I have recently been having online political discussions with an old fraternity brother of mine. He gets frustrated because sometimes I agree with him, and sometimes, I present the other side. He wants me to either be in total agreement with him or be the enemy. By not fitting into either one of those paradigms, he has accused me of “bothsideism.” At first, I was taken aback by the accusation, but I have realized I am very comfortable with that label. To me “bothsideism” means you are willing to consider both sides of an argument, and then logically seek a compromise. That is how conflict gets resolved in politics, marriages, and business. Dennis Prager, a radio talk show host, has a saying that he “prefers clarity over agreement.”
Rather than just talk to people who agree with him and his views, he wants to engage people who have opposing views so he can better understand their thinking and to quite possibly get further educated and enlightened to the point that his own views and opinions might change.
In leadership, it makes things easier if everyone agrees with your decision. However, agreement does not mean your decision is correct. It can mean your people are not engaged or bought in, or that your people want to seek your favor or praise, so they agree with you blindly. Or, the worst case scenario is that your people are afraid of coming across as disagreeing with you or the collective wisdom of the group. We call this “The Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome.”
Teaching your people that it is okay to seek clarity, rather than agreement is difficult to implement, but it can have many benefits. On our team, we have a rule that when someone invokes that they are looking for clarity, we do not judge their question or that they may not be in agreement with where the discussion is going. This creates an atmosphere where different points of view are given and considered. Often, it helps bring some of the following results:
The canary in the coal mine effect:
A live canary was used in coal mines to detect toxic gases because they were affected much sooner than humans. You might have people on your team who are more attuned to a situation and they might sense things before you or the rest of your team do.
Calling out blind spots:
We all have them. You need people on your team who see things you don’t, and you need to encourage those individuals to speak out.
Approaching from a completely different perspective:
Once our team tried to fix a procedure that sounded good, but wasn’t working. Finally, someone pointed out that if we changed a completely different system, we would not even need the procedure we were working on. An ”aha” moment.
Improving something from good to great:
A good idea can often be improved upon by getting other people’s input. If two heads are better than one, adding a third opinion should only help unless it slows down the process.
Making the team and its members more comfortable with a decision:
We say that our team can disagree while we are meeting, but before we leave, we stack hands and all agree to support the team’s decision. The only way you can accomplish this is by giving everybody a chance to speak their mind, ask questions, and offer opinions. Yes, the devil’s advocate in your group can be an Eeyore, but once you have heard that person out and gotten them on board, you have probably addressed most of the concerns you will encounter when you make the decision public.
Politics and social media actively encourage us to be followers and reside in an echo chamber, but a true leader will look for divergent opinions and seek to understand how someone on the other side of an argument is thinking. If you want to truly be effective in your decisions, you should choose clarity of thought and opinion over agreement in principle.
