Stop arguing maps and start finding the shared terrain

Two people can watch the same scene and swear they saw different movies. In meetings, this shows up as endless debate that feels personal, when it’s really a clash of maps. One person prizes speed, another stability. One says, “We promised Friday,” while the other mutters, “Not with those bug reports.” The air gets tight, coffee cools on the table, and the clock keeps ticking. No one is stupid or stubborn, they’re just filtering the world through different lenses built from past wins, losses, and values.

A useful move is to surface the maps and look for terrain. When you say, “Here’s how I’m seeing it,” and ask, “How are you seeing it?” you turn conflict into a comparison task. I watched a product lead and an ops manager do this after a delayed rollout. She wrote “delight users, learn fast” on the whiteboard. He wrote “zero downtime, audit ready.” There was a long silence, then both laughed. They hadn’t been arguing about the feature, they’d been arguing about the compass.

They chose two shared criteria—“user harm” and “recover time”—and ran a 24‑hour pilot with rollback. The ops manager monitored logs, the product lead tracked user feedback. A phone buzzed on the table with a minor error alert, they rolled back in minutes, and realized their worst fear was manageable. The next pilot went smoother, and the debate cooled because reality had a seat at the table. I might be wrong, but most “personality clashes” shrink when you name maps and test assumptions.

Cognitively, this hinges on perception filters and identity. Belief‑driven attention (what matters to me) directs what I notice, then confirmation bias keeps it in place. The fix is externalizing the models, selecting a common criterion, and running a small experiment. It’s the practical side of “the map is not the terrain,” and it works because feedback from the real world updates both maps faster than argument ever will.

Start by saying, “Here’s how I’m seeing it,” in one clean sentence, then ask, “How are you seeing it?” and capture their exact words. Together, pick a simple compass like customer impact or safety to guide choices this week. Choose one risky assumption and run a tiny test or data pull in the next 48 hours to see who’s right or, more likely, how both maps need updating. Keep the tone light, treat it like comparing travel routes on your phones, and let results do the talking. Try it in your next meeting and watch the heat drop as clarity rises. Give it a try today.