Communication game: Criticism or Connection?

Battlefield in a conference room

The criticism and disagreement happen pretty often in the meeting rooms. Considering them as a personal attack is an immature approach to communication¹.

I’d assume, the issues with self-confidence push a person towards attempting to win every battle argument. And I find it pretty destructive for the teamwork:

1. The person who is looking for a chance to defend themselves, loses the chance to understand, to enrich their perspective with other opinions.
2. If an arguments turn into a fight, the grand total is negative; the loss overweights the potential gain. Most likely, the interpersonal relations will deteriorate, whilst the chances to persuade the opposite site are low.
3. Sometimes we are simply wrong. Yes, it happens. The sooner we accept it, the better.

Communication isn’t a survival game

The best things to gain from communication are new ideas and allies/connections.

I like the concept of non-fungible ideas. If each of us has an orange and we exchange ‘em, we end up having one orange each. Contrary to oranges, the ideas multiply, not disappear when being shared.
In order to benefit from this concept, a person has to listen and to find compromises. When objections are faced with humble confidence, they either contribute to comprehensively stronger foundation, or prevent us from (potentially expensive) mistakes — either way is a win.

Let go of unnecessary battles. Building connections is where the real victory lies.