Many group meetings are tough while rebuilding context after 3 months of leave — especially while recalibrating to both the current work atmosphere and the trust level in each relationship to gauge what level of directness to use when my intuition catches on something that seems off.
It's hard to come up with generic examples that convey what I'm thinking of, but something like:
"It would help me support you if I understood more about this goal"
vs
"Can you help me understand how this part connects to the overall goal?"
vs
"What options and trade-offs did you consider in choosing this?"
vs
"What do you think the challenges and barriers might be for this, and how can I help avoid or overcome them?"
vs finding a compassionate yet direct way to challenge a proposal
If it's a strong relationship, something like "X might be a better approach here, what do you think?"
And this is all made so much more complicated by Schrödinger's Snake and Schrödinger's Discrimination