Dealing with Conflict #2: How to Handle Big Disagreements

What's up, everyone. This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. Welcome back to Founder’s Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you, the business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business, a team, or a new product. This week on Founder’s Journal, we're doing things a little differently. We are dropping a miniseries about Dealing with Conflict. We're talking about everything from respectfully disagreeing with your manager to mediating conflict and navigating competition. This week’s episodes can serve as a guide to handling uncomfortable situations in a corporate setting and beyond. That means instead of just one episode, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, this week, we're giving you two: a new show that you won't want to miss, plus a classic episode you maybe haven't heard before. If you haven't listened to today's classic episode, go back and check it out. Now I am giving you a playbook to handle big disagreements at work. Let's hop into it.

Disagreements happen at work all of the time, like literally every day. From co-founder arguments about equity and strategy to coworker misalignment about ways of doing things, disagreements are a daily occurrence in everyone's career. Yet most people hate disagreements and they avoid them at all costs. People fear, confrontation, they fear tension, and they're afraid of hurting others feelings. And for the longest time, I was one of those people. But one thing that I've noticed about the most successful people that I know, is that they have built up the very necessary muscle of disagreeing often and disagreeing well. Let me break down the two part playbook to embracing big disagreements. 

Know the ground rules for good disagreements

Part one, know the ground rules for good disagreement. There are six steps or six ground rules, and I'm going to go through all six, but to give you the list, the first is expect disagreement to happen. Second, eliminate emotion. Third, be long-term aligned. Fourth, time is your best friend. Fifth, set the stage and six, don't force agreement. 

#1: Expect disagreements to happen

Let's go from the top. Ground rule number one: Expect disagreements to happen. Big, ugly disagreements happen when things bubble up. And things bubble up when you try to avoid confrontation. By expecting disagreements to happen, you embrace them frequently. And by embracing them frequently, you avoid the big ones from happening altogether.

#2: Eliminate emotion 

Ground rule number two: Eliminate emotion. As Ray Dalio, who's the co-founder of Bridgewater Associates, a billionaire investor, as he says, we all have two yous. You have the higher level of you, which is the one that is thoughtful and logical. It's the you, that seeks truth. And then we have a lower level you and that is the more primal you, the reactive and emotional one. The one that seeks victory. To disagree well, you must quiet the lower level you and allow the higher level you to be in control. 

#3: Be long-term aligned

Ground rule number three: Be long-term aligned. It is so much easier to handle disagreements when you are on the same page with the person you're disagreeing with. You need to have the same vision for the business, the product, or the team you're building out. And you need to have the same goals that are to be achieved by the decision you're making. Long-term alignment makes short-term disagreement so much easier.

#4: Time is your best friend

Ground rule number four: Time is your best friend. So there's this thing called the Seinfeld rule. And I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but basically it's, it's how Jerry Seinfeld would treat his joke-writing process. And the first time I heard about this rule was when Seinfeld was being interviewed by Tim Ferriss. The rule basically states that Jerry Seinfeld doesn't show his jokes to other people for 24 hours after writing them in order to preserve the joy that he felt writing these jokes before people critique them and he feels negative emotions because maybe the jokes weren't as good as he thought. It's a different context, but the Seinfeld rule can be applied to disagreement as well. And so the way that I think about it is disagreement is generally a very high emotion occurrence, right? Emotions run high because the lower level you seeks to be right, and feels a certain type of way when someone is challenging your ideas. In order to allow your emotions to subside, separate your disagreement from the decision you need to make for at least 24 hours, aka the Seinfeld rule, in order to let emotions be removed from the equation.

#5: Set the stage

Next up, ground rule number five: Set the stage. To disagree the right way, you need to set up your environment in the right way as well. That includes three things in my mind. First, lead with curiosity to uncover your own blind spots. Second, changing your mind should be welcomed and celebrated. To me this is a huge one because most people feel like they are losing or that people are losing confidence in them if they decide to change their mind and it couldn't be farther from the truth. And third, disagreement is about attacking ideas, not attacking people. 

#6: Don’t force agreement

And finally, ground rule number six: Don't force agreement. You see the point of disagreement is not to ultimately agree. You don't have to come to consensus. Instead it's to gather information, weigh risk and reward, and come to a final decision. But a final decision does not equal agreement. And that is absolutely okay. You don't have to make a decision where everyone agrees, but it has to be done so in a respectful way where there's clear direction. 

So now you have part one, which is basically setting the ground rules for good disagreement. 

The 6 steps to disagreeing well

Now let's talk about part two, which is basically your playbook or the steps that you need to go through to disagree well. There are six steps, like in part one. I'm going to just quickly hit on all six and then we'll walk through each one. 

First, what the fuck are we disagreeing about? Second, establish the ground rules. Third, get it all out. Fourth, question facts and assumptions. Fifth, share your new perspective. And six, stop thinking and start doing. 

#1: What are we disagreeing about? 

Let's start from the top. Step number one: What the fuck are we disagreeing about? Now, this step sounds crazy, but people often argue without knowing why they are arguing. Generally people argue because they feel like it's a strength to have a strong opinion and then preach that opinion to the world for other people to follow. That is the exact wrong reason to have a strong opinion. To have a good disagreement, you must know you’re disagreeing about the same thing with the person you're disagreeing with. 

#2: Establish the ground rules before you start the disagreement

Step number two, establish the ground rules. Before you start the disagreement, you need to know the ground rules for disagreeing so it is respectful and it is productive. That is basically everything I talked about in part one. So if you want to establish the ground rules in step two, just revisit that part. 

#3: Get it all out

Step number three, get it all out. Remember, the goal of disagreement is to understand the perspective of others to improve your own decisionmaking. During this step, everyone involved should share their opinions or the decisions they think should be made. Facts, assumptions, and the risks if their decision or opinion ends up being wrong. 

#4: Question facts and assumptions

And that leads to step number four, which is question facts and assumptions. Now that you've allowed the person you're disagreeing with to lay out all of the facts, assumptions, and information they're operating with on the table, it's now your opportunity to question those facts and assumptions. And you're not questioning them for the purpose of attacking them or attacking their ideas, you're questioning for the purpose of curiosity to fill in your own blind spots. And there are basically three possible things that will cause any disagreement that you have in the workplace: The first is that the person you're disagreeing with is operating with a different set of facts. The second is the person you're disagreeing with is operating with a different set of assumptions. And finally, the third is that the person you're disagreeing with is operating with a different risk-reward appetite, whether they are higher risk or lower risk than you. And so this is your chance to learn more and pinpoint the cause for disagreement. Now, I made a template for you to make sure you absolutely crushed step three and step four, where you lay everything out, all of the information you're operating with, as well as questioning it well. I'm going to link to it in the show notes, and it's basically a template for next time you have a big disagreement and you want to operate it well. This is your playbook for doing it. 

#5: Share new perspective

Let's move on to step number five. Step number five is sharing new perspective. So now at this point, you know why you're disagreeing, you know what you're disagreeing about, and you know what's informing the other person's perspective. You have all the ingredients to shape your own perspective now. And just remember changing your opinion doesn't mean you're wrong. So shape your new perspective. It's okay if it's the same perspective as you had before, if all the information you've gathered basically concludes that you still have the same opinion or decision you want to make, but it's also okay to totally change your opinion if the new information you've gathered has made you change your mind and where you think either the business or your team or the product should go. 

#6: Stop thinking and starting doing

And finally, step number six, stop thinking and start doing. If you have reached agreement after disagreeing, that's great. You've come to consensus. If you still disagree, where all the information's been put out on the table, you operated with the right ground rules for disagreeing, you ask smart questions to fill in the blanks, and you still disagree, that is also okay, but you need to find a way to make a decision. There are two ways you can do this: And it really depends on the type of company you work in and the culture of that company. The first way to do it is what I would argue is the more traditional or consensus way. And that is to make a decision based on rank, where the more senior person in this disagreement is the one to hold the weight of the decision. This isn't always optimal because a more senior does not always equal better decision maker, but it is most practical with how most companies operate. The second option I would say is the less traditional, but if you can pull it off, I would actually argue it is the most meritocratic way to make decisions: Make a decision based on believability. And this is a concept that Ray Dalio and Bridgewater have long talked about. So basically the person who makes the decision is the person who has made similar right decisions like this decision in the past. 

Thanks

And that, my friends, is how to disagree often and how to disagree well. It is such an important skill. We literally disagree everyday, or we should be disagreeing every day. It is so natural, but we never work on building up the skill. This is how you can start doing that. I know there's a lot here. So I included two things for you in the show notes to keep this conversation going. The first, as I mentioned, is a template I made for you to use for future disagreements. It forces you to go through the steps that I covered to disagree well, and to disagree often. The second is a Twitter thread that I wrote that basically summarizes all of the points in this episode, there is a ton of info here. I'm well aware of that. So if you want to revisit this episode and what I covered, that thread has everything I've discussed. Finally, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with co-workers, co-founders or co-friends that would benefit from this playbook for disagreement. Just copy the link to the episode and share it in iMessage or share it in SMS if you're one of those Android people, no judgment, or in your company, Slack or Teams chats. Thanks again for listening. And I'll catch you next episode.