The Power of Disagreement

We all know that person who always has to be right. No matter what the subject matter, they’re right and everyone else is wrong. But have you ever stopped to consider that person might be you? The good news is that some degree of innate stubbornness can work in your favour.   

For thousands of years, humans have found ways to use arguments as the basis of collective decisions: lawyers in courts, politicians in parliaments, scientists at conferences and in research journals. We’ve built disagreement into the fabric of society - and even introduced a degree of civility into it. Well, sometimes…  

The power of disagreement lies with engaging in better arguments: not clinging too tightly to a single viewpoint; not attacking others for seeing things differently; and above all, keeping a shared goal in sight. These are surprisingly challenging habits that can serve us well in a whole host of different contexts.