One of the best discussions had today was with a young man who was in trouble this week for arguing with his teacher. His excuse? ‘Everyone else was arguing with him!’
I asked him if he liked football and he replied in the affirmative. I asked if he’d ever seen a red card. Again, affirmative. Then I asked if he’d ever in his life seen a red card turned over because the players all complained about it. Negative. So I asked him why he bothered arguing with his teacher.
He took a moment to connect the two scenarios and then told me he thought his teacher was wrong.
As is typical for this kind of a conversation, it went around in circles a couple of times before he admitted arguing was mostly pointless. So we moved onto discussing positive approaches which get people’s attention and don’t place people in a position of opposition against us.
So often we want to argue our case and rage against the machine (cracker of a band), which not only leaves us in a place of frustration and helplessness, but actually positions our listener in such a place their main desire is to argue back. Powerful people use their words in a way which gets their listener’s attention and so often a far more positive outcome is the end result.
Change is always a slow journey but I hope and pray that this lad learns to communicate in a way that places his listener - be it his friend, his teacher or a ref on Sunday morning - in the best possible place to hear his point of view. I hope today he understood a little deeper the power of his words.