How to disagree without being a**-hole
Finding ways to disagree without damaging relationship is an underrated skill
Good Communication is a powerful gift to one when dealing with disagreements and conflict. This is perhaps said a lot, practised rarely and understood remotely. In the two decades of my career, I have seen how teams and individuals including myself have gotten into trouble, got frustrated and made bad choices when dealing with disagreements.
Often at the heart of disagreement is mismatch between two or more individuals with their thinking about a problem and the things they are optimizing for. The disagreement manifests in the form of a conflict of approaches or solutions each side has proposed, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The real conflict is deep within. Taking the time and space to understand this depth is key to disagree without coming out as an annoying person and worse damaging working relationship with the other.
The aspects that limit one to take this time and space to go into the depth are multifold : ego, insecurity, negative experiences in past or the need to prove one’s worth and capabilities. I am sure there are more that come in the way of taking the time and space. But one does not realize this when they are in conflict including myself.
If you have to do one thing and only thing is artificially create time and space between recognizing there is a conflict and resolving that conflict. This has been a game changer for me, as I observed me and myself reaping benefits just following this one idea. This is not a silver bullet and should not be used as one, and there needs to be a structure and a process to follow this idea. Keep reading the next section if you want to apply this idea for the ongoing conflict and disagreement that you may have in your work life. For other ideas, please keep reading till the end of this article.
Create time and space between conflict and resolution
So you find yourself disagreeing with someone or a group of people. First, you want to make sure you don’t shy away from expressing that opinion of yours which the other party will not agree to. You can take many routes to do that. Once you disagree, you need to make it explicit how strong or weak you are about your own point that is in disagreement with the others. However, this could be another challenge - often we think we have strong arguments which we deeply believe in, but rather are weak when we think deeply about it. Hence the need for time and space.
Irrespective of how strongly or weakly you feel about this disagreeing opinion, share it. If you are shy or unwilling to stick your neck out in a bigger room, keep a log of that opinion of yours and share that disagreement privately with the individual or party. If you feel that the group is determined to find a resolution immediately for a non-urgent issue, then you need to ask the group to pause the resolution because you need time to think. I can tell you from past experience all resolutions does not need to be immediate, and therefore can wait. In fact, more people will agree to waiting for resolution if there are multiple ideas in the room and if there is no consensus or general alignment. If you clearly see that there are multiple ideas in the room and there is no agreement, ask to pause the resolution. Create a promise to come back later between few hours (for a semi-urgent conflict) to few days (for an important but less urgent conflict). Create a promise to take the time between now and the next time to think about inputs from others and yours more deeply. This need to wait for resolution is not about excusing oneself from hard talks, but rather about creating artificial distance between the moment of conflict where emotions run high, and a future time that will give you enough space to move away from a strong emotional state. Humans are emotional beings and we need to acknowledge the importance and influence of emotions in a disagreement. Do this, and you have taken a significant first step in getting better at disagreeing without being an a**-hole.
What else can you do to get better at disagreeing ?
Practice Deep listening without judgement
As soon you find yourself disagreeing, keep a note of that somewhere and give yourself the permission to not interrupt the other and keep listening. Capture their points as if you are a journalist, and you are there to just record. It works better if you have a recording medium like a notebook. Jot down the points from the other person, this shows curiosity. And don’t interrupt. Ask for “What else ?” when they pause, till you feel you have been able to get everything out from the other person you are disagreeing. Once you are done, ask the other person, if that is all that they have at the moment about their opinion or point to which you disagree. Now ask the other person to do the same - give you the space to voice out your point without being interrupted and tell them that it is Ok for them to disagree and they should jot down the disagreeing points at their end. At the end of this, summarize each other’s points to make sure everything is captured as it was shared. And then, do not jump into the resolution. Practice the aforementioned idea - “Create time and space between conflict and resolution”.
Agree on a contract to disagree and move forward
Before you go into a discussion where you think there will be disagreement, agree with the other person or group on the protocol to follow to disagree constructively - no name calling, not using the words “always” or “everytime” or
”again”, giving each other the time and space to share what they disagree on, perhaps also agreeing to follow the previous point about “deep listening without judgement” and agreeing to the idea that we don’t need to resolve the conflict immediately following the previous point of “Create time and space between conflict and resolution”. This way of creating contracts normalises the process of disagreeing, almost creating a stoic like environment where the disagreeing is less about the individual and more about the point in hand. You can turn disagreeing as a necessary process of high performing teams and individuals, and having contracts like makes disagreeing less fearsome.
Expose the disagreement using other means of communication
The modern workplace communication is now full of tools like Messaging, Remote whiteboards, instant audio and video conference etc. While these tools are amazing, if not used effectively for the process of disagreements, they become counter-productive. The idea that you can get on a Slack thread and just share your disagreement and move on seems like a common thing these days. Messaging forums tend to become Twitter or Facebook threads, and that is damaging for the team and organization. Async tools like Slack sometimes removes the perception from its users that on the other side there is another human who has emotions, feelings and perhaps a state of mind that is not accessible to you. Further, not everybody has a strong command of the choice of language in a workplace, and therefore is unprepared to correctly voice out their disagreeing opinions effectively.
Therefore, a practice I follow and ask other people to do the same is to not react immediately on Slack especially on a public thread where you think your point may spark negative or unconstructive conversation. Instead, reach out privately to the person you disagree, and share your point to them directly. Even better, inform them that you have a point that disagrees with them, and you want to talk to them first before voicing that out in a slack thread or other places. Get on a call, or ask them if they are Ok if you share with them privately in the form of a message about the points of disagreement. A call is better, but often people are not comfortable facing the person face to face when disagreeing, and therefore would choose to share it in the form of a message that is async. Irrespective of your comfort factor here, focus on reaching out to the other person privately here. This is applicable if your disagreement is quite strong and you are unwilling to change or modify your opinion easily. Similar to the previous point, often an async thread is unsuitable to provide effective points of argument from all sides, and hence using a document approach is better. Take the slack thread, and transform the inputs on that thread in a document format that you can use to capture all sides including links to artefacts or other resources that help or break the case of all arguments shared. Once you have an alignment or consensus, share it back on the same slack thread so that anybody who missed that conversation can follow through without missing out.
Practice Straw man and Steel man arguments
When in disagreement, ask yourself if there are arguments that makes a strong case for the idea that you are disagreeing with. Have people involved in the disagreement voice out these arguments - called Steel man arguments. Similar to this, you should call out arguments that create a weak case for your own counter point - called Straw man arguments. The heart of critical thinking is to keep the straw man and steel man arguments in mind at the same time, and use that to make effective discussions with the others. Taking this practice with everyone who has a disagreeing point becomes an effective conflict resolution step. Each person who disagrees and has a counter-point choses to share the steel man argument for the point that they disagree, and also shares straw man for their own points.
There are many other approaches you can take beyond what has been called out above sections. Sometimes the disagreeing group brings in a moderator to help and this is useful in some circumstances. It is however preferable to get someone to moderate who has limited or no vested interest in the outcomes of the disagreement and can help all sides without the need to take sides.
Lastly, a thinking I follow myself and ask the same from my teams is to focus on the root cause of disagreement, and as shared earlier, often the misinterpretation of the problem at hand and the mismatch on the things to optimize for while solving the problem are the root causes of disagreement. As a leader of teams of people, your role here is to break ties but also to create enough context for your team members that this misinterpretation and mismatch has limited room in a discussion. Everyone in the room has a clear understanding of the problem(s) at hand, and the indicators or criterias for the solution(s). This makes the disagreements and hence discussion effective. You may find that doing so as a leader makes your team better at critical thinking and hence better at resolving conflicts or disagreements without you.
So go out and disagree all you want without being an a**-hole.