3 ideas
A counsellor is called in because someone is in doubt, and people in doubt lean toward what brings fortune and away from what brings harm. A recommendation is accepted only if the person sees a benefit to themselves. If it appears to cost them, or hides a harm they later discover, they reject it and the counsellor loses their trust, so the counsellor must make the gain visible and remove the perceived loss.
Commit to a course when one of five conditions holds. It serves people of rank and wins honour even at some risk. It succeeds easily without great effort. It is costly and hard but cannot be avoided. It removes a looming trouble, or it clearly brings good fortune.
The sage accomplishes things through distinct modes: open benevolence, covert maneuver, sincere trust, concealment, and plain ordinary means, and chooses the mode that fits the matter at hand. Before deciding, test the choice against past precedent, project it into likely future consequences, and check it against ordinary common experience.