The moment you make an argument personal is the moment you lose it.
If your position is right because the other is wrong, or is an idiot, or did not do a good enough job, or is not as competent, your position is extremely weak. And even if you are right, there’s no way you can prove them wrong.
Keep discussions around facts instead and be ready to accept other opinions as valid and worth your consideration.
Arguments are negotiations, and no negotiation can leave one party empty-handed.
Some people like to provoke strong reactions in others. They seek the fight, they care to win, they tend to protect, defend, and argue.
Some people prefer not to be noticed by others. They shy away, they let go, they hide and accept.
With the former, you have to be careful not to be drawn into the pit. With the latter, you have to be careful to assign the merit and avoid being forceful.
Mediation is always the best way, but you first need to figure out who you are dealing with.
The worst way you can welcome a new thing a colleague has worked on – something that fills a gap, something that was needed and was not there – is to say: “Can you also do this?”.
Of course, it’s imperfect. It’s the first time you have that.
Of course, you have ideas and opinions. You were given time to think about it.
Of course, it will get better. That’s probably also why they have shared it.
“Can you also do this?” is the surest way to have the colleague stop working on it. Welcome the novelty instead, the initiative, the boldness. And give the new thing time to develop and accept your vision.
It might be that everyone is out there waiting for you to come out with the new feature. Perhaps your detractors are just waiting for you to trip and your competitors can’t wait to see the sneak peek of your new product. Somebody for sure has also set an alert to track everything that you are doing and beat you to it.
Or maybe not.
The point is that the time you spend worrying about all these unlikely scenarios – let’s accept it, in most cases we are not that important – is time you could invest to put your work out there and get people excited about it.
Caution does not spread.
You have challenges, difficulties, competitors, people who are definitely not on your side, the world out there that’s trying to make it even more complicated, personal problems, injuries, thoughts, feelings, uncertainties. And that can take you to dark places sometimes.
We all go through the same stuff. The best way to navigate all that is to spot this common ground and build a shared view. When you make of sportsmanship your credo, you’ll find that life is suddenly easier.
You've got this 