I’ve touched on this before (and may again 
), but wanted to give it some dedicated attention.
It comes up all the time, especially for those of us who have strong opinions, tend to be competitive, and focus on what we think is important to us: being right.
I’ll start with the simplest question: how important is it to be right?
I hear it all the time: “We had a fight because he/she wouldn’t accept that I was right!” Or “the meeting dragged on and on because they couldn’t see that I was right!” Or “I’d rather be right and have my integrity!”
Sigh.
Why is “right” so important?
I say this as someone who was a pro at knowing that I was “right”. And all of those years of fighting with people to try to get them to admit that I was right makes me very sad.
What’s the value of being “right”? Does it make the world better? Does it make a relationship better? Does it make a conversation better? In what way does it make anything better?
Talking to my wife, which I do every day , I realized that every time I insisted on being right I drove a wedge between us. Why? Because if I was right, then she must have been wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong,… Needless to say, that didn’t make her feel good.
“You always have to be right! You’re always trying to make me feel stupid!” And I’m sure that she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. After all, I always had to be right with everyone else, too.
And you know what? I have to admit that she wasn’t altogether wrong.
More recently, I began to realize what was really important: our relationship. Treating her with respect, listening to her, actually thinking about what she said (as opposed to “how can I prove that what she just said is wrong?”), and allowing for the possibility that there’s more than one “right.”
While I’m using my relationship and communications with my wife as the example for this, it’s really about all relationships. And I think you know that I believe that any time you have a conversation, that’s part of a relationship, no matter how brief it might be. This applies to personal relationships and professional relationships. It applies in business meetings and conversations over lunch.
Showing respect is more important than being right.
Maintaining a relationship is more important than being right.
Sharing and collaborating is more important than being right.
Allowing for multiple valid views of right is more important than having the one right.
In fact, I think that being right is pretty far down the list of important things.
Motto: The force of my convictions makes me right!
