Few people if any really know the difference between objecting and disagreeing, until it is explained to them and then it makes perfect sense. Please tell me if I was wrong and leave a comment below if you knew.
Even in wikidiff it doesn’t clearly explain it. The difference is, I think, that we object to people’s behavior (delivery) in a conversation but only disagree with the content of their delivery. So simple in hindsight. And why is this important? Because now that we understand this we can split a discussion into two parts focusing exclusively on the person. ie. their content and their delivery of the content. Disagreeing only with the content and objecting only with the delivery.
Most psychologists recommend we focus only on “the issues not the person” but somehow we seem to have ended up throwing out the baby with the bath water. Now that we can focus on the person again, – delivery and content, we can work on some agreed to rules of engagement, especially about delivery or behavior. It is imperative, however to ensure that we agree to these rules before engaging. Here are a few I have prepared before hand.
When we find the other’s delivery to be offensive in any way we can object, in real-time but here is the trick. We can split the objection into three phases that starts out very mild and increases in accountability if there is any recalcitrance or disputing of the initial objection.
For example: If we agreed that the first objection was called a 1. Caution and it just required an acknowledgement from the offender. If this was done, then we could return to the conversation or discussion.
However if an acknowledgement was not forthcoming then the offended could ratchet up the objection, in real-time, to an 2. Objection, which now would require a simple apology to continue.
And you guessed it, if the simple apology was not forthcoming by the offender then the objection could be raised to a 3. Stop and now an acceptable apology would be required by the offender. If that was not forthcoming, in real-time then the discussion would end until the objection was resolved. An example of an acceptable apology is, What I said. Why I said it and what I will say next time.
Of course their are variants in how this plays out as the objector may have misread the situation, in which case the alleged offender may be innocent. This would require further discussion and clarification until resolved and may even involve a third party to help resolve. Also each phase is consecutive and would always require us to begin with a caution.
Object123 