Intellectual Boundaries vs Behavioural Boundaries: How to Play Fair?

I believe one of the biggest challenges we face in workplace conversations is our tendency to confuse two very different boundaries: intellectual boundaries and behavioural boundaries.

And interestingly, due to our biases, we can easily make this mistake in two opposing ways.

1. We mistake THEIR intellectual challenges for behavioural infringements. And call their’s UNFAIR.

Someone questions our reasoning, challenges our assumptions or disagrees with our position.

We feel threatened, embarrassed or defensive.

Instead of recognising a legitimate intellectual challenge, we interpret their disagreement as a personal attack.

Our emotions kick in, and we may accuse them of behaving unfairly—or worse, gossip behind their backs— when all they are doing is challenging our thinking.

2. We mistake OUR behavioural infringements for legitimate intellectual challenges. And call our’s FAIR.

Now the roles are reversed.

We’re convinced our position is reasonable, perhaps even correct.

But when we run out of a good argument, our emotions can take over.

We become increasingly dogmatic, dismissive, resort to rhetorical questions, sarcasm or condescension.

Yet we convince ourselves we’re simply challenging someone’s thinking and therefore behaving fairly.

“I’m only asking questions!”

In both cases, we risk allowing our desire to PROVE rather than IMPROVE to override our willingness to CONVERGE rather than CONVERT.

And herein lies a fundamental problem.

“Playing fair isn’t about never making an unfair challenge; it’s about being willing to abide by the referee’s decision when we do”.

Who gets to decide whether our challenges and behaviour are fair or unfair?

The person making the challenge? The person receiving it? Their manager?

My proposition is that neither party should have the final say.

Workplace teams could instead agree beforehand on behavioural boundaries and a fair, reciprocal process for addressing perceived infringements in real time.

Everyone has the right to disagree with someone’s thinking and to object to how someone behaves during a challenge.

And importantly, everyone’s objections should themselves be open to challenge and review.

That’s the thinking behind SpatzAI‘s pre-grievance intervention for addressing any minor spats that arise during any intellectual challenges.

Push intellectual boundaries. Push back on behavioural infringements. And hold everyone accountable for how they challenge.