How to Disagree at Work Without Harming Relationships

Work disagreements that aren’t hashed out openly become covert. They suppress good ideas, depress morale and stress relationships.?

One of my clients was a C-suite executive at a company known for its polite and caring culture. It was common for colleagues to discuss what they did over the weekend and express interest in each other’s families and interests. Meetings were orderly and ran on schedule.

But meetings of a very different nature often occurred after the official ones. The pleasantries and collegiality were gone. At these smaller, informal gatherings, people said out loud what they couldn’t say in the formal meeting, voicing confusion and concerns, and blaming others for setbacks and challenges. Amid all the bickering and unhappiness, productivity at the company dipped.

As I worked with my client, we uncovered some mistaken beliefs that lay at the heart of the company’s so-called collegial culture. Here are three such mistaken beliefs, and the strategies to bust them:?

Disagreeing will make me unlikeable.?My client recalled a time when he believed a colleague’s project would run into problems as the product launch approached, but, thinking of himself as a people pleaser, chose to stay silent. A week before launch, the process hit the anticipated hurdle, causing an expensive two-week delay. My client then offered his suggestion. While appreciative, the colleague wondered why he hadn’t contributed earlier, when fixing the issue would have been much easier.

In these kinds of situations, it is natural to center concerns on ourselves. It’s more productive, however, to flip the narrative from “that person won’t like me” to “disagreeing will show I care about the outcome and want them to succeed.” Disagreement doesn’t preclude respect and likability. You express your interest in another’s success when you say, “Your expertise shows through in your proposal. I’m excited about this project and would like to see it succeed. Would you be open to a different perspective on step three that might help us avoid a possible glitch?”

Disagreeing will damage my work relationships.?In fact, disagreement avoidance is more likely to damage relationships than speaking up, as cracks turn into chasms. When co-workers realize you let them proceed with a faulty plan, or waited until the last minute to raise objections, they’re likely to lose trust in you. If you’re concerned that voicing your opinion might damage a work relationship, express that by saying, “I value our working relationship, but I’m concerned if I object to one of your ideas, it might dampen your trust. I’d like to share my perspective?because?I care.”

Another strategy is to seek out allies ahead of time and in meetings and elicit support by using phrases like, “Am I the only one who thinks …” or “What do others think about …” or “We’ve heard two consistent themes; I have a third point.” The leader of the meeting could encourage people to speak up by saying, “To ensure we have a good crop of ideas up front so we can harvest from the best, who has a different point of view?”

Disagreeing will waste time.?The best ideas are rarely created in an echo chamber; they come with input from multiple sources. Surfacing a diversity of views up front leaves time to refine input from different voices and allows the best-formed idea to go forward.

This is why it is important to block out formal meeting time early in the process to explore challenges from many different angles: customer, engineering, sales, competition, board members and so on. Understanding the values, loyalties and the compromises each faction would have to make allows project leaders to address potential roadblocks before they appear.

We are often afraid to disagree for fear of sticking our necks out, being singled out and being shut out. But this longing for belonging squelches creativity and encourages conformity, leading to stasis. In reality, by harnessing the power of disagreement early and often, our ideas will stand out and we will sow goodwill and foster creativity for future interactions.?

This article first appeared in the Wall Street Journal in 2022. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-disagree-at-work-without-harming-relationships-11645547966

Sign up for my mailing list for links to new articles on leadership: www.sabinanawaz.com