If communication is always also a relationship and we stop communicating and trying to find a solution, understanding, respect, a common path, then we end every connection.
I have been working intensively with communication for 25 years. My counseling tasks in a wide variety of professional contexts with people who were in different life, work and age situations challenged me to adapt my communication, to question it, to mentally sit in the other person’s chair to understand what the other person was concerned about.
When situations arose where, for example, a legal requirement did not coincide with the ideas and plans of the person I was working with, difficult conversational situations arose and this area of tension was not always easy to manage in terms of communication. And there have always been and will continue to be situations in which it is impossible to make progress in discussions. The phrase “we have to agree that we can’t agree” quickly puts an end to any communicative discussion – and often also to trusting cooperation.
It makes it clear that our arguments (we often see this in the person who chooses this phrase) are not convincing or that we don’t have any (anymore). There may be pure arrogance behind this, but it would be too easy to always assume this. The reasons are certainly manifold: uncertainty, you realize in retrospect that the decision could/must have been different, you have no evidence that this decision was not right or you yourself are done with this topic. Reasons that may be understandable from your own point of view and you can build a communicative wall. If you end the collaboration, the interaction with each other and any level of communication, this is a very good way to do it. In my view, we leave the common level with this phrase and place ourselves above our conversation partner because we think we have the last word in this matter.
In sales training, you learn that if you lose 1 customer, 10 more will go with them, but if the product is convincing, it’s not quite so bad. The consequence is: if you don’t have a product, but a service that is not convincing from a technical point of view or where there are different firm opinions, you can support it with positive, approachable communication, but the moment this also fails, the picture is too coherent to at least seem good.
In order to end a discussion on a positive note, if the discussion partners have not or cannot come to a unified opinion, I suggest we ask whether both can agree to accept the other opinion or whether we can come back to it at a later point in time. That way the wall is not built, communication is not disrupted, and the relationship can continue.
Just a thought…