“Strong Opinions, Weakly Held” FTW. This is exactly what I wish people would understand when I seem to be fighting against their opinions or plans. If I’m “fighting” that fight is largely in my own head, and I’m trying to see what side of an argument or idea is strongest. I am engaged, processing, and yes, I care.

But… I have struggled to overcome problems with this approach:

• How do you deal with more harmony-driven or passive personalities? Some personality types are more oriented towards social cohesion and/or are more averse to perceived conflict or aggression. I hate losing the opinions of these folks just because they’d prefer not to “fight it out” or perceive themselves in conflict with me.
• When do you admit defeat? Often when I start down the arguing path I let my emotions and volume get the best of me, and refuse to back down and admit when my argument is weaker.
• What does it mean to win an argument? If your engineer left the argument feeling defeated, the overall effect could have been to do more harm to your support requests than you would gain by enforcing the behavior you wanted. While I agree that argumentation is a solid tactic, it can sometimes go against the broader strategic moves you’re trying to make.