Recovered from the original publisher: Kellogg Insight
These are the types of workplace conversations that can ignite heated arguments among employees, says Steven L. Franconeri, a professor of management and organizations (courtesy) at the Kellogg School who studies how people can have smarter and calmer disagreements. He has a theory about why emotionally charged disagreements seem to be on the rise.
“We’ve gotten into a habit of assuming that disagreements should be infused with anger and hatred, and that the person that we’re disagreeing with is either irrational, or being purposely misleading,” he says. “We need to learn how to have better disagreements.”
Enter Point Taken, a game developed by Franconeri that models conversational interventions with the goal of helping people overcome destructive disagreements. Based on the critical thinking technique of “argument mapping,” the game uses octagonal tiles, play money, and collaborative fact-checking missions to teach people how to have disagreements that are healthy and productive, rather than polarizing and ineffective.