You know the feeling. The meeting was warm, engaged, maybe even overran by twenty minutes. Everyone left smiling. You sent the follow-up that evening.

Then silence.

Not a cold silence. A polite one. Which, as it turns out, is harder to read.

The situation

A British consultant I know — senior, experienced, not someone who makes obvious mistakes — spent three months trying to close a partnership with a Colombian infrastructure firm. The conversations were good. There was genuine interest on both sides.

Every time they spoke, the Colombian team would say something like ‘we will confirm with our director and come back to you shortly.’

He waited. He followed up. He waited again. The deal stalled, then quietly expired.

When I asked him what he thought had gone wrong, he said: ‘I think they just weren’t that interested.’

I think something else happened entirely.

The friction

In the UK Slot logic (the operating system most British professionals run on) ‘shortly’ means a specific window. Two days, maybe three. After that, the silence reads as disinterest, and a professional moves on.

In the LatAm Flow logic, ‘shortly’ is a relational signal, not a calendar commitment. It means: we are still in this. The relationship is open. But the next move requires the right moment, not the next slot in the diary.

Neither side was being dishonest. Neither side was disengaged. They were operating in different time architectures and neither of them knew it.

Slot v. Flow™ in action

🔗 Continue reading here: https://www.multilateral.studio/newsletters/the-friction-dispatch/posts/later