When Roles Dissolve

This morning, in another client call, I notice something.

Some meetings feel like coffee with an old friend.
Others like stepping into a ring.

Until now, I thought this was about personalities or stakes or pressure.

But watching this client ask about project timelines, I see it differently.

The meetings that flow aren't the ones with the best news or the easiest clients. They're the ones where both sides have stopped performing their roles.

I think about our best client relationships—the ones where a crisis email starts with "Quick question" instead of "Urgent Meeting Required."

The ones where silence in a meeting means thinking, not tension.

These relationships didn't start casual. They evolved. Not through big wins or perfect execution, but through small moments of dropped pretense.

Like when a client admits they don't understand a report instead of demanding a different one. Or when we acknowledge uncertainty instead of hiding behind projections.

The data confirms this as well.

Our longest client relationships don't correlate with project success rates or even ROI.

They correlate with:

• Face time and meeting frequency
• The comfort to share a half-formed thought

It's not about being friends.

It's about becoming people who solve problems together.

I wonder how many opportunities we miss by keeping our professional masks firmly in place, never discovering what becomes possible when both sides put down their scripts.