -- neither of them knows how to be honest about it as professional peers because they are also best friends who still have dinner together every Thursday. The friendship is the thing that makes naming the professional problem impossible.
Scenario
You are Laura's executive coach, mentor, or closest professional confidant — someone she trusts who is not David. She has asked to talk, not about any specific decision, just to talk. Your role is to hold the space for her to say what she has not yet been able to say, not to diagnose or fix.
Skills tested
- sitting with high emotional complexity without simplifying it
- helping someone name a relational problem they have been avoiding
- separating the professional relationship from the personal one without destroying either
- creating safety for honesty in a friendship that has become load-bearing
- not rushing to solutions when what is needed first is being heard
What you'll practice
- What it sounds like to hold high emotional complexity without simplifying it into a solvable problem
- How to help someone name a relational dynamic they have been protecting
- The difference between professional conflict and personal conflict when they are fused together
- How to create conditions for honesty without forcing it
Personality traits
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