Countless times throughout my career I have heard (and I think I’ve said it too): “you must pick you battles”.

I have always struggled to believe this. Why should you not make the case for what you believe? It shouldn’t be a limit for anyone for how many times they can voice their concerns.

If you have a climate where people are taught by example that you must pick your battles, what does that mean? It means that initiative and innovation is being held back by culture.

Why should you pick your battles?

The usual response is that you can’t “win” every battle and you should save your energy. Having thought about this for some time I think this is just wrong. Asking questions or voicing concerns isn’t the same as picking a fight. People who think so are just insecure. If you’re confident on the subject at hand you won’t see opinions of others as a fight / battle or quarrel. You will see it as an opportunity to learn by having to rethink your own opinions.

Labeling a concern, suggestion or frustration as an act of starting a battle is a pretty absurd thing. If your culture can’t deal with people questioning or arguing about things you have a problem. A better suggestion than to label things or trying to prevent discussions is to instead embrace it and let everything be open and up for questioning. After all, asking questions about things is what we as professionals are supposed to do. Just let all opinions and concerns run freely and you will soon have a culture of self justice, instead of a culture were avoiding confrontations and discussions is a good thing. Embrace openness and let everything be open for questioning. Let your people pick all the battles they want.

Don’t pick your battles, engage often and never see anything as too big to be questioned or challenged. Of course, you need to show other the same respect you expect and sometimes things must be just left alone because it’s going nowhere. However that should only be done when you feel it’s not worth it, not because someone else tells you to.