Disagreement Team Quotes

The more we are able to engage in enthusiastic disagreement with each other, the more we will be able to uncover the best in ourselves and each other.

Members of teams that tend to avoid conflict must occasionally assume the role of a “miner of conflict”—someone who extracts buried disagreements within the team and sheds the light of day on them. They must have the courage and confidence to call out sensitive issues and force team members to work through them. This requires a degree of objectivity during meetings and a commitment to staying with the conflict until it is resolved. Some

group deliberation often adds more error in bias than it removes in noise. Organizations that want to harness the power of diversity must welcome the disagreements that will arise when team members reach their judgments independently. Eliciting and aggregating judgments that are both independent and diverse will often be the easiest, cheapest, and most broadly applicable decision hygiene strategy.

Fernando, my best archer, stands on the rear platform, bow slung over his shoulder. He bows from the waist, his face grave. Four horses flick their tails and dance in their jeweled traces. I eye them warily while Hector helps me up. Then he offers a hand to Ximena, and in spite of their recent disagreement, a look of fierce understanding passes between them. They are a formidable team, my guard and my guardian. Sometimes it’s as though they plot my safety behind my back.

Suppose someone says, “Unfortunately, the popularity of soccer, the world’s favorite pastime, is starting to decline.” You suspect he is wrong. How do you question the claim? Don’t even think of taking a personal shot like “You’re silly.” That only adds heat, not light. “I don’t think so” only expresses disagreement without delving into why you disagree. “What do you mean?” lowers the emotional temperature with a question but it’s much too vague. Zero in. You might say, “What do you mean by ‘pastime’?” or “What evidence is there that soccer’s popularity is declining? Over what time frame?” The answers to these precise questions won’t settle the matter, but they will reveal the thinking behind the conclusion so it can be probed and tested. Since Socrates, good teachers have practiced precision questioning, but still it’s often not used when it’s needed most. Imagine how events might have gone if the Kennedy team had engaged in precision questioning when planning the Bay of Pigs invasion: “So what happens if they’re attacked and the plan falls apart?” “They retreat into the Escambray Mountains, where they can meet up with other anti-Castro forces and plan guerrilla operations.” “How far is it from the proposed landing site in the Bay of Pigs to the Escambray Mountains?” “Eighty miles.” “And what’s the terrain?” “Mostly swamp and jungle.” “So the guerrillas have been attacked. The plan has fallen apart. They don’t have helicopters or tanks. But they have to cross eighty miles of swamp and jungle before they can begin to look for shelter in the mountains? Is that correct?” I suspect that this conversation would not have concluded “sounds good!” Questioning like that didn’t happen, so Kennedy’s first major decision as president was a fiasco. The lesson was learned, resulting in the robust but respectful debates of the Cuban missile crisis—which exemplified the spirit we encouraged among our forecasters.

Don’t bother, Mr. Kincaid,” I muttered. “I’m leaving the school.” “The fuck you are,” Damon growled. And then to Mr. Kincaid, “It was just a disagreement. I’ll leave her alone. You have my word.” “Your word…” he mocked. “I don’t lie,” Damon said, anger hardening his voice. “She’ll be fine. I swear. I won’t even look at her for the rest of the year, as long as I’m at this school and under your care. I promise.” He evened out his tone. “The basketball team goes on, she can stay, and we’ll pretend this never happened. Her father doesn’t have to know.” And then to me, “Right?

Ellen Braun, an accomplished agile manager, noticed that different behaviors emerge over time as telltale signs of a team’s emotional maturity, a key component in their ability to adjust as things happen to them and to get to the tipping point when “an individual’s self interest shifts to alignment with the behaviors that support team achievement” (Braun 2010). It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. —James Thurber Team Dynamics Survey Ellen created a list of survey questions she first used as personal reflection while she observed teams in action. Using these questions the same way, as a pathway to reflection, an agile coach can gain insight into potential team problems or areas for emotional growth. Using them with the team will be more insightful, perhaps as material for a retrospective where the team has the time and space to chew on the ideas that come up. While the team sprints, though, mull them over on your own, and notice what they tell you about team dynamics (Braun 2010). • How much does humor come into day-to-day interaction within the team? • What are the initial behaviors that the team shows in times of difficulty and stress? • How often are contradictory views raised by team members (including junior team members)? • When contradictory views are raised by team members, how often are they fully discussed? • Based on the norms of the team, how often do team members compromise in the course of usual team interactions (when not forced by circumstances)? • To what extent can any team member provide feedback to any other team member (think about negative and positive feedback)? • To what extent does any team member actually provide feedback to any other team member? • How likely would it be that a team member would discuss issues with your performance or behavior with another team member without giving feedback to you directly (triangulating)? • To what extent do you as an individual get support from your team on your personal career goals (such as learning a new skill from a team member)? • How likely would you be to ask team members for help if it required your admission that you were struggling with a work issue? • How likely would you be to share personal information with the team that made you feel vulnerable? • To what extent is the team likely to bring into team discussions an issue that may create conflict or disagreement within the team? • How likely or willing are you to bring into a team discussion an issue that is likely to have many different conflicting points of view? • If you bring an item into a team discussion that is likely to have many different conflicting points of view, how often does the team reach a consensus that takes into consideration all points of view and feels workable to you? • Can you identify an instance in the past two work days when you felt a sense of warmth or inclusion within the context of your team? • Can you identify an instance in the past two days when you felt a sense of disdain or exclusion within the context of your team? • How much does the team make you feel accountable for your work? Mulling over these questions solo or posing them to the team will likely generate a lot of raw material to consider. When you step back from the many answers, perhaps one or two themes jump out at you, signaling the “big things” to address.

The advice process: From the start, make sure that all members of the organization can make any decision, as long as they consult with the people affected and the people who have expertise on the matter. If a new hire comes to you to approve a decision, refuse to give him the assent he is looking for. Make it clear that nobody, not even the founder, “approves” a decision in a self-managing organization. That said, if you are meaningfully affected by the decision or if you have expertise on the matter, you can of course share your advice. A conflict resolution mechanism: When there is disagreement between two colleagues, they are likely to send it up to you if you are the founder or CEO. Resist the temptation to settle the matter for them. Instead, it’s time to formulate a conflict resolution mechanism that will help them work their way through the conflict. (You might be involved later on if they can’t sort the issue out one-on-one and if they choose you as a mediator or panel member.) Peer-based evaluation and salary processes: Who will decide on the compensation of a new hire, and based on what process? Unless you consciously think about it, you might do it the traditional way: as a founder, you negotiate and settle with the new recruit on a certain package (and then probably keep it confidential). Why not innovate from the start? Give the potential hire information about other people’s salaries and let them peg their own number, to which the group of colleagues can then react with advice to increase or lower the number. Similarly, it makes sense right from the beginning to choose a peer-based mechanism for the appraisal process if you choose to formalize such a process. Otherwise, people will naturally look to you, the founder, to tell them how they are doing, creating a de facto sense of hierarchy within the team.

The next step is, then, for each member of the group, beginning with the founder, to ask: ‘What are the activities that I am doing well? And what are the activities that each of my key associates in this business is actually doing well?’ Again, there is going to be agreement on most of the people and on most of their strengths. But, again, any disagreement should be taken seriously. Next, one asks: ‘Which of the key activities should each of us, therefore, take on as his or her first and major responsibility because they fit the individual’s strengths? Which individual fits which key activity?’ Then the work on building a team can begin. The founder starts to discipline himself (or herself) not to handle people and their problems, if this is not the key activity that fits him best. Perhaps this individual’s key strength is new products and new technology. Perhaps this individual’s key activity is operations, manufacturing, physical distribution, service. Or perhaps it is money and finance and someone else had better handle people. But all key activities need to be covered by someone who has proven ability in performance.

The 2011 Bar-B-Que cookoff in Houston came to an abrupt halt after one of the grillers, 51-year-old Mike Hamby, threw a canister of tear gas into a rival team’s tent. The noxious fumes quickly spread to other tents. Dozens of people were sickened, and the contest was postponed. It’s unclear why Hamby threw the canister, but apparently there was a “disagreement.” After the smoke cleared, he was taken into custody…and later fired from his job as an officer with the Houston Police Department.

We also gave teams a primer on teamwork based on insights gleaned from research in group dynamics. On the one hand, we warned, groupthink is a danger. Be cooperative but not deferential. Consensus is not always good; disagreement is not always bad. If you do happen to agree, don't take the agreement—in itself—as proof that you are right. Never stop doubting. Pointed questions are as essential to a team as vitamins are to a human body. On the other hand, the opposite of groupthink—rancor and dysfunction—is also a danger. Team members must disagree without being disagreeable, we advised. Practice 'constructive confrontation' to use the phrase of Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel. Precision questioning is one way to do that. Drawing on the work of Dennis Matthies and Monica Worline, we showed them how to tactfully dissect the vague claims people often make. Suppose someone says, 'Unfortunately, the popularity of soccer, the world's favorite pastime, is starting to decline.' You suspect [they] are wrong. ... Zero in. You might say, 'What do you mean by 'pastime?' or 'What evidence is there that soccer's popularity is declining? Over what time frame.' The answers to these precise questions won't settle the matter, but they will reveal the thinking behind the conclusion so it can be probed and tested.

In any chain of command, the leadership must always present a united front to the troops. A public display of discontent or disagreement with the chain of command undermines the authority of leaders at all levels. This is catastrophic to the performance of any organization. As a leader, if you don’t understand why decisions are being made, requests denied, or support allocated elsewhere, you must ask those questions up the chain. Then, once understood, you can pass that understanding down to your team. Leaders in any chain of command will not always agree. But at the end of the day, once the debate on a particular course of action is over and the boss has made a decision—even if that decision is one you argued against—you must execute the plan as if it were your own. When leading up the chain of command, use caution and respect. But remember, if your leader is not giving the support you need, don’t blame him or her. Instead, reexamine what you can do to better clarify, educate, influence, or convince that person to give you what you need in order to win. The major factors to be aware of when leading up and down the chain of command are these: • Take responsibility for leading everyone in your world, subordinates and superiors alike. • If someone isn’t doing what you want or need them to do, look in the mirror first and determine what you can do to better enable this. • Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do. APPLICATION TO BUSINESS “Corporate doesn’t understand what’s going on out here,” said the field manager. “Whatever experience those guys had in the field from years ago, they have long forgotten. They just don’t get what we are dealing with, and their questions and second-guessing prevents me and my team from getting the job done.” The infamous they. I was on a visit to a client company’s field leadership team, the frontline troops that executed the company’s mission. This was where the rubber met the road: all the corporate capital initiatives, strategic planning sessions, and allocated resources were geared to support this team here on the ground. How the frontline troops executed the mission would ultimately mean success or failure for the entire company. The field manager’s team was geographically separated from their corporate headquarters located hundreds of miles away. He was clearly frustrated. The field manager had a job to do, and he was angry at the questions and scrutiny from afar. For every task his team undertook he was required to submit substantial paperwork. In his mind, it made for a lot more work than necessary and detracted from his team’s focus and ability to execute. I listened and allowed him to vent for several minutes. “I’ve been in your shoes,” I said. “I used to get frustrated as hell at my chain of command when we were in Iraq. They

In any chain of command, the leadership must always present a united front to the troops. A public display of discontent or disagreement with the chain of command undermines the authority of leaders at all levels. This is catastrophic to the performance of any organization. As a leader, if you don’t understand why decisions are being made, requests denied, or support allocated elsewhere, you must ask those questions up the chain. Then, once understood, you can pass that understanding down to your team. Leaders in any chain of command will not always agree. But at the end of the day, once the debate on a particular course of action is over and the boss has made a decision—even if that decision is one you argued against—you must execute the plan as if it were your own. When leading up the chain of command, use caution and respect. But remember, if your leader is not giving the support you need, don’t blame him or her. Instead, reexamine what you can do to better clarify, educate, influence, or convince that person to give you what you need in order to win. The major factors to be aware of when leading up and down the chain of command are these: • Take responsibility for leading everyone in your world, subordinates and superiors alike. • If someone isn’t doing what you want or need them to do, look in the mirror first and determine what you can do to better enable this. • Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.

PRINCIPLE: LEADING UP THE CHAIN If your boss isn’t making a decision in a timely manner or providing necessary support for you and your team, don’t blame the boss. First, blame yourself. Examine what you can do to better convey the critical information for decisions to be made and support allocated. Leading up the chain of command requires tactful engagement with the immediate boss (or in military terms, higher headquarters) to obtain the decisions and support necessary to enable your team to accomplish its mission and ultimately win. To do this, a leader must push situational awareness up the chain of command. Leading up the chain takes much more savvy and skill than leading down the chain. Leading up, the leader cannot fall back on his or her positional authority. Instead, the subordinate leader must use influence, experience, knowledge, communication, and maintain the highest professionalism. While pushing to make your superior understand what you need, you must also realize that your boss must allocate limited assets and make decisions with the bigger picture in mind. You and your team may not represent the priority effort at that particular time. Or perhaps the senior leadership has chosen a different direction. Have the humility to understand and accept this. One of the most important jobs of any leader is to support your own boss—your immediate leadership. In any chain of command, the leadership must always present a united front to the troops. A public display of discontent or disagreement with the chain of command undermines the authority of leaders at all levels. This is catastrophic to the performance of any organization. As a leader, if you don’t understand why decisions are being made, requests denied, or support allocated elsewhere, you must ask those questions up the chain. Then, once understood, you can pass that understanding down to your team. Leaders in any chain of command will not always agree. But at the end of the day, once the debate on a particular course of action is over and the boss has made a decision—even if that decision is one you argued against—you must execute the plan as if it were your own. When leading up the chain of command, use caution and respect. But remember, if your leader is not giving the support you need, don’t blame him or her. Instead, reexamine what you can do to better clarify, educate, influence, or convince that person to give you what you need in order to win. The major factors to be aware of when leading up and down the chain of command are these:

SOME MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT TEAMWORK 1. Effective teams work together a lot. We found instead that smoothly functioning groups work just as well when individuals are able to work independently, yet confidently. 2. Conflict between group members is bad. Many researchers agree that this is dangerous. But constructive conflict is essential to prevent such dysfunctions as individual apathy, group-think, and the so-called Abilene paradox, in which members agree to agree, even if they have qualms. What makes conflict constructive is controlled disagreements over ideas (not personalities) and a common commitment to, and mutual confidence in, execution after a decision is made. 3. Teams are better off when members like each other. True, it’s tough to work with someone when you have an overwhelming urge to throttle the person. On the other hand, there are plenty of groups whose members would not care to spend any time together on a personal basis but who do leverage each other’s experience and skill effectively. The key seems to be mutual respect rather than affection. 4. Team satisfaction produces performance. We found no necessary correlations. When a group puts more energy into its own good feelings than into the task at hand, performance suffers. In one extreme example, an IT project manager was so concerned about morale that she would hold pizza parties when deadlines were missed so that people didn’t feel discouraged.

SOME MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT TEAMWORK 1. Effective teams work together a lot. We found instead that smoothly functioning groups work just as well when individuals are able to work independently, yet confidently. 2. Conflict between group members is bad. Many researchers agree that this is dangerous. But constructive conflict is essential to prevent such dysfunctions as individual apathy, group-think, and the so-called Abilene paradox, in which members agree to agree, even if they have qualms. What makes conflict constructive is controlled disagreements over ideas (not personalities) and a common commitment to, and mutual confidence in, execution after a decision is made. 3. Teams are better off when members like each other. True, it’s tough to work with someone when you have an overwhelming urge to throttle the person. On the other hand, there are plenty of groups whose members would not care to spend any time together on a personal basis but who do leverage each other’s experience and skill effectively. The key seems to be mutual respect rather than affection. 4. Team satisfaction produces performance. We found no necessary correlations. When a group puts more energy into its own good feelings than into the task at hand, performance suffers. In one extreme example, an IT project manager was so concerned about morale that she would hold pizza parties when deadlines were missed so that people didn’t feel discouraged.

By turning instead to exploring what would have to be true, teams go from battling one another to working together to explore ideas. Rather than attempting to bury real disagreements, this approach surfaces differences and resolves them, resulting in more-robust strategies and stronger commitment to them.

Over the next few years, my husband and I went through the motions of being married. We had something in common now that was so important to both of us. Our baby boy had bonded us forever. Our love for each other didn’t blossom, but the love we shared for him put us back on the same team. Whatever our differences and disagreements and incompatibilities, we were working together toward the same goal—to raise a healthy child—and that tunnel vision meant we could avoid looking too closely at our problems.

It’s called the backfire effect….Why does this happen? The common thread among all behaviors that show up as the backfire effect is our perception of an unacceptable demand on our freedom. We may not have strong beliefs about which friend was responsible for the break-up, or how much we can indulge in drugs or alcohol on our own time, which team deserves our loyalty, but we do have strong beliefs about what we think others should be allowed to request of us. When others infringe on this deep core value, it sparks the backfire effect more than anything else.

It’s called the backfire effect….Why does this happen? The common thread among all behaviors that show up as the backfire effect is our perception of an unacceptable demand on our freedom. We may not have strong beliefs about which friend was responsible for the break-up, or how much we can indulge in drugs or alcohol on our own time, or which team deserves our loyalty, but we do have strong beliefs about what we think others should be allowed to request of us. When others infringe on this deep core value, it sparks the backfire effect more than anything else.

Sharing these stories was a relationship game changer for Wesley and Marie. For Marie, having a disagreement and being able to talk about it was nothing short of miraculous. Not only did it not end their relationship, she felt closer to him than ever because they had both shared these childhood stories. “Our relationship had gone to the next level. It feels more real,” says Marie. “I almost look forward to our conflicts now, because we always seem to come out of them understanding something new about each other and it brings us closer and closer. I don’t go looking for fights, but I don’t run away from them anymore either. I love that feeling when we get though a hard time together. That’s what a relationship is all about. Even when we disagree, we’re still on the same team, trying to find a way to understand each other and work it out.” As for the television issue—they have a remote now with a timer that will turn the television off after 20 minutes.

Around the room, heads wobble. That’s a cultural idiom Mark’s going to have to get used to. At first glance, it looks like several of the operations team are shaking their heads in disagreement, but for those raised in India, this is a gesture of support.

When you get curious and learn how to turn that disagreement into honest questioning, you can learn more about other perspectives on the issue because your team will open up.

Task conflict is healthy and is important to get to the best decisions, but it is highly correlated with relationship conflict, which leads to poorer decisions and morale. What to do? Build trust first, the study concludes. Teams that trust each other will still have disagreements, but when they do, they will be accompanied by less emotional rancor.

Think about the following before you team up for the long haul: Do not start a relationship with someone unless you really, really trust them. Do introduce vesting so that each of you earns your stock over several years. Do make sure you are aligned on your values, what you want to build, and how you want to build it. Do not ignore the possibility that one of you may leave. Plan for what a successful exit from the business may look like. Do have the hard conversations as early as you possibly can. Just like there’s no point in dating someone for five years before you figure out if they want what you want, early in any serious professional relationship, it is important to explore and understand each other’s values and ambitions. Because hard conversations get harder the longer you wait to have them. Here are some questions worth asking your potential partners: What does a happy relationship look like? What does success for this business look like? What does an exit look like? How fast do we want to grow? Why are we starting this together? Have these hard conversations again and again. Think about specific check-ins to reevaluate these goals so that disagreements don’t fester silently, and make sure that whatever path you plan on taking, you’re on the same page about

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can never disagree with the beliefs, values, or practices of someone else’s team if you want to get out of this stage. People at any stage can disagree with one another. But many of us fool ourselves into believing that’s all we’re doing, when the truth is that we’re allowing our legitimate points of disagreement to bleed over into caricatures, stereotypes, and demonization of the other side. If you can’t yet tell a convincing story with their team as the protagonist, there’s a good chance this is the stage you’re in.