There’s a meeting most leaders in values-led organisations will recognise. Everyone’s engaged, everyone’s respectful, nobody interrupts. A proposal that requires a decision goes round the table. A few nods. Maybe one gentle question. And then it’s decided – except three weeks later it turns out half the room didn’t actually agree, they just didn’t want to be the one who said so.
This is the trap that catches kind, considerate teams. People are trying so hard to be helpful that nobody disagrees. On the surface all appears well but underneath there is discontent, and decisions are made without the information that would have made them better.
It’s a particularly cruel trap because the thing causing it – genuinely caring about your colleagues, not wanting to put people on the spot, valuing harmony – is exactly the thing that makes your organisation worth working for in the first place. Nobody wants to be perceived as difficult, or put a spanner in the works, or create problems for anyone else. Caring about colleagues plays out in practice as silence, but by not speaking up teams miss out on different perspectives that make for better decision making.
Use your team advantage
Teams have an advantage over individuals when it comes to solving problems: a room full of different perspectives and backgrounds has a much better chance of reaching a well-considered solution than any one person working alone. But only if those perspectives get said out loud. If an idea from a leader or a dominant personality goes unchallenged because nobody wants to be the one who pushes back, the room’s collective intelligence never gets used.
Here are three things that help people to speak up and disagree that can make a difference to the quality of decision making and performance of the team.
Ask for disagreement specifically. Swap the vague ‘any thoughts?’ or ‘does that work for everyone?’ for more specific questions. ‘What’s the strongest reason this might be wrong?’ ‘Who’s seeing this differently?’ ‘What would need to be true for this not to work?’ A specific question gives people permission to disagree in a way a general one never does.
Yes and. Treat someone’s pushback as something to build on rather than something to defeat. ‘Yes, and’ is the tool for this – you don’t have to agree with what’s just been said, but you can still build on it rather than blocking it, which changes the tone of the whole conversation. ‘Yes, and we have no budget for that, so how do we work round it?’ keeps the idea alive and gets everyone solving the real problem, rather than shutting the conversation down at the first obstacle.
Know when enough discussion is enough. It’s not realistic to expect every decision to achieve full consensus. The expectation that everyone will agree is often what stalls decision making and progress in a considerate team. Sometimes the right move is to disagree and commit – everyone’s been properly heard, the alternatives have been considered, and then someone makes the call. Commit to the decision, watch what happens and adjust if you need to. There’s learning in taking action. However, this only works once people have genuinely had their say and been listened to.
Try these three things, and you’ll start to build a confident team that understands why it’s important to speak up and disagree – and also feels safe to do so.
If you want a team that can disagree well – and perform better because of it – let’s talk. Book a call.