The answer I gave my daughter seemed to work for these questions as well: "Because they are busy making the other party wrong."
We can do better. We can all lead better: making others wrong does not make us right.
Conviction is a useful quality. Often, it serves as the foundation for passion that moves a person to action. Yet, is that action for something, or against something? For example, Mother Theresa wouldn't march against abuses, but would march for human rights.
What is your approach for advancing your ideas?
When I slip, when I am not on a roll, my methods include positioning other people and their beliefs as wrong. I will let my wisdom shine by showing them what is clear to me (and should be clear to them if they had any sense). I punctuate my points with enthusiasm (which is tainted with the sound of entitlement - after all, I can see the light and they can't). I try to persuade them for their own benefit ("selling" even requires banking my "political capitol" for future sales calls).
And the results I create? Almost without fail, the other person becomes more entrenched in their beliefs. Which of course, A) fuels my belief that they "don't get it," which leads to B) they sense how I feel about them, which only angers them more, and that leads to C) them becoming increasingly attached to their beliefs - and me to mine.
A beautiful example of ego-driven leadership.
We can't change other people by making them wrong.
For those of us who have experienced such interactions, once we self-assess, it is easy to see our error in leadership: we can't change other people by making them wrong.
I have met very few people, in any arena, who, upon being told they were wrong, changed. (I have met plenty of people who have "discovered" they were wrong and changed.) And I have met few people who rally behind the person who uses ego-driven leadership, who positions themselves as right, and other's as wrong.
How do you respond to a person who is communicating that you are wrong? Or that your ideas aren't good enough? Or that your efforts are inadequate?
We'd all like to think that we would respond to such an incident in a High Road way. But experience tells us that in those intense times, when life is flying by, most people get defensive when they've been positioned as wrong.
Manuel Barrios of Navistar-International shares, "I've had a lot of negative and confrontational interactions that have created bad feelings and wasted time. These were discussion that lead nowhere." And why? Manuel continues, "Most of the time these discussions were held by two parties trying to convince the other that they were wrong."
What sort of results could individuals, teams and organizations create if they worked with the understanding that everyone has their own beliefs? And that other people have evolved those beliefs through a life-time of experience, so there's a good chance they're loaded with conviction, just as we are?
Respect for diversity of thought.
Isn't this "respect for diversity?" And in this case, respect for diversity of thought? Would you agree that, if interviewed, most people would say they respect diversity? But is it possible that some people only respect and celebrate diversity when the opposing views don't interrupt their own agenda?
What does it mean to really embrace diversity? What does it look like when a team really utilizes diversity to their advantage? What sort of results do we create when we embrace opposing view points?
Whether at an organizational level, or a national level, what sort of difference can we all make by focusing on what's necessary to work together, rather than what separates us?
In the April 10, 2005 Denver Post, Ed Rollins, former aid to four GOP Presidents, is quoted as saying, from politics to business to baseball, "America has lost its leaders; America has lost it's heroes. There is a great yearning for somebody to step into that void."
The responsibility lies with us.
My intuition tells me that most of us, just like my daughter, want to get along with one another. We want to see our families soar, our companies fully leverage their awesome talent base, and our country and world unite. The responsibility of making this happen does not rest on the shoulders of those in government, nor those who supervise us at work. We can't wait for them to take the first step before we'll take ours.
The responsibility lies with us. When we validate others, when we listen to others, when we respect perspectives other than our own, when we lead -- others will follow.
Today, how will you show respect for diversity of thought when you are faced with ideas that are not congruent with your own?
