About Me

My photo
Received my early education at the Rifle Range Road (2) Primary School, Kuala Lumpur. Attended junior high school at Raja Abdullah Secondary School, Kuala Lumpur and high school at Technical Institute, Kuala Lumpur. Further study at Mara Institute of Technology (ITM), Shah Alam, Selangor and obtained Certificate in Town and Regional Planning and Diploma in Quantity Surveying. Continued study in Mara University of Technology (UiTM) and obtained Bachelor of Quantity Surveying (Honours). I am a skilled commercial manager with extensive background in-and thorough knowledge of- development, construction, maintenance and construction contracts. Also having knowledge and experience in project, facilities and property management. Experienced in developing and implementing competitive cost planning, project budgeting, cost controlling and development appraisal. Exceptional organizational, analytic and managerial skills. Career as Commercial Expert till now.

Monday 26 January 2015

"Let's Agree to Disagree." I Don't Agree to That….So what?


The term "agree to disagree" or "agreeing to disagree" is a phrase in English referring to the resolution of a conflict (usually a debate or quarrel) whereby all parties tolerate but do not accept the opposing position(s).

During negotiation with regards to the claims by the Contractor the argumentation can get tiresome. Every parties wanted to win the argument and what most important certain basis need to be adapted. I have experience a lot of this matter the entire project that I were involved.

Against, for me; I also go back to the basic. Always put the principle in the upmost position and any argument could be settled.  Walk through the basis step by step and understand the situation and then only one could make any decision with sound mind.

The best response to this, and here I really don't think I'm guilty of overambitious optimism, is to identify and clarify what the point at issue really is, and to concertedly stay conscious of the fact that people are not their individual beliefs, and that it is alright to have been wrong about facts. If people can manage that, they can have disagreements without conflict. Or, they can achieve the same effect if they simply accept that conflict is not necessarily bad so long as it ends and has a reasonable expectation of getting somewhere.
But most people are not so high-minded. Much of the time, people simply want to bury the hatchet (which is perfectly well admirable, except that a disagreement is really a lot more like a land mine than a hatchet in that regard).

So they resort to the old chestnut of "Why don't we agree to disagree." (I neglect to use a question mark because it is never said with that inflection. It is not really a question, it is a demand, and a cravenly presented one at that. Impolite, really.)

But it's rather anticlimactic, isn't it? I am reminded of a joke: "There are two types of people: those who don't need closure."

In fact, the nature of disagreements, if they are genuine disagreements is that we disagree whether we assent to it or not. To disagree, at least two people must have at least two beliefs, and those beliefs must be incompatible.

Things are incompatible by virtue of their containing a contradiction. Contradictions are endemic to the concepts themselves. If I happen to believe that all school buses are red, and you believe that they are all yellow, our agreeing to disagree affects the facts that we have incompatible views not at all.

Not to be overly literal. I know that people who say this don't think that it really settles the discussion. They want merely to avoid conflict. But it is the height of bad manners to not only interrupt somebody, but also to interrupt them to tell them that they can not and may not go on expressing themselves, lest they offend the holy rules of social grace and the satisfy the insane need of the un-argumentative to "keep everyone happy".

Who, anyway, is the graceless and conflicted one in the situation, he who happens to have an opinion which is conceptually incompatible with someone else's, or he who would rather censor a discussion than be challenged?

The dissonance that goes with disagreement is a tension, sure. But it is certainly better to relieve a tension than to ignore it. At the end, the best would let parties put their case and get the experts to review and be the judge.

No comments:

Post a Comment