Productive Disagreement
A foundation of team performance
Lynn Harris
10-minute read
Productive disagreement is foundational to team and organizational performance.
This article explores 4 challenges that make productive disagreement difficult and 4 enabling conditions to overcome these difficulties and achieve the results you want.
Teams are the engines of organizations…sometimes
There are many contributing factors to successful teams that drive organizational performance – a common purpose, aligned strategy, diverse composition, agreed accountabilities, clear decision rights, and a focus on stakeholders and customers, to name but a few. There is one attribute, however, that is so foundational to all teams, that without it the team engine will never perform at its best – the practice of productive disagreement. If your team does not regularly have productive disagreements – and in my experience many teams don’t – you are unlikely to realize the potential of your team to achieve the results you want.
In surveys of American and European executives fully 85% of them acknowledged that they had issues or concerns at work that they were afraid to raise [i].
The cost of this in terms of lost opportunities, poor decision making, and sometimes even disasters, is enormous. The good news is that if you and your team learn to disagree productively, you will achieve higher levels of engagement, increase your ability to solve difficult problems, make better decisions, and enjoy higher team and organizational performance. But it’s not easy, otherwise more of us would be doing it.
4 Challenges That Make Productive Disagreement Difficult
Challenge 1: Human Evolution
Any kind of disagreement can be difficult because our brain has evolved to experience it as a threat. Disagreement floods our brain with chemical signals because it interprets disagreement as an attack. This makes it hard for us to be open to other points of view and instead we often focus on defending ourselves. Typically, our reaction manifests as either being defensive or aggressive (fight) or backing down and avoiding (flight). These responses made sense as part of our early evolution. However, in the context of twenty-first century teams and organizations, neither response serves us well.
Challenge 2: Social Norms, Reinforced by Organizational Culture
“If you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say it.”
“Don’t talk religion or politics at the dinner table.”
“Let’s agree to disagree.”
We are socialized from a young age to avoid conversations that have the potential for conflict because we define agreeable as pleasant and enjoyable and disagreeable as unpleasant and unenjoyable. Being disagreeable gets a bad rap! But what’s really so bad about having a different point of view? Does being disagreeable have to be unpleasant and unenjoyable, or can we learn to do it productively and well?
These social norms can be reinforced by organizational culture. Some companies place great emphasis on harmony and getting along well with colleagues. Let’s face it, most of us prefer working in a harmonious environment. However, productive disagreement and good working relationships are not mutually exclusive – it’s possible and desirable to have both. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos champions a culture of “disagree and commit.” Amazon’s website describes their approach this way:
Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.[ii]
Challenge 3: Fear of Imaginary Negative Consequences
In the light of not knowing what will happen in any situation, we have an amazing ability to make up stories. Unfortunately, many of us are also prone to negativity bias, which means we make up stories with negative consequences. For example, if I openly disagree with my boss, they will sideline me… or… if I present counter arguments, I will be seen as negative…or… if I don’t support this proposal (that I don’t agree with) I will damage the relationship.
Some of us also imagine that others can’t take the truth if it is disagreeable in some way. A good test is to ask yourself: "If it were me, would I want the truth, and would I be able to take it?" If the answer is yes, it is also likely to be true for people you work with.
In the complex world of organizations, where work is never just about work, it’s often easier to play it safe and avoid productive disagreement and truth-telling, particularly if you don’t feel you have the skills to do it well.
Challenge 4: Skill
Disagreeing productively is a developable skill. The above three reasons explain why many of us haven’t practiced and developed it sufficiently. Lack of practice and skill feeds our instinct to play it safe and not rock the boat, particularly at work where it often seems riskier.
To develop the behavioral skills of productive disagreement, we first need to create a team and organizational environment where it is not only OK but expected that we disagree with each other in service of better performance and results. This is an integral part of our accountabilities as organizational leaders, and if we avoid it, we are doing a disservice to our team, our organization, and our customers and stakeholders.
To develop these skills and a productive disagreement culture, we need to pay attention to four enabling conditions.
4 Conditions for Productive Disagreement
Condition 1: High Support & High Challenge
Different combinations of support and challenge behaviors create different team cultures.[iii] Some teams have a culture of high challenge and low support. This leads to a culture of stress and sometimes aggression where there’s a lot of disagreement, but it’s rarely productive. Instead, it tends to create passive-aggressive behaviors where relationships are strained or destroyed. Performance always suffers and few people enjoy being part of these teams.
Alternatively, some teams have a culture of low challenge and high support. This creates a comfortable environment, where we all get along, but we keep our disagreements to ourselves for fear of creating discomfort and disharmony. We might enjoy working in such a comfortable environment for a while, but we are likely to become dissatisfied because, once again, performance suffers. The disagreement is still there, but it remains unspoken and is not utilized to make better decisions and solve tricky problems.
To create the conditions and reap the benefits of productive disagreement we need a team culture of both high support and high challenge. One of the most important factors in creating a high support and high challenge environment is what Amy Edmondson, Harvard Professor of Leadership and Management, calls psychological safety:
“A belief that the workplace is safe for speaking up, with ideas, questions, concerns and even mistakes. It’s a sense of confidence that your voice is valued…psychological safety isn’t the goal, it’s a means to the goal, and that goal is excellence. ”[iv]
Project Aristotle, a Google research project involving hundreds of their teams, indicated that “psychological safety, more than anything else, was critical to making a team work.”[v] The behaviors they most identified with creating psychological safety were conversational turn taking and empathy.
At your next team meeting, try these three simple strategies for conversational turn taking:
Speak, then ask…when you finish speaking, ask another team member what they think
Include, then decide…before agreeing any decision that affects the whole team, check in with each person individually to ensure you have heard from everyone and that you have their commitment
Measure, then discuss… It is a well-researched phenomenon that women often talk less than men in meetings. Agree with your team to use the phone app. Time to Talk to measure average speaking time for men and women and then share and discuss the results
To develop your individual and team empathic skills, experiment with these three behaviors:
Validate – validate other people’s perspective (this does not mean agreement, but simply that you demonstrate understanding of their views, opinions, feelings) e.g., so if I understand you correctly, what you are saying is…
Mirror – pay attention to how others are feeling and mirror back to them e.g., you look concerned…or…you sound angry…or…you must be delighted…
Understand – ask more questions to check your assumptions and gain deeper understanding e.g., from what you’ve said, I’m assuming that…is this correct?
As team members we must all take accountability to create psychologically safe team environments by ensuring that we include and hear the voices of all colleagues; and that we demonstrate empathy rather than judgment. The team leader, however, plays a particularly important role in this.
Condition 2: The Team Leader
If you are a team leader you have a huge role to play in creating the conditions for productive disagreement. The harsh reality is that if you create a team culture of false harmony or aggression, your team will never perform at its best and you will struggle to retain good team members. One very practical action you can take is to measure the current psychological safety in your team by asking team members to rate (anonymously) Amy Edmondson’s 6 simple statements[vi]:
When someone makes a mistake in this team, it is often held against them
In this team, it is easy to discuss difficult issues and problems
In this team, people are sometimes rejected for being different
It is completely safe to take a risk in this team
It is difficult to ask other members of this team for help
Members of this team value and respect each other’s contributions
As the team leader it’s more difficult for you to administer this yourself because you are part of the team dynamic. We recommend that you work with experienced team coaches to assess your team’s current psychological safety, and help you to create a high support, high challenge environment where productive disagreement becomes part of your team norms. Once you have a snapshot of the current state of your team it opens the possibility for facilitated, honest discussion about what might be creating an ‘unsafe’ team environment and what you can do to enable both productive disagreement and good working relationships.
As you create a psychologically safe, high support and high challenge environment, you can also start to work with the mindsets and skills that will enable all team members to productively disagree.
Condition 3: Mindset for Productive Disagreement
Any sustainable skill development starts with our mindset – the beliefs we hold that inform how we behave. The first step in developing the skill of productive disagreement is therefore to challenge our own mindset. Try asking yourself these 5 questions:
Do I sometimes get defensive or give way too soon when my colleagues disagree with me?
Do I sometimes avoid disagreeing with my colleagues because I fear it will have negative consequences?
Do I believe that it is generally better to avoid disagreements wherever possible?
Do I believe that disagreement and good working relationships are mutually exclusive?
Do I often find myself saying “let’s agree to disagree” to avoid further confrontation?
Developing the skills of productive disagreement will be harder if you answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions. Try challenging your mindset by considering 5 different questions:
Is it possible that I’m not always right (even when I’m sure I am)?
Could it be helpful for colleagues to challenge and disagree with my views and opinions because it might lead to better decisions and results?
If we create a good support and challenge environment in our team, could productive disagreement strengthen our working relationships?
If we learn to disagree productively, would it enable us to learn and develop together?
Do I believe that productive disagreement is a learned skill, and, with some help, I can do it better and more often?
Continuing to challenge our mindset is the foundation of the behavioral skills we need to disagree productively. As Margaret Heffernan says in her TED talk, Dare to Disagree:
If we aren’t going to be afraid of conflict, we have to see it as thinking, and then we have to get really good at it.”[vii]
Condition 4: Behavioral Skills for Productive Disagreement
As you create a high support, high challenge environment, and start to challenge your existing mindset, you can also start to practice and develop the behavioral skills needed for productive disagreement.
When you want to productively disagree with someone:
Be curious – listen and ask questions to understand before disagreeing
Neutrally (without agreeing or disagreeing) summarize their position to demonstrate you have heard and understood
Name any common ground where you genuinely agree, before saying where you don’t agree
Challenge the topic under discussion, not the person
Intentionally give equal space in the conversation to hear from all parties
When you are on the end of receiving productive disagreement:
Take a few deep breaths and center yourself
Remember it’s not personal – it’s your views and opinions that are being disagreed with – it’s not about you as a person
Listen and ask questions to understand – genuinely explore and consider their alternative point of view and be prepared to change your mind
Summarize their opposing views to demonstrate that you have heard and understood
Acknowledge any good points they have made and where you may have been influenced, or not influenced
Teams can only be the engines of organizations if they develop their capacity for productive disagreement.
When we create conflict, we enable ourselves and the people around us to do our very best thinking.[viii]
If you’ve ever been part of a high-performing team, you will have enjoyed the benefits of a high support and high challenge environment where team members can productively disagree and maintain good working relationships. If you haven’t yet experienced this pleasure, perhaps now is the time to start the journey.
Lynn Harris is an experienced team coach and a founding Partner of Leadership Mindset Partners
[i] Margaret Heffernan, Dare to Disagree, TED Global 2012
[iii] Adapted from Nevitt Sandford’s support and challenge theory for student development
[iv] Amy Edmondson video: The importance of psychological safety
[v] Charles Duhigg, New York Times Magazine: What Google Learned from its Quest to Build the Perfect Team.
[vi] Amy Edmondson, Team Learning Climate Survey
[vii] Margaret Heffernan, Dare to Disagree, TED Global 2012
[viii] Margaret Heffernan, Dare to Disagree, TED Global 2012