How to Welcome Disagreement Within Your Team (and mean it)
Welcome back! If you’re just tuning in, the Leader’s Edge is a multi-part story exploring the challenges and growth potential of expanding your leadership range and communicative competence.
Throughout this series, we’ve been following a cohort of leaders from the fictionalized Horizons Tech organization as they engage in a leadership development program. The program was designed to increase their ability to navigate behavioral change and communicate effectively amidst complex interpersonal dynamics.
From Day 1, several of the participants had found themselves particularly challenged by the idea of engaging productively around disagreements and opposition — including the kinds of resistance that came up for several of them around spending valuable time in the leadership program!
In the last two episodes, we watched as first Vijay and then Amir—two team leaders at Horizons Tech — had profound “ah-ha” moments during the second session of the leadership program. The “ah-ha” moment they experienced had to do with expressing concern or disagreement — which was a specific mode of communication they had been learning a lot about.
In the language of Structural Dynamics, a core model for communication that is at the heart of TeamCatapult programming, expressions of concern, disagreement, or opposition are called an “Oppose.” Vijay, who had always made a point of hearing from all voices, was surprised to feel his own hesitance to offer an “Oppose” in the group check-in, and it catalyzed the following realization: while he made space for hearing from each of his team members, he might not be cultivating the kind of space where opposition or concern about the team’s direction could be comfortably shared.
More specifically, Vijay recognized how important it would be to create that kind of group comfort, as it differed from the organization’s culture as a whole. Typically, when people voiced dissent, they would have to be ready for a fight. Vijay wanted to make a point of creating a team environment where concern or dissent could be met with curiosity rather than defensiveness — he had experienced himself how much easier it felt to share openly and honestly when his feedback was clearly welcomed.
Amir, meanwhile, had also been deeply impacted in the leadership development program by the experience of watching opposition be met with curiosity — and actually redirect the group process in a generative way. But unlike Vijay, Amir felt enormous anxiety about the idea of having opposition voiced on his team, even with his newfound appreciation for the positive impact it could make. Still, he was committed to trying. After all, this was what it meant to develop his leadership range by building communicative competence with his team, right?
In this week’s episode, we’re going to walk through a process that can often feel mysterious to program participants: What does it actually look like to bring new learning from the program back to your team, especially when it’s learning that you yourself find challenging?
In other words, what does it look like to actually scale your learning as part of growing team competence?
The process that Vijay and Amir were embarking on was a long one, but it was poised to course correct some of the critical and common patterns plaguing so many teams in our organizations today:
- Being unable to agree on what steps to take and who should own what
- Avoiding the difficult conversations that we know we need to have
- Feeling tension around accountability
- Spinning wheels without gaining momentum or making headway
- Feeling unheard and, over time, burned out
- Feeling like meaningful change is never going to happen
- Repeating the same actions and expecting different results
- Making everything harder than it needs to be through redundancy and miscommunication
- Failing time and time again to align on a common vision
- Seeing small issues escalate quickly to major misunderstandings on a regular basis
We’ll follow along as first Vijay and then Amir — both coming from very different places — try inviting opposition on their teams. We’ll explore what went well, as well as where they found sticky points that challenged them in the process of bringing new learning into their leadership role.
Vijay — inviting the team into the process
After the second session of the leadership program, Vijay hit the ground running when he kicked off his next team meeting. He was excited to share his learning with his team and help them all make the leap toward feeling more comfortable voicing concern or disagreement during the team check-ins.
Right off the bat, here’s what he said: “As you all know, I’ve committed to improving my leadership this year. I’ve been engaging in learning about communicative competence and just how important it is for all of us, myself included, to bring certain contributions to the conversation so we don’t get stuck.”
For a moment, there was silence in the room.
“That sounds great,” someone finally said. “But what do you mean by ‘contributions’?”
Uh oh. Suddenly, Vijay’s confidence wavered. He had been engaged with so much intensive learning and new language about different communication modes that he was momentarily overwhelmed by the idea of making it make sense for his team.
But then he remembered what the co-leaders of the program had recommended: simply define the Four Player Model for your team. The Four Player Model reflects the Four Modes of Conversation, a cornerstone of Structural Dynamics, which is a way to understand communication developed by researcher David Kantor. The Four Modes of Communication form the basis of many of TeamCatapult’s workshops on communicative competence, and Vijay had become very familiar with them since the start of the program. They can lead to an enormous depth of learning and understanding, but they are actually really accessible and easy to onboard as a team.
Sharing about the Four Modes of Conversation enables a group or team to share a language about communication, and things can build from there.
So Vijay took a deep breath, and shared according to the program co-leaders’ recommendation. He said:
“I’ve recently learned about a communication tool called the Kantor Four Player Model. It’s a theory of face-to-face communication whose premise is that everything we say can be coded into one of four actions:
- Move, which sets the direction in a conversation (like a new idea)
- Follow, which supports or continues the direction (like agreement)
- Oppose, which offers correction or constraint (like a concern or disagreement)
- and Bystand, which offers a morally neutral comment on what’s happening in the conversation (like, ‘I see we have different perspectives on this topic.’)
I’m not going to go into a lot more depth about this model right now, other than that I want us all to be aware of it so we can all start to pay attention to our team conversations. What’s important about knowing these is that when one or more of the actions is missing in a conversation, the conversation can become ineffective, or even get stuck.
So, when I said that I want us to be aware of certain contributions we bring to our conversations, this is what I meant. We need to make sure that all four of these actions are voiced in our conversation in order for the conversation to be effective. Otherwise we run the risk of our conversations being ineffective.”
He looked around, noticing that his team looked surprised by the new information, but they seemed receptive. So he continued by expressing his belief that, as a team, they weren’t voicing the action of Oppose regularly or proactively, and that he saw this as contributing to a pattern.
“As you know,” he said, “I value hearing every voice, but I’m starting to understand that just hearing from everyone is not really the point — especially if everyone just states their agreement to the set path. The real value in our conversations is ensuring that you all can express your full perspective and feel that doing so might offer a valuable course correction to the game plan.”
He could sense some unease in the room.
“What does that look like?” asked one team member.
Vijay thought about his response for a moment. “Well, I want us all to start paying attention to ideas when they get voiced. If we have something we disagree with, then let’s share that in our team meetings, with everyone present. Usually, when someone disagrees or dislikes something, you come to me in our one-on-ones. But let’s practice bringing it up here, so everyone can benefit from the conversation. I think there is real data in hearing different perspectives, including disagreement.”
After a moment of silence, a team member spoke up. “Would you like us to start now?”
“Sure,” Vijay responded. “Whatcha got?”
“I think this sounds all nice from a theory perspective, but the last time I voiced opposition to a leader in this organization, I found myself given the cold shoulder for weeks. I got the feedback that I could really stand to be more of a team player.”
Vijay paused for a moment, realizing that he could identify based on a similar situation he’d been in years ago at another organization. And given the culture in their current organization, it was not hard to believe that this had happened to his team member.
Vijay grimaced. “I’m really sorry that was your experience. I know you to be someone who is driven by your values to speak honestly, and I’m sure that really impacted you. I can say that I genuinely mean what I’m saying to you: I welcome you or anyone else to let me know if you feel like I’m not being open to your pushback in the moment. But I think this will be something that we will develop, together, over time. Our trust in this will build.”
He recognized that the team would want to test out what he was saying to see if he really meant it, but he felt good that one team member had already voiced their concern — it felt like a step in the right direction.
They spent the next part of the meeting updating their working agreements to reflect the following:
- Voice our opposition when we have it
- Bring the conversation in the room, rather than offline or 1on1
- Stay in the conversation, even if it gets difficult
- Give Vijay feedback about how he’s doing to welcome (or not) the communication action of Oppose
Of course, like any new group process, it would take time for people to get used to vocalizing opposition or concern. But because Vijay’s team already had a track record of hearing from all voices — and because Vijay himself consistently modeled the fact that he was receptive to pushback — the team felt curious and optimistic about what this change would do for them over time.
Amir — working through the tension
Unsurprisingly, Amir’s experience of bringing his learning back to the team did not go quite as smoothly. After all, although it had not been his intention, he had been actively shutting down opposition on his team for quite some time.
At Amir’s first team meeting after the second session of his leadership program, he followed through on his commitment to do the thing that scared him most: inviting opposition. He decided to do so in the context of an idea he had been nurturing for the team to plan a week-long retreat the following month. He hoped to develop their collective leadership and scale some of the material he had been working through in the leadership program.
So, he introduced the idea to the team, then asked them what they thought about it.
A few people supported the idea and thought it would be a welcome break from their daily work routines. One team member enthusiastically built on the idea, suggesting that they visit the local amusement park together — he had done that with a previous team and enjoyed getting to know others in a more relaxed environment.
The other team members remained silent.
For Amir, he was hopeful that there were a few people in the room who seemed to agree with his suggestion, but he had no intention of going to an amusement park. It seemed misaligned with his intention of focusing on their team communication and dynamic.
He remained quiet for a few minutes as he pondered his next step. If this conversation had happened just 2 weeks ago, he would have closed it down and disregarded the amusement park idea all together. He also would have assumed that the silence from the majority signaled their consent, and he would have just started to make plans.
Recognizing the likelihood that he was being met with silent opposition, Amir felt the stakes rising for him internally. He found himself growing a bit angry with those who were sitting quietly. Why don’t they just say what they want to say, he thought, even though he dreaded it at the same time.
But then he remembered his commitment to doing things differently. So he did. Rather than being upset that they weren’t speaking, he decided to issue an invitation to vocalize opposition. What he said was: “For those of you who are silent, why don’t you just say what you want to say. Clearly you disagree. So rather than sitting here silently wasting our time, just say it.”
At that moment, all the air was sucked right out of the room. You could feel the tension rise.
Then one person said, “Look, I just think that’s a lot of time out of the office that does not directly relate to us getting work done.”
Someone else followed up, saying, “I agree, I don’t think we can afford that much time away.”
Amir was becoming even more frustrated by this conversation than he was by the silence. How could they think that learning to become better leaders and communicators was a waste of time? A few months ago, he might have agreed with them, but he had a very different point of view now. He had seen the power of having more development-focused conversations as a way to get work done better.
He found himself equal parts frustrated and deflated. How could he convince the team this was a good idea? How could he get them to see things from his perspective? And what was he supposed to do now that he had surfaced the Oppose?
In short, he was feeling really unskillful in this moment. He felt like he’d done so much developmental work on his leadership range but still felt like he had no idea how to actually do things better. Additionally, he knew the team was on the hook for a big deliverable, and he sensed that if they could not get better at having some of these needed conversations, they were going to be at risk on whether they could deliver on time. This would ultimately mean that Amir’s leadership and value to the organization would be questioned.
As these thoughts circled in his mind, he could feel his frustration turning to anger, his face was feeling flush with heat. He could feel things spiraling.
What he wanted to say was, “Too bad, we’re going to do it anyways. Please plan accordingly and do what you need to do to make the time work.”
But he thought better of it.
Instead, he thought back to one of the workshops from his leadership program in which one of the leaders had offered the following idea: when you feel the heat rising, first find a way to lower the stakes for yourself.
Amir had to get out of the room for a minute, he realized, because he was so angry he was afraid of what he might say. So he took a deep breath and said, “Thanks for sharing your perspectives. It helps me understand your point of view. Let’s take a short break and then come back and continue the conversation.”
They agreed to come back in 15 minutes. In fact, the two team members who had courageously voiced opposition and concern to the idea were grateful for the break. When Amir had gone silent for what felt like an eternity, they could tell he didn’t like what they’d said. His whole demeanor had changed, and they were worried that they might have risked too much in offering their point of view.
During the break, Amir headed for a walk outside. Once he got through the doors, he took a deep breath and began to think about what might be missing in the conversation. He knew they had navigated similar conversations in his peer group in the leadership program, but what made this one so different? The stakes felt higher and he just was not sure what to do.
Then he remembered the idea of “defend versus suspend,” relating to the fact that when we engage in defending our own point of view, we’re unable to hear other people’s points of view. More importantly, we’re unable to be genuinely curious about why someone else thinks the way they do.
That’s when the light bulb moment hit — he needed to be curious.
He finished his walk, grabbed some water, and sat back down in the room with renewed clarity about his next action. He had successfully lowered the stakes for himself by reframing his view of what was happening in the team conversation. They were not disagreeing just to disagree, but because maybe they knew something he didn’t.
The two team members that challenged the retreat remained silent. They were too concerned about what might happen next. But after a long silence, another team member spoke up and said, “the challenge is that this is a tough time of year for half of us. We have some extremely tight deadlines, and the idea of being out for a week seems overwhelming. I would likely have to work nights and over the weekend to make up for the time I was away, and I’ve already been working weekends for the past three weeks.”
Amir was surprised to learn about working weekends. He hadn’t realized that was happening.
He followed up, asking, “How many of you are working weekends right now?”
When seven of the ten people in the room raised their hands, Amir was even more surprised.
One by one, each person shared feelings of fatigue and worry about needing to work additional hours.
It was at this point that Amir realized he had been so focused on the outcomes of the team work that he forgot to think about the impact his idea would have on them. So Amir asked, “What if we could look at a different time of year for our retreat, or go away for just one day instead of five?”
That’s when one of the original team members to voice opposition spoke back up, “I’m totally on board with developing our team leadership. In fact, I think what you’re suggesting would be really valuable, especially if we do it in more manageable chunks. One day versus five is very doable.”
Amir felt a huge weight lifted, knowing that someone else valued the idea of leadership development and that his option for recalibrating the timeline and time spent for the retreat had landed well. He felt validation for the idea, but was also able to see the value of listening to the team members to adjust with their needs in mind.
He said, “I can totally support pushing this out. How about we make plans for 6 months from now. That will give us time to meet the deadlines, take a short break, and then go on a leadership retreat.”
This idea got a unanimous voice of approval from everyone.
Amir left the meeting thinking about how absolutely unskillful he had been in his initial attempt at seeking opposition, and how things had turned around once he’d taken the time to lower the stakes for himself and re-engage with fresh perspective. In the end, it had been a win for everybody.
Meanwhile, when the team members gathered together for lunch later that same day, they reflected on how productively the conversation had gone — and how relieved they were that they weren’t going to be spending their lunch hour complaining about Amir’s high-handed approach and its negative impact on them.
Of course, since this was such a change from what it had been like to voice opposition to Amir in the past, they weren’t sure whether it was the beginning of a sea change or just a new kind of coffee in his cup — but that’s the nature of change: it takes time and a steady building up of positive experiences.
Bringing the conversation in the room
In the stories above, Amir and Vijay were both wrestling with growing their leadership range and being able to invite opposition into the conversation when needed. But they each went about it in a different way.
Vijay started off with his team by being transparent, sharing what he was doing in the leadership program, and why he was bringing the learning back to the team. He was actually inviting his team to talk about HOW they were talking with one another. It was a reflective conversation, and it went quite smoothly.
By contrast, because Amir’s difficulty with opposition was laid down for him early on in his formative years, voicing and welcoming opposition were much more stressful for him. When we feel like we are in high stakes mode, our behavior changes — and Amir was no different.
You’ll notice that when Amir brought his learning to his team, he didn’t actually share his learning journey or his intention openly. Instead, he privately set his intention of facing opposition more productively. And then, when he suspected that there was opposition, his intention of welcoming disagreement and being curious did not really get voiced through the lens of curiosity. Instead, it was voiced with a hint of accusation and blame.
In short, Amir created a bit of a mess at first. But, unlike previous occasions, he stuck with the conversation. He took a pause, which interrupted the pattern, and he took time to remember what his intentions were. He was able to come back to the conversation and continued it with much more openness and curiosity. As a result, Amir’s team got to a really good place in the end — and it was very different from where they would have been if Amir had just dropped the topic or made a unilateral decision at the first sign of disagreement.
There are a few key principles to the work of building communicative competency in teams that we can learn from Amir and Vijay.
- Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. You’re going to be unskillful sometimes as you learn and practice. It’s okay. The greatest learnings will likely come from the messy situations you create.
- Let your team know what you’re working on. Take a nod from Vijay. Invite your team to give you feedback. Share your intentions with them.
- Invest the time in practice and journaling. You cannot do this work without reflecting. Every day that ends without at least a small bit of reflection time is an opportunity missed for awareness and change. As I always say: awareness precedes choice, precedes change.
- Stay when it gets difficult. The moment you may want to fold up your notebook and go home is the very moment that you need to stretch into staying with the conversation. If you need a pause or a break, take it. But be sure to know when you’re coming back to the conversation. If you need 15 minutes, take it. If you need 24 hours, take it. But commit to coming back to the conversation so you can pick up where you left off.