A couple of days ago, my wife and I happened to be in the kitchen at the same time. Over the past couple of weeks, I've started making my week's meals on Sundays so that all I have to do during the week is get my container, heat up my food, and go about my business. It's also helping me regain control of my glucose level.

My normal process was to remove my food from the container, put it on a paper plate, heat it up then go about my business. My wife asked me why I was doing that. It caught me off guard as a question, because I've always done it. I said I do it so that once I'm done eating, I can just throw away the plate the forks, as I also use plastic forks for many meals.

She said that was a waste, because the containers are plastic and microwave safe, and that I was going through paper plates without having to do so. Just because I eventually had to bring the containers back to the kitchen was no excuse to go through so many paper plates.

This is one of those times when our logic clashes. For years, my wife has always had to remind me to bring my dishes back to the kitchen, so I thought I had solved the dilemma by just using paper. Also, I figured paper was cleaner, it was biodegradable, and therefore I was being "green" in my own way. My wife's thinking is that the container is reusable and that going through all the paper was being wasteful and not "green" at all.

Who's right? I'm not really sure. But I see her point, and mine isn't worth debating over, so I'm doing it her way for the moment. Sometimes, when a point isn't going to make much difference overall, it doesn't make any sense to keep pounding your point of view in an effort to be correct when the end result won't really matter anyway.

It's something many leaders and managers need to learn when dealing with employees. Unless it's something that makes the company look bad, there's nothing saying that everything has to be worded or formatted exactly how someone else wants it to be. Most things in life really aren't so important that absolute adherence to a particular process is the only acceptable way to get something done.

When there's a clear cut choice, it makes sense; if not, just go with the flow.