Highly qualified, intelligent employees can be both a blessing and a curse. They’re a blessing because they bring their expertise to the problems your business faces. But they’re a curse when their expert knowledge conflicts with another employee’s expert knowledge. THEY’RE BOTH RIGHT (and they know it!)

Business experts disagreeing on how to view a problem

When Business Experts Disagree

I once advised a company with this kind of problem. The firm employed several highly-educated and credentialed professionals (i.e. “experts”) in a variety of fields. When serving certain case files, all of these ‘experts’ had to agree on a particular path forward in order to resolve the cases. The problem, however, was that each expert viewed these situations through their own lenses. They were often unwilling, and sometimes apparently unable, to understand the viewpoint of the other experts in the room. Not only did these disagreements stall progress, but they also led to resentment, frustration, and even “silent treatments.”

This company I helped is not an outlier. This type of problem plagues many organizations that hire highly capable, educated employees.

Here are 8 tips you can use to help minimize disagreements and get employees on the same page.

Getting Employees on the Same Page

It is possible to get employees on the same page and working together. Use any of the following 8 tips to enhance collaboration between employees and get them to see issues from different perspectives.

How to Foster Collaboration and Common Viewpoints

1. Meet In Person (If Possible)

While this does not necessarily apply to every case of viewpoint disagreement, it is worth mentioning in the post-Covid era when so many people work virtually. In fact, some of the experts in the company I mentioned above were not even using Zoom; they were simply calling in over the phone.

If a meeting is taking place over Zoom or some other virtual platform, it is easier for participants not be be fully engaged (e.g. “Hey - I think I’ll check my twitter feed in my other window while Bob is droning on and on!”).

It’s no surprise that this lack of engagement hinders common understanding among participants. Equally important, certain non-verbal clues may easily be missed while meeting virtually. This can lead to misinterpretations of tone and comments, which only makes it more difficult to reach agreement.

While meeting in person is not a panacea for a team’s problems, doing so if possible helps avoid some potential pitfalls. But whether you can meet in person or not, your team can take advantage of the rest of these tips.

2. Beware the “Next-In-Line Effect”

Have you ever been waiting eagerly for somebody else to finish talking so that you can say what YOU want to say?

Of course you have!

And did you hear anything that the person speaking before you said?

Of course you didn’t!

This phenomenon is due to what’s known as the “next-in-line effect.” Whenever we’re next in line to speak, we are more focused on what we are about to say or do. As a result, we are unable to fully focus on what the person in front of us is saying or doing.

This means that even if we hear what they are saying, we do not fully listen to them or register their meaning. Consequently, it will be difficult to fully appreciate their arguments or position on an issue.

This becomes particularly problematic when a team of experts is meeting. If each team member is focused on contributing their two-cents’ worth to the discussion, they’re going to find it difficult to empathize and fully-engage with the contributions of other members of the team. As a result, agreement will be difficult to attain.

Given how deeply-rooted it is into our psyches, it’s probably impossible to eradicate the next-in-line effect. However, a few strategies can help minimize it.

Randomize the order of speaking
Don’t follow a prescribed order of speaking during a meeting, and do not let people interrupt to respond. Instead, institute a systematic process by which the next speaker is chosen at random after a speaker finishes. This can be accomplished by a process as simple as choosing names out of a hat after each expert ‘makes their case.’
Require each speaker to fully and adequately summarize the previous speaker’s position or argument before being allowed to speak.
This requires the next speaker to pay careful attention to the person speaking before them. If they do not accurately portray the previous speaker’s points, this provides a good opportunity for the original speaker to “make sure” they are understood. In addition, the act of explaining the previous person’s argument necessarily requires that this argument is better understood and empathized with, hopefully leading to fewer misunderstandings and disputes.

3. Eliminate Incentives that Undermine Agreement

Charlie Munger famously stated “Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome.” Incentives drive behavior, even when these incentives are not consciously recognized.

The most obvious incentive is some sort of reward. If a person gets rewarded when their argument or viewpoint wins, they have an incentive not to go along with or understand another person’s perspective.

This ‘reward’ need not even be financial. It can take many forms, such as prestige, promotions, or even favor in the boss’s eyes. If some reward can be gained, your colleagues have an incentive to win it, even if that means failing to come to agreement with others.

Conversely, nobody wants to feel like they lost. The workforce (and the world as a whole) is generally tough on those who lose. As a result, we all have the greatest incentive not to lose, especially when it comes to our jobs.

The fear of losing can sometimes make it impossible to come to mutual understanding. As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” If ‘losing’ some reward or status is a possibility among colleagues, you can almost guarantee they will never come to any shared viewpoints.

Be ruthless in trying to identify incentives. At the very least, we all have egos and none of us likes to have them bruised. Find a way to incentivize agreement among all and disincentivize an individual ‘winning.’

4. Institute Rules for Objections

When co-workers disagree, they not only try to show how their side is right - they want to show how the other side is wrong! You can use this tendency to your advantage by implementing certain procedures regarding objections. These procedures have the beneficial effect of fostering agreement and mutual understanding.

Make it a rule that in order to object to a position, the objector must “adequately” restate the position they are objecting to. To count as “adequate,” the co-worker who holds the position being objected to must agree it is a fair expression of their point of view. If it is not, then this permits that co-worker to clarify their position.

This process prevents positions from being mischaracterized and illegitimately criticized (what we philosophers call ‘straw man arguments’). Furthermore, the mere process of explaining a position one is objecting to causes you to understand it better and see what merit lies in that position. This alone fosters mutual understanding and agreement.

Additional rules that can be implemented around objections include requiring the objector to first compliment the positive aspects of the position being objected to. Alternatively, you can ask that the motives behind the position be acknowledged.

A final strategy surrounding objections can be to prohibit them altogether and demand they be replaced with questions. Or, you can require that a certain number of questions (3?) be asked before any objections are made. These can be clarifying questions (where the objector is asking for more details about the positions they are arguing against) or “Why” questions (which ask for the rationales behind the position being argued against). Both of these types of questions foster ultimate agreement by preventing caricatures and contributing to a greater understanding of all the issues involved.

5. Psychologically “Prime” the Group for Agreement

This technique draws from cutting-edge, psychological research that seems almost magic. Before starting the discussion, have your team fill out a quick questionnaire stating the degree to which they want to reach mutual agreement. By simply asking them this question, you have ‘primed’ them, so to speak, to want to reach mutual agreement.

But the magic doesn’t stop there. By having them answer this question, they come to view themselves as the type of person who wants to find agreement (assuming none of them answered they reject mutual understanding altogether - in which case, you have a bigger problem on your hands!). They will then take steps to live up to this view of themselves - a view which is all the stronger now that they have consciously identified with it in the questionnaire. Mutual understanding will be much easier to achieve once this simple, quick, and free technique is employed. It’s almost too good to be true. (For more information about the science underlying this technique, check out Robert Cialdini’s discussions of “target-chuting” and “commitment and consistency” in his famous books Influence and Pre-Suasion.)

6. Name Your Non-Negotiable

Ask each person to identify one aspect of their own position or argument that they feel is non-negotiable. If they could insist on just one particular decision or outcome (e.g. don’t lower the price, make sure our vendor is satisfied, don’t offend this or that customer, etc.), what would it be?

The idea behind this technique is to identify what really matters to each of the participants involved. Once everybody can see each others’ non-negotiables, it might be easier to identify which parts everybody agrees with. In many cases, it may turn out that everybody agrees on the ‘big stuff’, and all the disagreements have really been over small, trivial matters.

At the very least, the differing parties will be better able to see why they are having disagreements - they are disagreeing because they have different non-negotiables. The focus of the conversation can then focus on these big issues.

7. Play “Evil Demon” Against Your Own Argument

This is one of my favorite techniques (inspired by a famous example from the philosopher Descartes). Imagine there is some evil demon that could manipulate the world and people in whichever way possible. What steps could this demon take to make the position you’re arguing for turn out to be as bad as possible?

For instance, suppose you’re pushing for your company to stock up on extra aluminum. What could the evil demon do to make that position horrible? Well, an evil demon with untold amounts of power could cause a new aluminum deposit to be found, crashing the price of aluminum after you have stocked up. Or, this innovative demon could create a completely new type of metal that is cheaper and preserves beer better, thus ruining some of the market for aluminum.

Going through this exercise makes everybody consider possible downsides to their own positions. As a result, they should be more willing to compromise and concede that other positions have merit.

8. What Would George Steinbrenner Do?

Whether you’re a Yankees fan or not, you can imagine what it must have been like for him to be your boss. If Mr. Steinbrenner needed a decision NOW, he wouldn’t have time for you and your colleagues to go through endless amounts of squabbles and debates. He would have just made the decision.

You probably have your own “Mr. Steinbrenner” in your company. You have a superior who will step in if they need to and just make a decision. And you probably already have an idea of what they would decide and why. Even when the team is in deep disagreement, they all probably have a good idea of what their own “Mr. Steinbrenner'“ would do in this situation and why.

So when all else fails, just go ahead and skip the debating and the arguing. Instead, agree that you’ll agree on what your own “Mr. Steinbrenner” would decide, and go with that decision. After all, if the disagreement persists, that will probably be the resolution anyway.

Business Disputes Can Be Solved

There’s too much fussing and fighting in boardrooms. Few business disputes need to be fatal to a team or organization. Even if you ultimately agree to disagree with each other, it’s at least possible to view problems through the same lenses and get everybody on the same page going forward.

The 8 tips I have just offered are very easy and basically free to implement. Using them is a great first step to helping organizations move beyond unnecessary disagreements and be part of vibrant businesses and organizations.

Did you find these tips useful? If so, let me know how they helped your organization. Sign up for my weekly newsletter HERE for more tips to optimize soft skills in your business environment. You can also follow Philosophy 4 Business Leaders on LinkedIn and browse my website www.philosophy4business.com. Contact me if you would like my help implementing some of these ideas in your business. Finally, share this blog with others through your social media channels by clicking on the relevant icon below.

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Workplace Disputes? How to view problems through the same lens [8 tips]