Being Right: Half The Battle?

If you think being right wins the battle, you’re only half right.

I had the good fortune to learn this lesson early in my career. I was with a national CPA firm and had just completed training. In the written feedback I received from the partner leading the training program, he complimented me on being one of the most technically competent people in the firm. Then he said: When you’re right, you have to give others time to come around to your way of thinking.

What he was referencing was an instance during the class when I disagreed with another participant’s answer. The person responded by defending his position. I doubled down and pushed my position harder. This exchange was repeated one more time…with neither of us giving ground.

The partner, in his evaluation, was telling me that while I was right, I would never be able to convert others to my way of thinking by continuously pushing my position. It was one of the most valuable lessons of my life…and I had the good fortune to learn it early.

Being right lessons

This partner’s gift to me has led me to learn the following lessons on being right:

• I’m not always right.
• When I am right, I can’t convince others by telling them I’m right.
• The other person’s agreement that I’m right, doesn’t mean behaviors will change.

Let’s examine each of these in more detail.

Not always right

I have to approach every disagreement knowing that it is I who is mistaken, who is missing pieces to the puzzle. If I don’t approach disagreements this way, I come across as arrogant and nothing creates resistance more quickly than arrogance. Who among us doesn’t bristle when someone gives the impression that they are better, or smarter, than we are?

Can’t convince by telling

When two people disagree, both believe that they’re right. Simply telling the other person that you’re the one who is right isn’t going to convince them that it’s true.

In my confidence program, Converting Confidence Into Influence & Opportunity, I demonstrate how using facts and logic, our normal way of persuading, results in a 75% chance of creating resistance for the very idea we’re trying to promote.

The alternative to facts and logic is Socratic inquiry, asking questions that open the door to the other party seeing things that you’re seeing that they aren’t. In other words, the key to getting buy in for your ideas, assuming you’re right, is to help them discover that you’re right.

Their discovery results from them thinking about your question, developing the realization that they’ve been overlooking a key element, validating their new conclusion (which is your position)  with their own experiences.

That’s how we get others to come around to our way of thinking; asking, not telling.

Right ≠ Changed behavior

Even when the other party agrees that we’re right, they may not change their behaviors. We have to be okay with that. We have to become comfortable with the idea that each of us has a right to choose what we want from life…whether it’s good for us or not. We have to respect that right in others if we want them to respect our right to make choices for ourselves.

What we don’t have to do is continue working with someone who is unwilling to change, at least enough to effect some mutually-beneficial result. While they have the right to choose what they’ve come to realize is wrong, we have the right to discontinue our dealings with that person or organization.

Takeaways

Being right isn’t enough. We have to:

• Acknowledge the possibility that it is we who are wrong.
• Use questions instead of facts and logic so that others can discover the error of their thinking and validate their new conclusion with their own experiences.
• Understand that even when people realize that they’re wrong, they may not change their behaviors.
• Become comfortable with the fact that people have the right to choose behaviors that are not in their best interests.
• Realize that we don’t have to continue dealing with people who make choices that are not in their best interests i.e. we can’t care more about their welfare than they do.

I hope that these insights will do for you what that partner’s insight did for me…make me aware that being right is only half the battle.

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Resources

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