If you find yourself involved in a conversation that seems to be going somewhere you hadn’t intended it to, slow down and check where you are going.

When people disagree – or start to drift towards disagreement – the origins of the problem often lie with the different assumptions that each person holds.

Naturally, these are outside conscious awareness; neither of you is actually intending to be difficult, but since each is being driven by their own unchecked assumptions it’s easy for a conversation to become a tussle.

If you take a moment to ’surface assumptions’ it can make things clearer so that you can get the conversation back on track.