Disagreements are frustrating. And the more important the decision, the more frustrating the disagreement. But what’s the disagreement actually about?
Let’s walk through an example.
Let’s say you work at a carpet company. There are a large number of customers that have complained that it’s hard to get their carpet dry after spilling water on it. Because of that, you’re having a team meeting about whether the carpet needs to be redesigned – and your team doesn’t agree.
How do you proceed?
Let’s look at a fact, an assumption, and a couple of opinions:
- “Water is wet.” That’s a fact, and it’s immutable. Water will never not be wet.
- “Our company’s carpet absorbs water.” That’s either a fact (if it’s been tested), or a working assumption (based on the customer complaints).
- “Wet carpet is bad.” That’s an opinion.
- “We should redesign the carpet such that that it doesn’t absorb water at all.” That’s another opinion.
In a company meeting, it wouldn’t be uncommon at all for the majority of the (frequently loud, unproductive) discussion to be about that last point. It definitely feels that’s where the problem lies. But what if there’s a more fundamental disagreement?
- What if there’s a fundamental disagreement about whether or not wet carpet is bad? If somebody doesn’t see a problem with wet carpet, there’s no reason to redesign it.
- What if there’s a disagreement about whether the carpet actually absorbs water? Maybe half the people in the room have spilled water on the company’s carpet, and it wiped up easily.
- Incredibly unlikely, but what if there’s a disagreement about whether water is even wet?
The closer to “fact” the disagreement is, the more likely that you’re going to spin your wheels arguing at the “opinion” level. And the more you’re spinning your wheels, the more you need to question the underlying assumptions.
Consider starting at the top and asking questions of the form, “do we all agree that _________?” It might yield some surprising results, and those results might let your spinning wheels get the traction they need!