Throughout your career and your life, you’ll experience different levels of agreement, disagreement, and conflict.
These days, some of it (maybe most of it) will be about the current state of politics and, well, All The Things going on.
Some of it will be about what’s happening in your workplace.
And some of it will be about Life Stuff.
All of it will merge and blend and become intertwined. After all, politics affects everyone, at work and in the community and in personal life. And personal life affects how we show up at work and in the community.
And so on.
It is very tempting, in these heightened times and with the exhaustion we’re all feeling because of the general chaos (no matter which “side” you’re on, and yes, I put “side” in quotation marks for a reason) – it’s very tempting to default to black-and-white, binary thinking. The other “side” is wrong, my “side” is right.
Okay, why the quotation marks?
Because it’s never that simple.
Someone once asked me, during a workshop on change leadership, a question that assumed there would be a single correct answer to a situation. I told him that leadership is an endless fuzzy gray area, in which all answers are situational – something I tell my clients as well, when they ask me for the answer to whatever situation they’re dealing with.
Likewise, even in these very weird times, there’s a lot of nuance and fuzzy gray area. While there are certainly people I can unequivocally call wrong, right down to the core, there are also a whole lot of people who aren’t even close to unequivocally wrong, no matter how much we may appear to disagree.
They, like the rest of us, are fuzzy gray areas.
Which brings me to the title of this article: understanding ≠ agreement.
I can understand someone’s point of view without agreeing with that point of view – and by understanding, I have a greater ability to influence and maybe even shift that point of view.
And maybe – just maybe – my own point of view might shift.
Gavin Newsom is an extremely visible figure on the political stage right now, for many reasons. Early this year, he started a podcast, and his first few guests roused a lot of anger and mistrust on the Democratic side. I believe he missed some opportunities there – he might have been better received if he’d mixed in some more liberal viewpoints in those first few episodes – but in listening to the interviews, as much as they sometimes made me want to throw my phone into the street, I discovered yet again the power of understanding.
Understanding ≠ agreement – but when you understand where someone is coming from, even when it’s diametrically opposed to your own viewpoint, you’ve learned something important. And that is what Newsom is doing.
I’ll close this article out with three quotes. The first is from Ozan Varol – rocket scientist, lawyer, professor, speaker, author, and consultant. It’s a tough one to take in these days, but it’s important.
“If you disagree with someone, it’s not because you’re right and they’re wrong. It’s because they believe something that you don’t believe. They have a different perspective that you’re missing.”
The second is from Alan Alda – actor, director, screenwriter, author, and podcast host. This comes from several of his podcast episodes.
“Real listening means being willing to be changed.”
And one more thought: purity politics – the belief that any candidate for any office must be perfectly aligned with your principles – is fatal. From Ed Koch – past mayor of New York City and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives – we have this.
“If you agree with me on nine out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.”
We all need to pause, breathe, and realize that this is a deeply fraught time for the U.S., as well as for our careers and our lives. And that means accepting that we’ll almost never agree 100% with any leader (corporate, community, or otherwise) – but that shouldn’t eliminate them from consideration. Sometimes it’s necessary to hold our nose and go with the least objectionable, least damaging, choice.
Just for the record, this listening-and-understanding thing is hard. There are days, as I said, when I want to throw my phone into the street so I don’t have to deal with hearing ideas and opinions that I think are “wrong.” But … I’ve learned a lot. And that, for me anyway, is more important than just hanging out in the liberal bubble.
Also, I have many, many more quotes I could’ve included here. If you’re interested, come over to my GraceNotes Substack, where each week I choose just one quote (it’s hard!), and offer a few brief thoughts about it.
Photo credit: Nick Fewings on Unsplash