Respectfully disagreeing

September 12, 2018

By Brian Maynor

Disagreements are bound to happen, but there are ways to disagree that are more effective than others.

Throwing a tantrum and being abusive, physically, verbally or emotionally, are not effective ways of disagreeing with someone and likely surefire ways to ensure you don’t get what you want.

Instead, there are a few keys to understand when disagreeing that are effective at helping us get what we want, or at least part of what you want. These factors include: understanding why we’re disagreeing and how to stay respectful during the disagreement.

Here are some things to keep in mind the next time we find ourselves in a disagreement:

1. Why we’re disagreeing. The simplistic answer is, because we’re human beings with our own thoughts, ideas and opinions, but there are a few key reasons disagreements arise at work. These include: the need to assert ourselves; shake up the status quo; when we feel victimized, and because of poor communications.

2. When it’s advantageous to disagree. Engaging in a disagreement tends to only happen when we care deeply about something, which we need to keep in mind during the disagreement. This is especially important when all sides are working toward the same goal. Just because we may not agree on how to get there, we can find commonality in the fact we all want to get to the same place. It might help defuse tension, find consensus and end the disagreement to actually point out this fact.

3. How to respectfully disagree. There is an art to disagreeing with respect, but there are also some fundamentals.

The first fundamental is to make sure the disagreement is about the idea and not the person or people involved. When we keep the focus on the idea, it is much easier to depersonalize the situation and comments that are made. When in doubt just remember, disagreements occur over ideas and arguments occur between people.

The second fundamental is to look at all sides. No matter how much we favor our position, it is possible that someone else has a better one. Instead of dismissing them off hand, we need to seriously consider them. If nothing else it will give us insight and potential tools for reaching a compromise.

The third fundamental is to remain professional. Being a reactionary person, this is hard for me, because my natural tendency is to respond immediately. This doesn’t always lead to the most professional behavior. If we need time to settle down and process something, then we should take the time.

Disagreeing with someone doesn’t have to ruin relationships, or result in hurt feelings and everyone losing. Sometimes it is advantageous to disagree, and when we do it in a respectful way. In fact, respectfully disagreeing can result in not only getting all or some of what we want. We can also gain respect in the process.