When Dinner Conversation Turns Nasty

As I post to this blog, I find myself in a unique situation that can certainly be characterized as a communication. Over the summer, I had dinner with a woman married to a business colleague of mine. She is passionate about her political beliefs which are polar opposite of mine and feverishly tried to engage me in debate but I resisted the bait, knowing the conversation would get heated and I might lose her husband’s company as a client. As I booted up my PC this morning, my in-box revealed an article that reinforced her political beliefs and took aim at mine. Truth be told, I wanted to let her have it—to correct and dispute her but knew nothing good could come of it. So instead, I emailed her back and politely replied: “Thanks for sending, but I don’t want to engage in this discussion with you since we are on opposite sides the fence and I don’t agree. “I thought that was the end of it. To my surprise and offense, I received a scathing long-winded response chastising me for not “engaging in debate”, failing to “defend your position”, exposing myself only “to those who agree with you” and tell me that a beautiful mind like mine is a “terrible thing to waste.” Wow. What to do?

Against my better judgment, I couldn’t resist the urge to engage. Taking a page from my own book, I carefully avoided negative words and personal attacks. I kept it short and said I felt no need to “defend” because having a different opinion is my right and that I respected her opinion even if I didn’t agree with it. I wrote “Let’s just leave this alone, we will never agree and we should agree to disagree rather than engage in personal attacks. Case closed. Not.

Moments ago, an even longer nastier email calling me “condescending”, “uninformed” “misguided” and not caring about the truth was staring me in the face.  I had a clear choice: cease or continue. Believe me, I wanted to continue, but I chose cease. It has nothing to do with her husband client who I’ve probably already lost. But (page 181), it’s important to understand that this isn’t all that different from a business meeting where an attacker will continually disagree with your point of view just for the sake of being difficult, showing off to the boss or proving you wrong. Attackers love to argue your point of view and make it personal if they think they can provoke you. That’s why when communicating in business, it’s critical not to address differences with emotions.

I am big on humanizing information so listeners can relate emotionally in order to connect to what you’re saying, but in some cases, it’s more important to consider the bigger picture which is the final outcome. Your communication choice to engage in personalities goes beyond the two differing parties. It can turn into a whisper down the lane at work; affect your reputation and possible advancement. Sometimes it is simply better to shut up and say nothing. In my case, I betrayed my gut. I knew even an initial response saying I didn’t want to engage was indeed a way of engaging and I knew she’d welcome a chance to push my buttons. In this case, my buttons popped, but it was a conscious choice and I am content without whatever the outcome may be.

Tags: communication, communication choice, conversation, dinner, karen friedman