Healthy debate serves a real purpose in that it helps individuals and groups make smarter decisions. By skillfully working through conflicting ideas about how to solve a problem or reach a goal, we identify the best courses of action. That’s because a productive conflict provides an arena in which we can test the soundness of proposed ideas. Suggested solutions that are logical and feasible will stand up to scrutiny during the decision-making process, whereas weaker solutions are likely to be exposed as flawed. So by engaging in productive discussion about your conflict, the real costs and impact of, say, a new hybrid car are revealed, and you are able to come up with a workable solution: you will continue driving your old car while sacrificing this year’s vacation and dinners out to put an additional $350 every month into a special savings account toward the purchase of a secondhand hybrid car in one year.