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How To Disagree the Right Way
Should we agree to disagree or disagree and commit?
What can make us incredibly valuable at work—our willingness to disagree openly, our commitment to helping others succeed, or our persistence in sticking to our arguments even when others have moved forward and a decision has been made?
A decision that does not go our way is not an attack on our identity, and yet when others disagree with us or disregard our opinion, we take it personally.
The stronger our belief system, the more difficult it is for us to look beyond our perspective and treat other people’s ideas as worthy of consideration. Being stuck in the right vs wrong can cause us to feel emotionally stressed out, prevent us from expressing our ideas with the right frame of mind, and ignore what others say.
Instead of the conflict transpiring into a healthy debate to make a decision that is in the more significant interest of the company, the difference of opinion takes on a personal agenda in which one side must lose for the other to win.
Eventually, when the decision does land in our favour, or it’s not what we anticipated, it hurts our emotions.
What should we do then? Just agree to disagree — agreeing that we disagree with the decision.
Why Agree To Disagree Doesn’t Work
Agreeing to disagree stems from a negative mindset that prevents us from moving forward. Depending on how strongly we hold our opinions, it can make us ruminate over the decision, overthink why others cannot see our point of view, and self-justify why the current decision is wrong.
Instead of accepting that it’s not about right vs. wrong, us vs. them, agreeing to disagree can lead to dismissive behavior and ignoring the decision.
Dismissing the decision makes us non-committal and refrain from providing the necessary support to make the project successful. It can even make us secretly wish that the project fails so that we can go back and tell everyone, “I told you so.”
“Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are — or, as we are…
