Humanity consistently engages in low value verbal jousting because they have not been educated on the meta skills of high functioning teams.

If you want to stop wasting time there are known communication modes that maximize learning aggregated from studies like Project Aristotle at Google.

If you get this wrong everything downstream will be dysfunctional and subpar. This is most companies and teams today.

Build trust first

If someone tells you what they think and you hit them with the verbal equivalent of a stick, they will stop telling you what they think.

At the same time, it is better for someone to yell their thoughts at you so you can address an issue rather than have issues fester unseen. Since humans are domesticated social animals being disagreeable is a terrifying risk. In order to overcome their fear people generally wait until they “explode” to communicate. Most normal people then react to this outburst as a social threat and react accordingly creating a downward spiral of doom. Recognize this, stay calm.

I like to imagine I am King Louie on my throne and anyone coming to me with feedback is a supplicant. Ultimately, I have control over how it is received and what is to be done with it. If they present it on a tattered cushion or in a golden chest it matters little to me.

When I receive explosive feedback the deliverer will usually calm once the feared confrontation and judgement does not present itself. Then we have a reasonable discussion.

So, always reward people for sharing their thoughts regardless of correctness and delivery in a clam manner.

Note, this doesn’t mean you should accept abuse. If there is no signal amongst the noise you need to put a stop to it. Sometimes people get triggered and take it out on the environment.

Focus on process not products

We consistently achieve rewards over the long term by having a good process for making decisions that are likely to pay off.

A common fallacy is “resulting” where people judge the value of decisions based on what happened rather than the quality of the decision making process. Consider the poker player who wins on a single jack high all-in bluff — was it a good decision? Probably not. Consider the armchair critic who boos the coach’s choice to go for it on 4th down after the play is over without trying to understand how that decision was made.

Much time is wasted debating outcomes rather than processes. Because people follow foolish processes their decisions are generated from a virtual roulette wheel. They fall victim to a broad spectrum of memetic hijack techniques like arguments to authority, this anecdote and that anecdote.

So, do not debate the correctness of results and outputs, debate the navigational process that creates results and outputs.

The person is never wrong

Part of sharing your thoughts is expressing disagreement but with genuine care for the other person. Disagreement isn’t about right or wrong. It isn’t about winning. This is about helping them, you, and your organization to work together better by identifying the point of failure in a logic widget and then improving it.

Often, you may want to say, “Hey your wrong because of XYZ” and at this point you have failed. The reason you have failed is because people are never wrong. The thinking they used to reach a conclusion is what is wrong. And, it’s likely not even wrong, merely sub optimal.

So, you can say “That is a stupid idea” but not “Your idea is stupid”.

Recall, we are domesticated ape selectively bred to be pro-social. Not being accepted socially is a direct threat to our survival. When you challenge or judge the person you literally threaten their survival — that is the physiological reaction.

This turns “discussions” into a status game where they show they are better than you. Instead of cooperation you become hens pecking at each other.

Avoid. This. Trap.

When you frame the conversation such that ideas and behaviors are low stakes choices it becomes easy for the other person to change their choice. When you make it part of their identity it traps them.

So, do not tell the person they are wrong, dumb, or otherwise pass judgement on them. Instead pass judgement on the idea, process, or behaviors they have chosen to adopt.

Conclusion

I hope you will consider these three principles in your own discussion process. Status games are zero sum while cooperative learning games are positive sum. Let’s improve together.

It is a shame that we do not teach this meta skill in schools. But then again we do not teach the science of learning, the most fundamental skill of all.

Our poor communication today as a society is no ones fault. But it our responsibility what state it will be in tomorrow.