Why Avoiding Disagreements Is Bad – And What to Do Instead

I have a hard time disagreeing with people.

As a woman of Asian descent, I’m culturally inclined to smooth over differences and conflicts. It served me throughout my career to do everything possible to make sure everybody gets along.

But avoiding disagreements is terrible for leadership and business!

When things are left unsaid, you tarnish relationships and lose diversity of viewpoints. Relationships and trust aren’t as strong as they need to be to drive disruption. Avoiding conflict might feel like a relief today, but you’re guaranteeing poor outcomes and even failure in the future.

I’ll never forget the time I had to deliver some really tough feedback.

I was working with a fantastic leader, but he had one problem: terrible body odor. I knew I needed to give him this feedback, but it felt so personal and so difficult! Yet I trusted our relationship and the fact that he would really want to know this. And so at the end of a meeting, I just said, “There's one thing I really need to tell you.” To his credit, he took it in stride and was grateful I gave him the feedback.

After that experience, I realized I can give feedback to anyone about anything and that I needed to overcome my personal issues around giving feedback. Because it’s my duty and responsibility as a friend, colleague, and leader to be honest with people and to create an environment where everybody can receive and give the gift of feedback.

We need to rewire our thinking to welcome conflict because it’s inevitable. We need to create cultures where disagreements are encouraged because they improve our thinking and outcomes, creating trust and strengthening relationships.

So how can leaders foster healthy disagreements?

1. Create commitment. The first step is to create a shared commitment to a common goal, objective, vision, or purpose. When you know everyone is fighting for the same thing, you know it’s safe to disagree about how you’re going to get there and clarify who’s responsible for what.

2. Create a culture of feedback. As a leader, you need to ensure your team is capable of giving (and receiving!) feedback. But most of us hate giving feedback! So give it some structure by investing in a process that builds trust — and lets everyone know it’s going to be okay. One of my favorites feedback systems is Situation Behavior Impact from Center for Creative Leaderhip.

3. Create a practice of candor. Candor means making a commitment to leave nothing unsaid. It invites you to be forthright with each other, speak honestly, and receive candor from others graciously. I call it a practice because it’s a skill you develop over time, but done well it creates a safe environment where everyone can be heard.

Creating space for healthy conflict is especially important if you’re going through a digital transformation or executing a disruptive growth strategy. That’s because you need everyone at the table expressing their ideas — and making conflict safe and welcome is a disruptive act of leadership that will make your organization fitter, stronger, and healthier for whatever comes your way.

I’m curious: Does disagreeing make you cringe? Hit reply and tell me how you handle (or don’t!) conflict at work.

My Latest: (pull from Content Library)

• Resilience isn’t just about surviving bad events, it’s about THRIVING with them. I shared how to cultivate, measure, and thrive by cultivating resilience on this livestream.

• Can you boost your resilience? Yes! In #LeadingDisruption, I shared three ways to build more adaptability and agility into your organization.

• Knowing your team’s strengths is key to working together seamlessly. Join me live on LinkedIn next Tuesday at 9 am PT to learn how to discover your strengths – and others’.

Good Things: (Eva will supply from meeting notes)

• Reads. I’m enjoying reading an advance copy of Experience, Inc.: Why Companies That Uncover Purpose, Create Connection, And Celebrate Their People Will Triumph! By Jill Popelka, President of SAP SuccessFactors. It provides examples and tips on how leaders can foster a health employee relationship. This book isn’t just for HR leaders - any leader who wants to create healthy culture should read this book.

• Referrals: We could all be happier, right?!? I attended a workshop on the science of happiness this week and came across the wonderful work of Laurie Santos. She has a great short video on the 7 Ways to Be Happier and also offers a free online course The Science of Well-Being, which was the most popular course ever taught at Yale.

• Resource. Wirecutter recently published an excellent guide to online security and one useful tip was the use of virtual one-time-use credit card numbers for online purchases. Services like Privacy.com offer this as well as banks like Capital One and Citibank where it’s