I don’t think we stop to deeply understand what’s communicated when one person says to another, “I don’t care.”
If you and I engage in conversation about a topic, you respond to my idea with “I don’t care,” what you are communicating is that you don’t care about my idea. In one sense, that makes sense. In another sense, why bother asking for my ideas? What incentive do I have to share more?
We need a new phrase/statement to communicate, “your idea may have merit. I am more curious about this other thing.”
Perhaps expressing gratitude for being brave and generous enough to share combined with an acknowledgement that we’re not on the same wave length is what’s needed.
I care too much about a person to “not care”.
Leaders: we need to cultivate teams and environments where that language exits stage right from our lexicon. If we want teams that contribute and engage, we need to use language that helps guide people towards what would be helpful.