The next time you are in a conversation at work where both of you are loading the next argument instead of listening, something specific is happening. You have crossed from disagreeing into trying to win. And a conversation where both people are trying to win is not a conversation. It is a standoff with words. This episode is about what to do differently, and it starts with a question most people never think to ask.

With midterm elections right around the corner as this episode releases, the "trying to win" dynamic is impossible to miss. But I spend only a few sentences there before moving to where this really lives: our personal relationships and our workplaces. I share a story about a friend of my husband's who approached every conversation as something to win — even small talk about the weather. What it felt like to be on the receiving end: exhausting. What it cost: a friendship that has quietly faded. And I'm honest about something: I've been on the other side of that too. I've walked into conversations with a verdict already reached.

The episode then unpacks what winning at work actually costs. In performance conversations, peer conflicts, disagreements with your boss, client pushback, team meetings where the decision is supposedly open — when you are trying to win, you cannot actually hear anything that might change your mind. And the other person can feel it. The need to be right swiftly morphs into righteousness, and righteousness is where conversations go to die.

The framework is the Three Cs: Check the WHY, Catch the slide, Get Curious. Check: before you try to convince someone of anything, pause and ask yourself why. Is this genuine conviction, something you would stand behind regardless of who is watching? Or is it just the need to be right? Those are not the same thing. Catch: recognize when disagreement has become righteousness — when you are right and they are wrong and you cannot understand how they do not see it. You can only interrupt the slide when you can see it. Get Curious: shift modes. Ask a question instead of making a statement. I also share a specific question I ask myself quietly that unhooks me from my own entrenched position and genuinely opens the door to hearing the other person.

Stephen Covey wrote in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. That line is still the most useful diagnostic I know for catching yourself mid-standoff.

Listen and catch the full episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also watch it on my YouTube channel, JanelAndersonPhD.

LINKS RELATED TO THIS EPISODE:

Episode 287 — Stop Believing Everything You Think at Work — the stories we tell ourselves about what the other person believes are often part of why we stop listening in the first place.

Episode 285 — The Four Communication Styles at Work — knowing someone's communication style helps explain why they may be in "win" mode and how to reach them anyway.

Think about the last time you were in a conversation where both of the people involved, you and the other person, were just essentially talking past each other. Heat is rising. Neither of you are listening to each other. Both of you are loading the next argument before the other person is done talking.

Sound familiar? Yeah. Well, that's not a conversation. That's a standoff with words.

And if you're being honest with yourself, you've probably been on both sides of that. I know I have. And today we're talking about what is happening in those moments and what to do instead. But real quick before we get started, if this podcast has ever helped you, gave you a strategy, a new way to think about something, a framework to follow, I have an easy but very important request.

Please rate and comment on the podcast platform that you listen on, or on YouTube if that's where you watch, and please share it with at least one other person. I don't want to be the best kept secret anymore, and that's the way the word spreads-either by ratings and reviews on the podcast players and on YouTube, or by you personally telling somebody. So I thank you in advance for doing that, that's what makes a difference to me. Okay, now let's dive into the conversation.

So, as we think about talking to each other and not past each other, and really how to stop trying to win the conversation, I want to also acknowledge that right now it is late October 2026 at the time that this podcast is being released. So the midterm elections in the United States are next week, just right around the corner. And our country is divided in ways that are hard to miss right now. Now I'm not going to get political on you, I promise.

But if you've ever had a conversation recently with somebody who holds a different viewpoint than you, you probably know exactly how it feels when both people are trying to convince each other of something that they're never going to believe in, and that both people feel like they're trying to win, and that's the dynamic that this episode is all about, and it shows up everywhere, not just in politics. Okay, that's the end of what I'm going to say about politics. Now, it also shows up in our personal lives. Now, a long while back, my husband had a friend who was always trying to win every conversation with me, and every conversation turned into a debate.

Like there was a score to keep or a point to prove, and we could be talking about like a football game, or we could be talking about the weather. In fact, I remember this one particular conversation where I was like, okay, I'll just bring up something safe like the weather, and he took issue with what I said about the weather, and he tried to turn that into an argument. And I was just like, why are you trying to win at small talk? Like small talk is not this is not an argument.

But his disposition towards everything was that he wanted to win, and what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that-it was exhausting. It was absolutely exhausting to try to be around him. And I mean, every time we were together in a larger group, I was always trying to find somebody else to talk to because I did not want to have to talk to this person because it was so exhausting. Now I don't know if he argued with everybody or just me, but it was just simply too much.

Now we rarely see each other anymore, and that is okay by me. And I don't know that he and my husband are still very close friends, and I don't know why. But I don't really care. I'm just glad to not have to be around that level of exhaustion.

Now, to be fair, I have been on that side of the conversation too. I have walked into conversations with an agenda, a point to prove, a verdict already reached, and I catch myself wanting to be right more times than I admit. And it's not my best feature, and nor is it yours, because if I'm doing this, I'm sure you're doing it too. So when we think about how this shows up at work, it carries a very steep cost.

So let's dig into all of this, unpack it, and figure out how to have better conversations at work. Now, what winning a conversation actually costs at work? Well, it's a very, very steep cost. So when you think about performance conversations, disagreements with your boss, a conflict with your peer, client pushback, team meetings where the decision is supposedly open but really nobody is listening to each other, that sort of thing.

That's what I'm talking about in this episode, and that's what I want to get into. But I also did want to preface it to say like this shows up in your personal life too, so take it on wherever it presents itself. And with the political thing, you're never going to change anybody's mind. So just try, just stop yourself there.

Just absolutely stop yourself. And if you hear yourself starting to exhibit any of these behaviors anywhere in your personal life, I want you to stop yourself there and practice these same skills in your personal life just as much as you practice them in your professional life, because what is at stake is relationship. Okay, now I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit, but let's look at what it costs when you are trying to win. When you're trying to win, you can't actually hear anything that the other person is saying that might actually influence you.

Now, you probably don't want to be influenced. You don't want to change your mind, but they may have a valid point that could cause you to think differently about something. So, that's one thing it costs. When you start to sound righteous, the other person is going to stop listening also, and you can't influence them or change their mind about anything, and they can hear that righteousness tone in your voice when you start getting there.

The other person just stops sharing what they know because they feel like it doesn't even feel safe anymore. To be honest with you, and like you with them as well, and the conversation ends, but nothing changes, and then the same conversation or something similar is going to happen again later. There's again a relational cost to all of this because all of this is going to degrade the relationship quietly, even when no one says a word about it, and even when no one openly addresses what's going on. Now that need to be right swiftly morphs into righteousness, and righteousness is where conversations go to die.

Most people know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of somebody who is so certain that they have slipped into righteousness, and again, you, just like me, also have been that person as well. Not just on the receiving end, but we have been the person who has felt right and felt so need felt such a strong need to be right that we have slipped into that righteousness. So I want to give you a framework first of all to recognize when you are doing this, and then to shift your perspective so that you can be in a more curious place, so that you can listen to understand instead of listen to be right or have a conversation to be right. Okay, so there are three steps to this process.

It works in any conversation where you start to feel yourself slipping into that righteousness, where you are advocating harder than you are listening. So, a good conversation should be equal balance in terms of advocating or sharing ideas or sharing whatever and listening. But when you feel yourself pushing so hard that you are trying to be right and then slipping into righteousness, there is a really good chance you are not listening to what the other person has to say, and that balance is completely off. Okay, so I'm going to give you a three-step process: the 3c's, check, catch, and get curious.

Okay, so check, check the why. So before you're trying, I mean, when you catch yourself trying to convince somebody of something, ask yourself why. Why am I trying to convince them? Why am I trying to influence them?

And then use a little discretion here. Is this genuine conviction? Like you have real values, you really believe and stand behind what you're saying, regardless of who's listening or who might be spectating and watching, because at work we often get spectators, whether we want them or not. You know, I like to ask myself: Is this the proverbial hill that I want to die on?

I mean, I'm not a great fan of that particular metaphor, but it's widely used, and I think you understand what I mean when I say the proverbial hill that you want to die on? Do you have this general conviction to this topic that you absolutely have to argue it to its death? So, when you have that absolute conviction, that is different from the need to be right. They are not the same thing.

One is worth fighting for again when it is that absolute conviction that you would die on that proverbial hill at work. That is an entirely different thing. But when you just want to be right, you just feel the need to be right, and you have slipped into righteousness. Well, that is not worth fighting for.

That one is going to cost you more than you realize. So knowing which one you're in is the whole game here. Knowing am I do I have such strong convictions to this that if the relationship suffered, it wouldn't matter because this is so important, or is it? Ooh, I'm just trying to be right here.

I'm trying to like win a tally point in my score on this game, and nobody, oftentimes, nobody else is playing the game except you. So check yourself on the why. Okay, if you decide, yeah, I've kind of slipped into righteousness here. Okay, then you want to do the second step, which is catch the slide.

Okay, if you've decided like this is a hill I want to die on, okay, all bets are off. Go be convicted to that thing and argue it as much as you can. Although you know you do want to be careful to listen to the other person as best you can. You don't have to change your mind, and you might let them know you're not going to change your mind, but if you catch yourself slipping into righteousness and just trying to want to win this argument or win the conversation, and there is a relational cost, and it doesn't really matter if you win, that's where you want to catch the slide, and you want to recognize when I disagree with you has become I'm right and you're wrong, and I can't understand how you don't see it my way.

Okay, that's the slide I'm talking about. That's going from disagreeing to becoming righteous, and it happens fast, and it feels completely justified in the moment. The only way to interrupt it is for you to see it yourself. Now, most people will see it in you, but if they bring it up to you, that's probably going to make you even more righteous and feel more convicted to your position.

So this is really something best that you see yourself, which is why I'm making this episode about it. The only way to interrupt it is for you to see it yourself, and only can you see it if you know to look for it and you know what to look for? Now you may be familiar with Stephen Covey, who wrote in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that most people do not listen with the intent to understand, but they listen with the intent to reply. Now he's not the only one who said that, but he is certainly probably one of the most contemporary people who are famous for it, so that line has been true again for decades, far before when he first said it, and it's very useful diagnostic.

Most people are listening with the intent to reply instead of the intent to understand, and so if you catch yourself composing your next reply to the other person while they're still talking, then that's right where you are. So you need to catch that slide, and it's okay to have a pause in a conversation. It's okay to hear the other person out, and then to thoughtfully consider what they have said before you reply. And that natural pause in a conversation is again.

It's natural. I said that natural pause. It is. It's natural.

It's totally okay. And if the other person is like, Well, aren't you going to say something? You can say, Like, well, what you just said is actually worthy of some consideration. So, give me a minute here while I weigh that, and you know, take your time.

Okay, but so you have to catch the slide, and then the next thing to do is to, and this will keep you out of that righteousness, is to get curious. So that's the third C here. It was check, check your Y, then catch the slide, then get curious. Now you want to shift modes, and you want to shift from again arguing your position to asking questions and truly like digging underneath the other person's position to ask thoughtful questions so that you can really get to understanding their side of the situation because that's where a real breakthrough in the conversation is going to come when the two of you are at odds with one another.

So, what would you need to do to understand how they got to their position? What what curious questions can you ask? How can you? I mean, even just something like say more about your position.

Now, this is not about agreeing with them. This is not about letting them win the argument or anything like that. This is about genuinely getting to a place where you hear them and you understand their position, you still may not agree, and that's totally okay. But we want to get to a place of understanding.

Now, I have a specific secret question that I like to ask myself. Now, this is if you take this on, this question is a question you ask only inside your head. This is not an out loud question, okay? And if you've been a long time listener to the podcast, or if you've been in some of my training sessions, you may have heard me say this question before.

But this is what I do to get myself unhooked from being like staunchly entrenched in my own position and to try to get more curious. I will ask myself again quietly in my head, I will say to myself, In what alternate universe does that position, that person's position, make perfect sense? And again, that makes me giggle a little bit, even just now sharing it with you. In what alternate universe does this person's position make perfect sense?

Or another framing of it is, What would I have to believe for their position to make sense to me, and now I'm trying to get at what are the beliefs that that person might have that has them believing and then having the conviction that they do around the topic at hand. So again, that unhooks me; it makes me laugh a little bit at myself, and then I remember to be curious, and then I can be in a much better place to listen to understand. So, listening to understand is not the same thing as agreeing. So, let's just get that perfectly clear.

It's not giving up your position. It's deciding that this is an actual conversation versus a standoff. And conversations, real ones, are where one person is talking some of the time and listening the other part of the time, and vice versa, and that is where things actually change. Now, let's put it back to politics for just a moment.

You're not going to convince anybody else of your position, but what if you understood why they hold the position they do and where that belief comes from? Like that might be a conversation worth having. Likewise, in your personal life, if you have a friend or your spouse or partner, and you're seeing things completely different, maybe you're both, you know, maybe you're parenting together, and one of you parents in this certain way, and the other one parents in a very different way. Like, have that conversation instead of having a standoff where one kid will come to you when they need something, and the other kid will go to the other parent when they need something because they know who's going to say yes to which things.

No, get on the same team, and that's going to be having a conversation that really gets under the belief systems that you have that have you holding opposite or different viewpoints. They're not always opposite viewpoints. Sometimes they're just not in complete agreement with one another. Okay, so let's just do a quick review of where we have been in this in this podcast episode, because our goal here is to have better conversations at work, and they really do need to be conversations where there is again not necessarily exactly equal parts listening and talking, but a distribution that feels evenly split.

Again, even if we don't have to go 50-50 on this exactly, but we want to have a conversation where there's balance, where there's nuance, where there's give and take. So the need to be right swiftly morphs into righteousness, and righteousness is where conversations go to die, and you can usually feel it in the moment when it's happening. And the key is to catch it. Okay, then you want to check the why before you try to convince anything, convince anyone of anything, so that genuine conviction and the need to be right are not the same thing.

Genuine conviction, go have at it, and you know, be thoughtful as you do it. Don't be rude. Don't be disrespectful. But if that is what is happening, go do that.

But if, on the other hand, you are just trying to convince somebody of something so that you are right and you score a point, well, they that does not yield a conversation. When you are trying to win, you cannot actually listen because you are composing your response while the other person is still talking, and you cannot do that and thoughtfully listen to them at the same time. So, it's okay to have that pause in a conversation where you're thoughtfully considering what they said before you go on to your turn, and listening to understand does not mean agreement. It means you are actually having a conversation instead of a standoff, and this distinction matters a whole lot.

So, what does it cost when somebody is always trying to win? Well, like my husband's friend, he was exhausting to be around, it was not pleasant to be around him. So, what it costs is relationships at work and literally everywhere else. Okay, now it's time for you to put it to work.

The next time you feel the heat rising in a conversation, the next time that you notice that you're loading your guns instead of listening to what the other person has to say, I want you to run the 3c's. Check the why. What are you trying to convince them of? Catch the slide.

Have you moved from wanting to be right into righteousness? I'm right, and they can't even see it. And then get curious. Ask one question instead of making one more statement.

Now, bookmark this episode before the next hard conversation because that'd be a great time to listen to this. I mean, bookmark this episode now so that you have it at hand before your next hard conversation. If you know somebody who is in standoff right now, the colleague, a family member, or anyone, send them this episode, please, please. Again, bookmark this episode so you can come back to it the next time you need it.

You know when the stakes are high in a conversation, and if this is the kind of work that you want to bring into your convers into your organization, having more conversations that are respectful and transparent, even when they are around difficult conversations, whether that's with your executive team or across the whole organization, just so you can get people to actually talk to each other when it matters the most. Reach out to me, drjanelAnderson.com. Go to my contact page, fill out the form. Let's have a conversation about whether the training that I provide might be a good fit for your organization.

All right, my friends, be well. Don't be righteous. Go have those better conversations at work, and I will catch you right here next week on the Working Conversations podcast.