Listen on your favorite app:
Transcript
Sometimes people think that consensus is the golden standard of teams. When everyone’s getting along, when no one’s arguing, everybody has their beautiful smiles and just nodding and everybody’s just plodding forward to whatever’s presented, it’s a beautiful thing.
But the thing is, that’s not true. Because truth is, the sign of a healthy team is not that they are always in agreement. A true sign is that they feel safe enough to disagree with one another.
They feel safe enough to bring up issues. They feel safe enough to argue different viewpoints or different ideas or to point out pitfalls or even to disagree directly with the boss or whoever may be presenting that idea.
That shows a sense of safety and that shows a sense of a more healthy team. That is what you want. You want disagreement on your team.
When you don’t have people who disagree, when nobody feels safe enough to bring up issues, you can pursue an idea that could be deadly for your team or your company because everyone’s afraid to speak up.
You want people to disagree. When you have that disagreement, you have new ideas you may not have thought of. You see potential pitfalls, potential issues that may happen, and it can save you a lot of time, it can save you a lot of money, and other things that could happen because you didn’t know something because no one was willing to speak up.
You want people to disagree. You want people to feel safe enough to have a different viewpoint. Even when it comes to the end, when the decision is made, your goal is not to have everyone in 100% agreement mentally.
It’s okay if some people still think that’s not the best idea. Your goal is, depending on the situation, to have the different input, to have the different discussion about it, the disagreements and so on. But once it’s decided, then everybody takes action toward whatever is decided.
When it was discussion, people put whatever viewpoint that they believed out there, they discussed it, but once it’s finally decided, everyone’s then on board with that decision.
They may not believe, oh, that’s the best decision in their mind, but because that’s what the team or the leader decided, that’s the direction they then are on course with. That’s the direction they pursue. They take action toward it.
You want agreement with action, not agreement with mind.
When you hold out for those few people who disagree, when you try to make sure everyone’s in agreement, you end up giving those people too much power.
So you want disagreement on your team. It’s a good thing. The thing is, if no one is disagreeing with you as a leader, if no one is giving other viewpoints, that’s a bad sign.
It’s a sign that people do not feel safe enough to speak up. And then it becomes your job to help them feel safe enough to speak up.
You should be one who, when people offer feedback or criticism or a disagreement with your ideas, that you welcome it instead of getting defensive and arguing about it. It starts with you as the leader.
During meetings, you may need to pull disagreement from people. You may present an idea or somebody else may present an idea, and you may say, “Okay, how could this go wrong? What’s a different viewpoint?”
“I could be wrong about this. What’s another idea that you think might could work?” Or “What is something that could go wrong with this idea?”
Whatever it may be, ask people. You could even have someone play the position, their job, their role in that meeting or that discussion is to disagree and point out potential pitfalls. Or you could have people argue to different sides.
Whatever it may be, you want it to become a norm for people to disagree. You want it to be a norm for people to offer different viewpoints.
Once it’s decided, everyone takes action toward it. I hope this helps. I’ll see you next time.
