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I enjoy watching Rachel Maddow and Pat Buchanan.  Their segments together on MSNBC are interesting to me (and even to Fox News, apparently) because they are  as far apart as two people can be but are able to have a discussion about the issues without engaging in personal attacks.   Unfortunately, this is not common (any more) either in politics or in business.

How do you behave in business? Is everyone who disagrees written off as a jerk or do you listen to what they’re saying and weigh it against your position? They may be wrong about the facts – you can correct them. You may disagree with their interpretation of the facts – you can show them there is another way to think about them.  I’ve had people explain to me in excruciating detail how their way is the ONLY way to think about something  and get our business to someplace  we both want to go.  I’ll often ask them to pretend we are driving to that place and a bridge has fallen en route – what’s the other way?

Then it gets tricky – one of you is going to have to agree to try it the other person’s way. If your way is the agreed-upon solution and you fail, you need to do a couple of things:

• Figure out why
• Change your thinking
• Reach out to the other person and compliment them on their excellent thinking (well, it WAS better than yours this time!)
• File the entire incident under “learning experience” and move on.

If you are right, you need to do a couple of things:

• Do a silent victory dance when you’re alone
• Reinforce the good parts of your thinking and think about that parts that may not have been spot on
• Leave the other person alone unless you’re into getting beaten up and want a reputation as an “I told you so” jerk
• File the entire incident under “learning experience” and move on.

The key was what Pat and Rachel were doing – an intelligent exchange of ideas expressed in an honest and open way and received in the same manner.  Run things this way and you won’t always win but the business will and, over time, you’ll be surprised how often you all end up on the same page.