My own worst enemy

Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy.  I was thinking about my blog post today, and I was going to title it "And instead of but".  As I started to compose the posting in my head, I realized I can't encourage my readers to do something I am incapable of myself.

The idea was, that for just one day, in every conversation and encounter, we should all try really hard to find something we agree with in what everyone we talked to said, and then build on it to find common ground.  And instead of but.

So, I started playing out conversations in my head to see if I could do it.  And, a lot of the time, I just can't.

Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I look at humans as a flawed species.  We try hard, a lot of the time, but we are an error prone, failure prone, emotionally motivated flawed species.  We do things out of anger and fear that are not logical, and are sometimes self-damaging.  We make errors that hurt ourselves and others.

Because I view the species this way, my prejudice during my career as a safety professional was toward intrinsic safety, (where you use a safer method or material) or engineering controls (where you design protection into the device).

I realized any conversation where a human would assert that taking a personal action to mitigate a hazard would be more effective all of the time than implementing intrinsic safety or designing an engineering control would always get a but, not an and from me.

And that is the crux of the dilemma.  When we feel passionately about something, when we have dedicated ourselves to an ideal, it is almost impossible to see things any other way than "our" way.  And you can't have productive discussion without common ground.  And you can't find common ground if you won't compromise your absolutes.

So, every time I think of a contentious conversation where someone wants to have total behavior control over an easily recognizable hazard, I immediately start thinking of ways to convince them that there should be another layer of control, even if only administrative controls are available.

So I have no and.  I don't know that I want to have an and.  But I want to have the conversation.  So what can I do?

It still has to start with finding common ground.  The next step then would be to agree that we disagree on a subject, and either leave it alone, or decide it is too important to walk away from and has to be discussed.

Then the next step is, instead of selling my position, instead of trying to convince the other person why I am "right", is to simply state why I believe what I believe, and why I think it will lead to better outcomes.

And then listen to the other party, and why they believe their position will lead to better outcomes.

As a safety professional, I had that conversation over and over again as I saw sustainable solutions in terms of intrinsic safety and engineering controls, and many others saw sustainable solutions in terms of administrative and behavioral controls.

Now I need to learn to bring that professional face to my interpersonal disagreements.

Fair warning, I'm still going to be trying to win you over.  Like water on rock.  But if we don't at least have the conversation, neither one of us will have the opportunity for information which may shape our future ideal.  No buts about it.