The Art of Arguing at Work
Plus, Sunday Assorted Links #5: Writing better emails, remote work best practices, start-up cities and more!
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When I initially setup this newsletter, I did not think I had it in me to publish every week. So I did what Tyrion Lannister told me to do and christened the newsletter ‘Infrequent’.
However, I have now found a better sounding name for my newsletter. Not just better sounding but one that resonates with the idea behind the newsletter which is: the digital world (bits) is full of interesting places to visit and people to meet, and travel is not restricted to just the physical world (atoms).
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Special thanks to those few who read my drafts. Without you, my articles would not be half as decent as it is now.
Off to this week’s journey!
The Art of Arguing at Work
I.
If you think about it, arguments are an indispensable aspect of human existence. They are the only way 2 parties can come to an agreement and they are the only way 2 people can begin to resolve conflicts. Be it a 90 year old who wants to be euthanized or a 10 year old who wants to watch TV at 1 O’clock in the night, arguments are the only conciliatory tool we humans have.
Imagine if there was no such thing called arguments. What a boringly monotonous world it would be. Everyone would have the same opinion, have the same taste and do the same things the same way. That sounds a lot like animals and less like humans. Without arguments, there would be no difference between intelligent, conscious beings and dumb animals. In a way, arguments are a reminder that we are independent, conscious beings with diverse perspectives.
Arguments themselves are diverse. Some are fiery and dramatic, some are contemplative and slow. Some are friendly, some are ugly. Some are trivial and some are not. Some change you for the better, some for the worse. Some mark the demise of a friendship, some mark the beginning of a friendship. Some take you closer to the solution, some distance you from the solution.
Arguments can happen anywhere: in the streets, inside the house, at dinners, in front of relatives, at parties, at workplace and even inside our head. Lets double click on workplace arguments.
II.
Workplace arguments should take you closer to the solution and not distance you from it. After all, you are getting paid for solving problems, not for creating new ones. Yet, people at work argue in a way that does the latter.
I can never understand why people get angry during discussions at work. If a team member does not understand something, does passing a derogatory comment help? If two colleagues do not see eye to eye, why does it cause tension? If an employee disagrees with her boss, why does the boss get offended? What is the need for a person to raise his voice at work? These are unfathomable for the simple reason that anger is an emotion that is inimical to employee productivity. Anger only distances you and your collaborators from the solution. It is a morale killer.
This becomes particularly dangerous with hierarchical arguments, i.e someone at the top is yelling at someone below them, for it achieves nothing. In fact, it is regressive - all it does is make the other person feel like trash and this person is supposed to go and get work done while feeling like trash? Like…what are you trying to achieve here? Humiliation is counter-productive. Again, a simple concept to grasp.
But I think everyone knows this. You probably mentally nodded in agreement to the above points. Where it gets hard is when you are in the moment. In the moment, it is easy to get carried away by your emotions. But we can all do better, can’t we?
III.
If you are someone who is struggling to keep your emotions in check, then congrats. It means you have identified the problem and identification is the first step in solving a problem. How do you solve the problem? Keep your eye on the prize: the work.
The work (project or task) is what matters. Why do you bring your emotions into the picture? What are you trying to achieve by making remarks with irritation and contempt? The moment you do that you are drawing the crowd’s attention away from the task to your emotions. You’re saying ‘Forget about the task and look at me. I am so angry now.” Are you and your emotions more important than the work that needs to be done? No. Do not make it about you. It’s all about the work.
Before uttering anything, take a moment to ask yourself “Can I convey the same message without anger?” If the answer is yes, which it almost always is, then do it without anger.
Be prudent about where you spend your energy. If you’re giving too many fucks about the project that you are losing your temper, learn to give lesser fucks. While you are doing that, be mindful of the impact your comments have on others.
There are, however, times when passing comments colored with frustration helps. Steve Jobs did it all the time. For example, consider this anecdote involving Intel’s former CEO Andy Grove: There was a meeting to which an employee came few minutes late. Andy sharply remarked “All I have in this world is time and you are wasting it.” That remark seems to lack empathy at first glance but we can say with certainty that it caused a drastic change in Intel’s employees. People in that meeting who heard Andy say that would never be late to another meeting. It helped cause an instant cultural shift.
However, use this judiciously for in majority of the cases, it has a detrimental effect. Tyranny is an exception rather than the rule. Wield it only to serve a higher purpose.
IV.
While the pressure to do better lies on the aggressor, there are things that the victim can do to tackle the situation.
Firstly, the same advice applies to the victim too: focus on work and ignore the emotions (of the aggressor). Filter out the annoyance in your manager’s words and try to find out what he wants. If your manager draws the attention to his emotions, you draw the attention back to the task at hand. Show him how it is done. This disarms the aggressor and if he is intelligent enough, he might even realize that progress can be made without aggression.
Secondly, be cognizant of Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). FAE is a cognitive bias wherein you judge others on their character but you judge yourself on the situation. For example, If you had a fight with your spouse in the morning, then you know why you are snapping at people at work. But if you see another person snapping at people, you label them as short-tempered. If you are slow because you did not sleep well last night, you don’t judge yourself harshly. Whereas you see another person being slow, you think they are a ‘slow person’. Be mindful of the fact that a person’s behavior could be a consequence of circumstantial factors and not a consequence of their character.
Seeing it through this lens is empowering. You see that the other person is not strong enough to keep their emotions in check. So you can play the big brother/sister role and step up. Support them by drawing their attention back to the work instead of letting them get consumed by their emotions.
It's not only kind to view others' situations with charity, it's more objective too. Be mindful to also err on the side of taking personal responsibility rather than justifying and blaming.
Both of these suggestions are hard to practice as they require a level of stoicism. Plus, of course, this should not be the kind of environment one should be working in. But in that moment when you are at the receiving end of fury, these things help.
V.
Irrespective of whether you are the aggressor or the victim, it pays well to have the right mindset about arguments.
How do you view arguments? Do you view them as a battle to be won or a dance to be performed? From this article by Taylor:
In modern society, the default metaphor for argument is war……All the words we use to talk about arguing are also words we use to talk about war. We see the person as an opponent who we want to triumph over. When someone opens an argument with us, we feel like we are being assaulted. We attack his positions and gain or lose ground as the argument goes on.
If you make it about winning and losing, you are making it about yourself. You are prioritizing personal triumph over collective progress.
As Taylor says, instead of a war, view arguments as a dance.
Imagine, instead, an environment where the metaphor for argument was dancing. A point of contention would be a particularly dramatic moment in the dance. Your partner (not opponent) would step towards you, not to attack, but to work with you to create a movement that was beautiful, elegant, and true. One partner moving backwards wouldn’t be seen as losing, but letting the other partner lead when they were stronger at this particular dance — a very logical thing to do when you’re dancing, but not when you are at war.
This way, you remove the toxicity from an argument and turn it into a collaborative discussion instead.
Thanks to Subasini, Ananya and Krithika for reading drafts of this.
This Week’s Interesting Reads
Buckle up for this week’s journey!
Rabbit Hole of the Week: Workplace Productivity
How To Write Emails with Military Precision By HBR: Writing email is an art. I suck at and I have seen so many people suck at it. This short article gives a great framework for writing concise emails.
How to Tell a Business Story Using the McKinsey Situation-Complication-Resolution (SCR) Framework by Speaking Sherpa: Storytelling is another art that so few people are good at. This articles outlines the SCR framework used by Mckinsey to come up with compelling narratives. You can use it for the initiatives you are driving within the org or projects that you are working on. Works for any kind of pitch.
Remote Work Best Practices by Taylor Pearson: Remote work is here to stay (at least until the COVID pandemic draws to a close). While arguments about the merits and demerits of remote work are interesting, there are a lot of things you can do today make remote working better for yourself and your team. We have already embraced digital tools to augment out workplace productivity pre-pandemic. Now, we just have to push a bit further and optimize our remote work practices so that we can offset its downsides as much as possible.
Other Interesting Reads
Prospectus on Prospera
By Astral Codex Ten (Scott)
Blog | 70 minute read | Tags: Human Progress, Government, Urban Planning and Development
We have been unable to eradicate corruption, gender inequality, pollution, poverty, hunger so on and so forth. Whenever people talk about solving these problems, the commonly bandied about term is ‘systemic change.’ How does a systemic change that solves all of these problems look like? It would look like Prospera.
Prospera is a charter city - a ‘start up city’ with ‘44% less democratic government’. The city planners and architects are trying to make it radically different than our current cities and laws. They plan to have "no poverty", "zero hunger", "gender equality", "reduced inequalities", "climate action" and other good stuff.
Scott, in this article, deep dives into this project. He gives the overview, the pros and the cons and also answers questions that many would find themselves asking.
To give you a teaser:
3D property rights - property is measured in 3D as ‘voxels’ so you not only buy and own a piece of the land but also the space above it.
Education - pace of teaching will be based on competency so a high IQ kid would no longer be limited by the average IQ of the class.
Competition - provision that allows people to come up with their own communities and rules, and compete amongst other communities and rules. Competition is often a good thing but has been limited to the private sector. Prospera, for the first time, is allowing for competition between laws, governament models and governments.
And sooo much more interesting stuff. They have a bold vision and are rethinking cities from the ground up.
Peter Thiel predicting Bitcoin 10 years before it happened
Twitter | 3 minute watch | Tags: Blockchain, Crypto, Silicon Valley, First Principles Thinking
It’s simply mind-blowing to watch Peter thiel talking about decentralized virtual currencies 10 years before the first cryptocurrency came into existence.
Also, this is an excellent illustration of first principles thinking. In just under a minute, he explains why we need private currencies. Dudes a legend.
Supersonic Jets are here (kind of)
Twitter | 1 minute watch | Tags: Human Progress, Aviation
This is huge. Concorde was the last radical disruption in the aviation industry and sadly, failed to take off. It was risky (crashes were not uncommon), consumed copious amounts of fuel, harmful for the environment and had insanely high operational costs.
But humans never settle. Boom Supersonic, a start up in the aviation space, has been working on a viable, safe supersonic jet and an American Airlines just announced that they would be purchasing these!
Now, the jet shown in this video is only a conceptual render. They are about to do their first test flight and I cannot wait to see where they go from here.
Quote of the week
“Every event has two handles, one by which it can be carried, and one by which it can’t. If your brother does you wrong, don’t grab it by his wronging, because this is the handle incapable of lifting it. Instead, use the other—that he is your brother, that you were raised together, and then you will have hold of the handle that carries.” - Epictetus
That’s all for this week!
All views expressed by the author are personal.
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