Professional skills: Comfortable advice is not good advice

There's a version of this job where nothing ever gets uncomfortable and the client always leaves happy. I've watched it up close. The conversation stays light, the difficult question never quite gets asked, protection gets mentioned briefly and moved past before it can cause any friction. Everyone shakes hands at the end. The broker feels like it went well. It did go well. For the broker. Because here's what comfortable advice protects, not the client, the adviser. It protects them from an awkward minute, from a question that might land badly, from the slight tension of making some...