Submitted by Dr. Dave on
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" There was a direct correlation between difficulty in being wrong and the rigidity of your personality, i.e. the more rigid (and less adaptive) your personality, the more difficulty in being wrong." - Mark Goulston M.D., F.A.P.A.
No one on this Earth is mistake free. But if you're unlucky, an individual will dig in their heels and insist they're right even when all the evidence suggests otherwise. It's a maddening situation anywhere. But in business it can be disastrous. It creates conflict that hinders productivity or affects your ability to move forward with or give proper information to appropriate individuals.
According to psychologist, speaker and author Guy Winch, most people who consistently refuse to admit they're wrong do so because they have incredibly fragile egos. They clam up and insist they're right, demonstrating what experts term "psychological rigidity", as a defense mechanism. Their subconscious feeling is that, if they dig in their heels, they can protect themselves from the consequences that might come from their imperfection and fallibility (e.g., being seen as weak, loss or retaliation). Winch also notes that some people go to extraordinary lengths in this process, even changing facts and convincing themselves of new realities in their own minds to escape culpability.
In this instance, if you want the person to admit they're wrong, your biggest job is to build them up. You have to convince them that infallibility isn't a sentence to isolation or something even worse.
- Point out as many successes as you can in practical, casual ways.
- Give them more opportunities to gain small wins they can feel good about.
- Offer compliments.
- Provide examples of when you were wrong yourself. Describe how you grew and the positive outcome that came from it.
- Be a friend. Listen, offer information, forgive and have integrity in your speech and behavior so that the wrongdoer learns they can trust you.
But there's another element that can come into play, too. Admitting you are wrong means that you are opening yourself to learning and changing yourself. In most cases, this is a great thing! But it is also work. It can be difficult to do all the introspective study it takes to grow, and some people would rather hunker down in their comfort zones than put in this extra effort. Here, your job is to convince them that the change, while not easy, is doable and worth the exertion. Exerpts from: https://www.inc.com/wanda-thibodeaux/the-no-1-reason-people-wont-admit-they-were-wrong.html
"One of the core issues behind many of the neverending arguments within our communities today is the inability to come to terms with being wrong. It stems from an ‘us vs. them’ mentality in which individuals surround themselves only with people who agree with them or will not challenge them, unwilling to even have an uncomfortable conversation which could put them at risk of being in the wrong. It is easier to never have to be told you are wrong, so why change that, right? When you are told you are wrong, it feels like an attack on your character or your intelligence – but, it isn’t. All that it means is that, like every person on the planet, you do not know everything. That’s a good thing." - Leina Gabra https://medium.com/@leinagabra/why-being-wrong-is-a-good-thing-2a4f66b2eca9
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