What's the good intention other has in mind?

Sometime ago my old boss tough me this learning about arguing. When someone starts to argue with you on something, always think: "What's the good intention other have in mind when they disagree with you." I think this might have been learning from NLP or something, but the main thing is that for me it has worked well.

When I get feedback or someone disagrees with me, most often its nothing personal. Most often the other party has something worrying in their mind, but they can't really speak it out loud. Instead of only disagreeing, I've learned to start to finding out what's the thing worrying or why someone wants to do something differently.

It's not easy, but its worth of trying. Always think from the positive side: "what's the good intention other has in mind, when disagreeing."

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Stop pointless arguying and try to understand the opposite side also. It's refreshing.

I've been in many discussions with people I think are really smart, but still I've seen them to make totally incorrect conclusions based on facts we both share. And to be fair, I've thought those are totally incorrect conclusions, it could be that I'm making the totally incorrect conclusions.

People reflect anything they see based on their own history with the subject. Everyone have some precausions about all the subjects in the world. Even not knowing anything is a history with the subject, which makes person even more unsecure with the facts they are given. Still in almost all situations, people match the data they receive to their own value map, history of experiences with similar issues.

This all causes disagreements and makes people get angry to each other because of they are not seeing the things the same way they do. Funny thing is that people most often do have valid reasons why they disagree with someone or understand differently things that they do. Most often they are not stupid or just being mean, but they are interpreting thing based on their experience and understanding, and that makes them see things differently.

Here's an example, look at these two photos in this blog post? How do you see those? Where do you think those are from and what actually happening in those photos?

I bet some of you might already have really good guesses about those or you could even actually know what's happening in those? Others might not have any glue and could guess totally wrong. Even though these aren't something to argue about, I hope it still proves my point that your own experience always affects on how you interpret situations.

Once in a while it's really refreshing to really try to understand why someone is seeing things totally differently than you are. Try sometime to go to the other side, and try openmindly understand the reasoning why somebody else is seeing the same thing so other way than you are. If you try this couple of times, I promise it opens you a new world. It helps you to understand much more about people. But it is also really hard, I at least easily get the temptation to start correcting the facts I think are not correct without really trying to understand. Being open minded will give you lot of experience for the future to communicate with people who you want to influence.

In case you are still wondering, the upper picture is from Lahti, from ski jumping tower, where in summers there is outdoor swimming lanes in landing area of the ski jumping hill. The second photo is from WRC rally Finland, where someone left video camera on to the road to get close ups from soon coming WRC rally car. Did you get those right at the first time?

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

What I miss in the internet - real discussions

One reason I'm active in the web are different point of views. I love discussions on many topics. I have the luxury of having co-workers and some friends who are not afraid to discuss and disagree. With them I can argue so that it's not going to insults, but stays almost always on intelligent level. Still often those discussions are really tense and I can really feel the adrenaline level raising while having those. It's just a pity that I don't get those in the internet.

In the web I tend to follow the people I agree. I tend to comment to posts I somewhat agree. And the times when I or someone else disagree's on some subject, discussion almost always ends really shortly. Either one of the discussion partners just disappears or then it goes to meaningles "I'm right and you're wrong" type of discussions.

One problem is that in the web you don't really need to listen. You don't really need to try to understand the point, you can just jump to shouting mode and state your point. One doesn't have the possibility to explain the point thoroughly and to make sure the opposite site undestands the point so that he or she could adjust their comments accordingly.

In the web it's so easy to turn the other cheek or run away. If you disagree with someone, you can just ignore the message totally and find something else.

Web is full of happy happy, joy joy type of comments. Comments start often like this: that was a good post, here's an another point to support your point. It's much easier to go and support a post than disagree with someone you don't really know.

I'm not saying that everyone should be hostile and fighting with each other in the web, but I tend to believe, that new always start from disagreement. The only way to change and develop is to challenge. Challenge the existing knowledge and challenge the common believes.

I love good discussions where different point of views are appreciated and arguing enriches discussions. So far, web hasn't been able to bring that to me. That's why I still need real life.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen