The Fine Art of Quibbling

Miguel suddenly realized that they were down the rabbit hole again, debating about the finer shades of meaning of the word "report." Instead of deciding about the severity of the defect, they were arguing — again — about whether it had been reported properly. Miguel could tolerate no more of this. "Hold it," he said. "I don't care about how we found out about this. We have to decide what to do about it."

Dennis held his ground. "I agree that we have to act on all properly reported problems. But this one hasn't even been officially reported yet, so…end of discussion."

Dennis might have a point. Or he could be seeking refuge from the problem using a technique sometimes called quibbling. To quibble is to object unnecessarily, or to evade the truth of an assertion by resorting to trivial faultfinding. Sometimes the term refers to petty disagreements about such things as the meanings of words. And sometimes — more interestingly — it's an illegitimate debating technique that leads to poor decisions.

When quibbling happens from habit or by accident, it's relatively harmless, because the conversation partners usually recover quickly and return to substantive discussion, once they realize that they're quibbling or someone tells them so. But disingenuous quibbling is another matter. It can be a deliberate distraction, a protective device, a power ploy, or worse.

Quibbling can be
a deliberate distraction,
a protective device,
a power ploy or worseA disingenuous quibble is a devious attempt to gain rhetorical advantage by resorting to petty objections. Here are four strategies disingenuous quibblers use.

Defending against another issue

The quibbler might be trying to halt progress toward surfacing some other related issue. By burning up the group's time and energy on minor details, the quibbler can sometimes prevent exposure of something important.

Impressing the room

Because quibbling usually requires a fine mind and a mastery of words and subtlety, the listener is often confused by the quibble and requires further clarification. This could be a power ploy by the quibbler, because it moves the quibbler to a one-up position — at least temporarily.

"Winning" the point

Winning the point might not be the ultimate objective — it might be a means to another end. For instance, conceding the point might lead to a conclusion that might be uncomfortable for the quibbler, or embarrassing or painful to face.

"Winning" all points

Here the quibbler avoids conceding any point at all, and the motivation is more about winning (or rather, not losing) than it is about winning the specific point. All-points quibblers are more likely to combine the quibble with other techniques, such as interruptions, floor hogging, and multiple rhetorical fallacies.

Take care — what seems to you to be quibbling might actually be substantive. Wait for a pattern to emerge, and then talk about the pattern. Detailed discussion of a single instance of quibbling might be quibbling itself.  Top    Next Issue

Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Conflict Management:

See No Evil

When teams share information among themselves, they have their best opportunity to reach peak performance. And when some information is withheld within an elite group, the team faces unique risks.

Managing Pressure: Communications and Expectations

Pressed repeatedly for "status" reports, you might guess that they don't want status — they want progress. Things can get so nutty that responding to the status requests gets in the way of doing the job. How does this happen and what can you do about it? Here's Part I of a little catalog of tactics and strategies for dealing with pressure.

Responding to Threats: II

When an exchange between individuals, or between an individual and a group, goes wrong, threats often are either the cause or part of the results. If we know how to deal with threats — and how to avoid and prevent them — we can help keep communications creative and constructive.

Bemused Detachment

Much of the difficulty between people at work is avoidable if only we can find ways to slow down our responses to each other. When we hurry, we react without thinking. Here's a suggestion for increasing comity by slowing down.

Confronting the Workplace Bully: II

When bullied, one option is to fight back, but many don't, because they fear the consequences. Confrontation is a better choice than many believe — if you know what you're doing.

See also Conflict Management, Effective Communication at Work and Critical Thinking at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming July 25: Exploiting Functional Fixedness: II

A cognitive bias called functional fixedness causes difficulty in recognizing new uses for familiar things. It also makes for difficulty in recognizing devious uses of everyday behaviors. Here's Part II of a catalog of deviousness based on functional fixedness. Available here and by RSS on July 25.

And on August 1: Strategies of Verbal Abusers

Verbal abuse at work has special properties, because it takes place in an environment in which verbal abuse is supposedly proscribed. Yet verbal abuse does happen at work. Here are three strategies abusers rely on to avoid disciplinary action. Available here and by RSS on August 1.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenDqTsRCCKBrWIHwjxner@ChaccLniRrxTAwlTjFXfoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, USD 28.99)

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented 6:00 PM June 29 (Eastern Time), Monthly Webinar, Technobility Webinar Series. You can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.