Getting people on your side should be fairly straightforward when they’re sitting on the fence. So long as you’re right, it shouldn’t be too hard to persuade them over to you. But what happens when they’re firmly on the other side of the fence? When they’re holding a position that is completely incompatible with yours?

First of all, as we saw a couple of Rules back, you need to consider the possibility that they might be right. But what if they’re not? What if you’re absolutely certain they’re wrong, and you need to talk them – along with the rest of the group – round to your way of thinking? You want everyone on side for the plan, project, scheme, idea to work. However, telling someone else they’re wrong doesn’t generally go down very well.

Look, we all know they’re wrong,¹⁶ but the aim is not to make them feel stupid. How will that help? The aim is to keep them on board despite expressing the opposite view from them. You can’t expect that to work if you call a spade a spade. You don’t have to call a spade a fork, but would it really hurt you to call it a hand-held earth-moving tool?

Think about it from their perspective. If you come at them head-on with your disagreement, they’ll have two choices: to back down, or dig their heels in. If they back down, the likelihood is they’ll still passively resist you, which amounts to the same thing as becoming entrenched anyway. That’s not what you want, is it? So you need to offer them a wider choice. Give them another route. Sidle up to them and gently steer them in a better direction.

There are lots of Rules about how to be persuasive, but your immediate problem is how do you point out they’re wrong without telling them, ‘You’re wrong’? You have to find a way of making it clear you’re on the other side of the fence without putting their back up. Give them a way to concede the point without losing face. It starts with simple words. Phrasing your opposition in a way that feels co-operative and not combative. Here are a few examples of things to say which won’t inflame the situation:

• ‘That’s not right’ (simple, but so much better than ‘that’s wrong’). A lot of people prefer to soften it a bit: ‘That can’t be right, can it?’, ‘I don’t think that’s right’, ‘I’m not sure that’s right’, etc., etc.
• ‘I don’t agree with you’ (so the emphasis is on you not agreeing, not on them being wrong).
• ‘I look at it differently’, or, ‘I don’t see it like that’.
• ‘The facts suggest a different story to me’.
• ‘You’re right about one thing’ (find some tiny point to agree on and then put your point of view).

The tone with which you say these things needs to match the words, of course. You don’t want to be so hesitant or nervous you don’t make your point clearly. Nor do you want to sound aggressive or patronising. Be assertive and conciliatory at the same time. Master that, and you’ll go a long way to defusing arguments and creating a way for the other person to change their position.