The Permission Question
Launch library · evergreen read
Before turning toward a sensitive topic, a short question asking whether the subject is willing to discuss it does real work beyond simple courtesy. It signals respect for a boundary that may exist, and it often makes a subject more forthcoming precisely because they were asked rather than simply steered there. A short acknowledgement that a topic is difficult often does more work than any elaborate framing could.
Some interviewers worry that asking permission gives a subject an easy way to refuse, closing off material they might otherwise have shared. In practice the opposite is often true: people asked plainly, and treated as having a genuine choice, tend to extend more trust than people who feel cornered into a topic. People asked plainly, and given a genuine choice, tend to extend far more trust than those who feel cornered.
The permission question need not be elaborate. A simple acknowledgement that the next area is difficult, followed by an invitation rather than an assumption, is usually enough to shift the tone of what follows from extraction toward something closer to genuine exchange. The shift in tone this produces is often noticeable within the very next exchange that follows.