Strong opinions, held weakly

In his weblog article Strong Opinions, Weakly Held, Bob Sutton writes about a psychological paradox that to move forward in knowledge and wisdom, we need

• A strong opinion to assure that we are inspired to find the best arguments to support the opinion, but also
• Not be attached to the opinion to avoid getting blind for evidence against it

At first this felt weird. At work, I like to either take a firm standpoint for my opinion or take no standpoint at all and listen to others. It often confuses people when I play Devil's Advocate and stick to my opinion for the sake of the discussion just to challenge it. In other situations, I seem unable to make up my mind and form a opinion.

In the end, it's all a matter of communication...