From the course: Tips to Work with Difficult People

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Swap positions to exchange viewpoints

Swap positions to exchange viewpoints

From the course: Tips to Work with Difficult People

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Swap positions to exchange viewpoints

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- Raise your hand if you would ever describe yourself as stubborn. Not me. Okay, no, just kidding. I definitely can be. When you have a different perspective than someone else at work, it can be easy to get stuck in your viewpoint. When that happens, try this quick position swap exercise to disrupt the deadlock. The way this works is that when you and your colleague can't agree on a decision, you have the discussion again, but swap positions, and now, you have to argue the other person's side of the disagreement. So for example, if you think you should ship the current version of a product, but your colleague thinks the team should spend more time fixing bugs first, then you would spend a few minutes arguing to wait on shipping the product, and your colleague would think of arguments for why you should ship now. The reason this is powerful is it loosens everyone's attachment to being right. It helps you see each other's perspective, and you'll often find that you think of new points…

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