Four destructive phrases that should be avoided in discussions

After I wasted a weekend, as I mentioned in my last post, I did plan my next weekend in a much better manner. And it went well. What did not go well was the week after the weekend. I had a very big mis-understanding with one of my closest friends. There were lot of arguments & counter-arguments, and feelings were hurt. Fortunately, the fires have died down now & things are starting to become normal again.

When the mis-understanding first came up, I sat with my friend to discuss the issue. Many times these discussions became arguments. You may ask what is the difference in discussion & arguments in this case. What I saw was that we started the discussion with the purpose of resolving the issue. But during the discussion the attitude of the participants changed, & towards the end we were speaking to prove our point, to prove that one was right and other was wrong, and not to resolve the issue. As this happened again & again, I began to look for those word & phrases that changed a constructive discussion into a destructive argument. I came up with the following list:

1. Its not my problem (or 'it is your problem'): The best discussion buster. You can be assured that the moment one person uses this phrase, he indicates that he no longer feels he needs to do anything to resolve the issue. In fact, he feels that he does not have to do anything with the issue, and should not be dragged in the discussion to resolve the problem. The other person(s) is solely responsible to do the fire-fighting.

I have worked few good managers, and some not-so-good-managers in my workplace. The good managers never use this phrase during any discussion even when the issue is actually 'not their problem'. The not-so-good-managers tend to use this more often and put the blame on somebody else.

2. I am like that only: May not be a grammatically correct phrase, but I have heard it being used many times. When somebody says this, he means that he is not going to change his behaviour/actions to resolve the issue, or prevent it from cropping up later on. He does not want to change his nature. The other person has to work within this extra constraint and still resolve the problem. I have been defeated in many arguments by this phrase alone. I have a simple philosophy: Accept people as they are, and do not try to transform them. Instead, change yourself. And when somebody says this phrase to me, I cannot argue back as it goes against my policy!

3. What's the use?: This phrase may not be heard as often as the other two mentioned above, but is equally effective in creating bitterness between people. I told my friend about all the efforts I was making to bring our relationship back to normal, and he asked me, 'what's the use'? :-( I was expecting an appreciation for the efforts I was making, and such a question added insult to injury.

In addition to the above three, there is one more phrase that is used very commonly by many of us. This did not come up during the arguments with my friend, but I have observed its negativity very often.

4. I told you so!: Very commonly used, and very effective if you want to put somebody down. We all use it when at the 'right' time, when we know we were right all the way & the other person never listened to us, continued in his own way & finally tasted failure. I ask myself, do I really need to speak it out? Why don't I comfort him after his failure? All the effort he had put in has not borne the results he was looking for, and is disappointed. And, after his failure, he anyway realizes that I was right, and I had told him so.

There are many more phrases that can be destructive. If you know, please put them in the comments below.

A weekend wasted :-(

We all look forward top weekends, at least I do. And I wish my weekend to be more satisfying than the previous one. I had planned my weekend in advance this time. My plan was as follows:

1. Saturday: Travel with a colleague to a holy place outside the city, and have good outing.
2. Sunday: Helping my neighbour in packing the household luggage, as he was shifting to a new house.

I was pretty happy with this advance planning and knew that this weekend is going to be very satisfactory for me. Comes Saturday & all these plans went for a toss.

(a) Saturday: We had to leave at 5:30 am in the morning, but I got up from sleep only at 5:15 am. 15 minutes was never going to be sufficient to get ready and join the entire party with whom I was travelling. So Saturday's plan went down the drain.

(b) Sunday: My neighbour had organized for house-warming ceremony for the new house. It consisted of havan, (a ritualistic worship of the new house), lunch for the guests, and bhajans (singing of devotional songs). I had received an itinerary of the program, but I did not bother to read it, thinking that all I knew was that he is shifting on Sunday, and that's all I need to know. But, due to this schedule, he spent entire day at the new house, taking care of the ceremony, and there was no packing & shifting. Again, my plan of spending a day fruitfully went in vain.

I made following observations after wasting my weekend:

1. I need to always have an alternate plan. (I usually have, but this weekend I did not, as everything was fixed & nothing seemed to have any possibility of going wrong. My colleague did go to the holy place, and my neighbour did shift his house).
2. Just because things do not go as we planned, we should not waste time ruing about it. (I confess that I spent my Saturday cursing myself that I did not get up early. This guilt consumed what could have been a wonderful Saturday for me.)

I have not yet planned for the coming weekend. But, this time I know it won't be this fruitless.