Julia A. Minson

Hanne K. Collins

Michael Yeomans

<article-ideainbrief class="article-ideainbrief">
 <h4 class="ideainbrief-title">Idea in Brief</h4>
 <div class="ideainbrief-contents">
  <h5>The Conventional Belief</h5>
  <p>The traditional approach to constructive disagreement emphasizes internal mental processes and empathy. People are advised to “put themselves in others’ shoes,” “have compassion,” and “listen without judgment” to foster understanding and reduce conflict.</p>
  <h5>Why This Is Wrong</h5>
  <p>These methods often fail because they rely on unobservable mental states. Since we can’t read minds, our thoughts and feelings must be translated into observable behaviors for others to notice and appreciate our conflict-management attempts.</p>
  <h5>The Solution</h5>
  <p>To foster constructive disagreement, organizations should train individuals to modify their linguistic behavior. This includes choosing words carefully, expressing curiosity, acknowledging the other side, finding common ground, hedging claims, and sharing personal stories.</p>
 </div>
</article-ideainbrief><p class="mag-icon-difficult-conversations-w30">Every day, in every organization around the globe, people disagree about everything from pricing strategies to hiring decisions to major acquisitions. And disagree they should. Research across every social science shows that disagreement offers important benefits: Divergent perspectives spark creativity, prevent costly errors, and drive better decisions. But, of course, there is also risk: Disagreement handled poorly can have massive interpersonal and financial costs.</p>

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<p>To foster constructive disagreements, organizations should encourage individuals to modify their observable behaviors during conflicts. More specifically, the authors&#8217; research has shown that employees should be more attentive to their <em>linguistic behavior</em>&#8212;to carefully choose the words they speak&#8212;because unlike a person&#8217;s thoughts and feelings, language is observable by counterparts, trainers, and mentors.</p>
<p>Individuals can use several approaches in conversations where there are different points of view. They can signal a desire to learn by saying they&#8217;re curious about their counterpart&#8217;s position. They can acknowledge a colleague&#8217;s position by restating the core of that person&#8217;s statement. They can find common ground and make the similarities they share explicit. They can hedge their claims, leaving open the possibility of being wrong. And they can build trust by sharing their personal stories.</p>
<p>For their part, organizations can train people to improve their verbal skills. They can use technology to monitor those skills and give employees direct feedback on their conversational behavior immediately after an interaction. They can hire and promote employees who disagree constructively. And finally, leaders can model the right behaviors.</p>

A Smarter Way to Disagree

To foster constructive disagreements, organizations should encourage individuals to modify their observable behaviors during conflicts. More specifically, the authors’ research has shown that employees should be more attentive to their linguistic behavior —to carefully choose the words they speak—because unlike a person’s thoughts and feelings, language is observable by counterparts, trainers, and mentors. Individuals can use several approaches in conversations where there are different points of view. They can signal a desire to learn by saying they’re curious about their counterpart’s position. They can acknowledge a colleague’s position by restating the core of that person’s statement. They can find common ground and make the similarities they share explicit. They can hedge their claims, leaving open the possibility of being wrong. And they can build trust by sharing their personal stories. For their part, organizations can train people to improve their verbal skills. They can use technology to monitor those skills and give employees direct feedback on their conversational behavior immediately after an interaction. They can hire and promote employees who disagree constructively. And finally, leaders can model the right behaviors.

A Smarter Way to Disagree

Summary.

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