Would You Prefer to be ‘Right’ or Successful?
There are situations when being right is essential. Imagine yourself as the bomb disposal expert in an action movie, sweating over a tangle of wires while a digital clock counts down. Cut the right wire, save the day. Cut the wrong one, and the movie ends rather abruptly.
Or consider an orthopedic surgeon preparing to replace a knee. The patient expects the surgeon to operate on the correct leg. There is little room for interpretation here. Being right is the only option.
But most human interactions do not involve bomb defusal or surgery. They involve people trying to work together, raise children, solve problems, and maintain relationships with others who may see the world differently.
In these circumstances, being right and being successful are not necessarily the same thing.
Consider a disagreement between two colleagues. One has a better understanding of the facts, a stronger argument, and a reasonable proposed solution. The other feels dismissed or embarrassed by the exchange. The first person may leave the conversation confident that the correct position prevailed.
But what was accomplished?
If the objective was to demonstrate how smart you are, perhaps the interaction was successful. If at least part of the objective was to maintain (or even strengthen) the working relationship, or establish a shared understanding of the problem, the conversation may have been a failure.
Unless you’re a lawyer, “winning” an argument kinda sucks. It can reflect a childish desire to be “right” in the moment, without the advanced, mature foresight to get to a successful place while enhancing a professional partnership. You can do both.
When Right Goes Wrong
People can become so invested in the accuracy of their position that they lose sight of what they were trying to accomplish in the first place. This is especially common when disagreement becomes personal. An opposing perspective can feel like a challenge to one's intelligence or character. It can feel like combat. Instead of working toward a solution, participants begin defending themselves.
The temptation might be to push harder, provide more evidence, come up with more examples. A carefully constructed argument that leaves the other person with no reasonable alternative but to concede.
And sometimes it works. The other person stops arguing.
But silence is not necessarily agreement, and agreement is not necessarily understanding. People may concede a point simply to end an unpleasant interaction. They may recognize the validity of an argument while resenting the person delivering it. They may even accept the conclusion intellectually while becoming less willing to cooperate in the future.
A heavy-handed imposition of ideas, even correct ones, can push people away. The substance of the argument gets lost in the experience of receiving it.
Before entering a difficult conversation, it may be worth asking a simple question: Am I trying to be right, or am I trying to be successful? And you have to be honest…
The answer depends on what you hope to accomplish. If the goal is to support someone's development or maintain a productive relationship, shared understanding is generally a better measure of success than winning an argument.
Personal Truths and Objective Truths
Part of the difficulty comes from treating different kinds of truth as though they are interchangeable. In Aligning Personal and Objective Truths, the distinction between personal and objective truths offers a useful way to understand why people can experience the same circumstances so differently.
Objective truths concern facts that can be evaluated independently of personal interpretation. A meeting began at 9:00 a.m. A deadline was missed. A particular statement was made. These claims can be examined against evidence.
Personal truths reflect the meaning someone assigns to an experience, influenced by their history, expectations, and emotional state. One employee may experience a supervisor's direct feedback as helpful and reassuring. Another may experience the same feedback as threatening or humiliating.
Both employees attended the same meeting. The supervisor may have said exactly the same words. But the experience was not the same.
This does not mean every interpretation is equally accurate, or that personal beliefs should be treated as objective facts. Someone may sincerely believe that a colleague intended to embarrass them without having sufficient evidence to support that conclusion. A person's experience deserves consideration, but it does not automatically establish another person's motives.
Still, the experience matters.
Imagine a coach telling an athlete that their effort during practice was disappointing. The coach may have objective evidence to support the assessment. Perhaps the athlete failed to complete several repetitions or repeatedly ignored instructions. But the athlete may interpret the feedback as evidence that the coach dislikes them or has given up on their potential.
The coach can be correct about the performance and still fail to communicate effectively.
The athlete's interpretation may be inaccurate, but dismissing it does little to improve the situation. A better conversation would acknowledge the athlete's reaction while clarifying the original concern. The coach can maintain the standard without making the athlete feel that their experience is irrelevant.
Meet frustration with curiosity. There is room for both perspectives, even when they do not carry equal factual weight.
Objective Grace
A related concept, Objective Grace, offers a practical approach to these differences.
People arrive at conversations carrying histories and assumptions that influence how they interpret the world. What appears to be stubbornness may reflect fear. What looks like indifference may reflect exhaustion. An unnecessarily sharp response may have more to do with a person's current state than with the person receiving it. We rarely have the complete story.
Objective Grace asks us to recognize that limitation and leave room for explanations we have not considered. We can extend understanding without excusing harmful behavior or abandoning reasonable expectations.
Grace does not eliminate accountability, and understanding someone's circumstances does not require us to pretend their behavior was acceptable.
Consider a colleague who misses an important deadline. The missed deadline is an objective fact. It may have caused legitimate problems for everyone depending on that person's work. Those consequences deserve attention. But the conclusion that the colleague is lazy or irresponsible is an interpretation. Perhaps the person was overwhelmed by competing responsibilities. Perhaps there was a family emergency. Or perhaps they simply failed to manage their time. We don't know yet.
Objective Grace allows us to address the missed deadline without immediately assigning a negative character judgment. We can ask what happened, listen to the response, and still expect the work to be completed.
The same principle applies when we believe someone else is wrong. Before correcting them, we might consider whether the correction is necessary, whether the timing is appropriate, and whether our approach will actually help.
Shared Understanding as a Measure of Success
Shared understanding does not require people to reach identical conclusions. Two people can examine the same situation, acknowledge the relevant facts, understand each other's perspectives, and still disagree about what should happen next.
Consider a leader making an unpopular organizational decision. Employees may disagree with the outcome, particularly when it affects their schedules or responsibilities. The leader may have compelling reasons for the decision, including information that employees do not initially possess.
One approach is to explain why the decision is correct and expect everyone to accept it. Another is to listen to concerns, explain the reasoning behind the decision, and acknowledge the costs it may impose on the people affected.
There is only a subtle difference here. The decision may remain exactly the same. But the second approach gives people an opportunity to understand what happened and why. They may still disagree. They may still be disappointed. At least they have been treated as people whose perspectives matter. And those people need to come into the office and work together tomorrow.
Of course, there are circumstances when someone must hold a firm boundary or enforce a standard. Shared understanding does not mean negotiating on every principle. Sometimes a decision needs to stand, even when another person remains dissatisfied.
And sometimes the other person is simply wrong.
The question is whether proving that point will help accomplish anything.
What Are We Actually Trying to Accomplish?
Think about the last argument you had with someone close to you. Perhaps you remembered a conversation differently, and what began as a simple disagreement became a contest over whose version was correct.
Even if you could produce a recording that proved you were right, what would you have gained?
If the underlying problem is that someone feels dismissed or unsupported, establishing the facts may do little to resolve it. You can win the argument and leave the original problem untouched.
Curiosity offers another approach. Ask what the other person understood and why it matters to them. You may discover that the disagreement is less about the facts than the meaning each person assigns to them. Or you may discover that you were wrong (believe it or not, it happens).
Accuracy matters. But so does the relationship. If you leave a conversation having proven your point but pushed someone away in the process, it's worth wondering whether you actually succeeded.
