Confrontation
This one cuts deep.
Start Here, for context.
First: no one seeing this post is probably surprised to find out that I can be confrontational.
What you may not know is that trait comes from some deeply painful, disenfranchising experiences, where I either didn't speak up when I should've, or I spoke up out of pure ignorance, and said hurtful things I shouldn't have said.
A few of those situations were life-changing failures on my part, and they are things that will stay with me for a long time.
The journey, then, is to try to find the balance between speaking up, at the right time, with the right information, and the intent to make the situation better than how I found it.
I don't always get it right.
But I'm also not going to stop speaking up, because apathy and isolationism only allow people to get hurt.
I'd rather get it wrong sometimes, but have a few times where it really fucking mattered be in the mix, than the alternative. I’m just not going stop evaluating if there are ways to do it better next time.
Intent to be Better
I want to back up to that idea of intent.
What I really mean is that I have to be keenly aware of my own ego.
I’m not what you would traditionally call “a competitive person.” I don’t care about winning at all costs or anything like that. But I do like to have genuine skill in whatever domain. I’m not content with beginner’s luck, and I’m not content to have a half-assed answer, if it’s something I’m trying to incorporate into my life. I have a deep drive to really, deeply learn whatever thing I’m focused on.
That desire to be skilled at things sloshes over liberally into my desire to want to impact people’s thinking and opinions.
My work then, is to continually keep those two things in neatly separated containers.
If I’m speaking up, it should be because the situation calls for someone to speak up, because there’s a problem that needs addressing. And whether I said it, or someone else said, matters not. It’s not a place to practice intellectual sparring.
That’s hard.
At least, that’s hard for me.
Again, I don’t get this right sometimes.
Outcomes
The clarifying idea is that if I am to speak up, confront, and try to make it better, then there’s really no way around this truth:
Effective outcomes must be a central focus.
That’s where the money is.
Thinking about outcomes is like the hot knife through the butter of my internal ego.
As you saw in that opinion piece, there’s been a lot of psychological research into this topic of “changing minds.”
And,
what works
what I do
…are often way out of alignment.
The need to be “skilled” at articulating the issue may overtake the focus on effective outcomes.
What’s challenging is knowing which outcome is the most important in that moment.
Sometimes, heated confrontation is necessary, precisely because it will not change someone’s mind. It is necessary because it speaks up for those who are not able to speak up. The person being confronted probably won’t change. But it absolutely communicates something to those within earshot.
Other times, seeing someone else’s belligerent ignorance reminds me way too much of me, not that long ago. A̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶I̶ ̶b̶e̶g̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶y̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶n̶g̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶e̶l̶f̶….cough, sorry. I meant: begin to confront the person for their ignorance.
This all requires something of me.
And of you.
Confrontation is a part of life. We do have an ability to impact people, just perhaps not in the common sensy way that we all think.
The crucial point is that we can’t avoid it.
There is no better you, better relationship, better workplace, better community, better country, or better world, without good, healthy, confrontation.
