What Not To Say
We both cannot be correct, so what do I say?
Decades ago, I took the Dale Carnegie Course. This would be Dale Carnegie of the “How to Win Friends and Influence People” fame. He wrote that classic, 1930s-era, perpetually-in-print guidebook to human relations. The course, in one form or another, has been taught for a hundred years. The training has had a lasting influence on me and so many others.
One of the most useful skills I learned in the course is how to respond when you’re in a disagreement with someone and you both cannot be right. In the heat of a dispute, the most profitable posture to take is to be “epistemologically humble”. That means acknowledging you don’t know everything, and (please be seated for this next bit) there’s always the possibility that you could be the one who got things wrong.
We were taught whenever we ever found ourselves in a situation where it’s clear that someone is mistaken, we should say this:
“I may be wrong. I frequently am. Let’s examine the facts.”
That’s a charming and disarming de-escalation phrase. It takes the focus and pressure off the participants who are likely trying to avoid the embarrassment of looking bad for being wrong. Instead, it stokes curiosity and re-directs them to look more closely at the inputs to each other’s opinion or position.
Here is an illustration of when this phrase should have been used but was not.
When I was being trained as a computer programmer, back in the olden days when computers were just dressed-up, electrified abacus machines, we often did assignments in pairs or small groups. One day I was paired with Lance, a sharp-dressing, smooth-talking, self-confident fellow who exuded an aura of superiority.
We wrote our code and generated our outputs, but each of us came up with a different answer. When I showed him my answer, he responded with this:
“Huh, I came up with something different. Let’s see what you did wrong.”
At first, I thought he was just being a smartass. Then I realized he was smugly serious.
“What arrogance!” I thought. First, he immediately concluded I had made a mistake, and second, he displayed a total lack of humility that he could have ever committed an error.
Upon further examination, it turned out I HAD gotten the computation wrong, and Lance’s answer was correct.
But it was too late. The damage to our working relationship was done. From that point on, I effectively lopped Lance from my life and avoided working with him, as much as that was within my control. Today, Lance exists only in my memory as an example of what not to say when someone has come up with an answer different from my own.
It makes you wonder, though. What if Lance had used the Dale Carnegie response? What if he had said:
“I may be wrong. I frequently am. Let’s examine the facts.”
Who knows? Perhaps Lance and I would be best friends today.
Lance, if you’re out there, I’d consider giving you a do-over. What do you say?
