Let’s not agree to disagree

It’s a common phrase when trying to work through something — “let’s agree to disagree“. While that may work in some cases, such as your preferred college football team, in many cases it’s just a way to give up.

As Adam Grant recently said, using that phrase means that you’ve “decided that the conflict is unresolvable“. Is it really?

That’s not to say you should always continue to fight until both parties are mad. At some point, being willing to walk away knowing a middle ground was never reached is a wise thing to do. In most cases, though, the truth is out there and it’s worth taking the time to find it.

In many cases, it comes down to rephrasing the question. Take these examples, which are seemingly all unresolvable:

Unresolvable: “Yellow is the prettiest color”, “Michigan is the best football team”, or “PCs are better than Macs”

By adjusting the initial statement to add a bit more clarity, they become questions that can be clearly answered and supported by facts.

Resolvable: “Yellow is the most visible color for emergency vehicles”, “Michigan is the winningest football team of all time”, “PCs are less expensive than Macs for comparable hardware”.

Don’t create enemies for no reason, but don’t just bail and “agree to disagree” on something that might have a clear resolution not too far away.