This week’s quote comes from a recent Linkedin Daily Rundown. The quote actaully came from a December 19, 2018 article written by Duke University’s Walter Sinnott-Armstrong in Aeon titled, “Reach out, listen, be patient. Good arguments can stop extremism.” This article is a timely post that I recommend reading and thinking about.

Maybe the post stood out to me as the Government experiences another partial shutdown and the talking heads are in full blame-game mode. Maybe it’s because I love a good argument and am always happy to jump in and share my opinion. Or because one of my previous quotes shared the logic my brother-in-law dropped on my wife, “Do you listen to understand, or do you listen to respond?” It could have stood out for any of those reasons, but I think it stands out to me because of a recent meeting I had this past week. In the meeting, I pitched a new consumer-focused digital marketing campaign for an ecommerce client around New Year’s resolutions.

This client has 2 main audiences, professional and consumers. Currently, professionals do 3-4x the sales as consumers. The discussion around the campaign revolved around the amount to spend and target audiences. There were 3 points of view, all had positive and negative aspects about the campaign. Even though there were multiple points of view, the meeting was successful.

The meeting was successful because the conversation was not combative, but informative. We tried not to use terms like, “I think…” or “I feel…” Instead, we tried to use terms like, “Data shows…” or “In the future we’re…” or “I did this because…” This allowed our discussion to be fact-based and productive.

In Sinnott-Armstrong’s article about the Durham, NC public school integration in the 1970s and the discussions/meetings of two drastically different individuals — Ann Atwater and C P Ellis. We’re reminded that there are always arguments for both sides of most issues. The thing we need to remember is there is also probably common ground.

Throughout my career, I’ve had difficult conversations. I’ve had passionate exchanges about differing viewpoints. One thing that never changes is after difficult conversations or passionate exchanges I seek out the person and take a second and remember that at our core, we all want the same thing. After all basketball games, you shake hands with your opponent. After presidential debates, the candidates shake hands. Why should meetings be any different? We all want success. We all want respect. We may have different viewpoints aboyone makes a ut how to get there, but the desired outcome is usually the same.