Julia Minson: What I always tell people is that a constructive disagreement is a disagreement that leads the two parties to want to talk to each other again. Right? So, it's not reaching agreement. It's not building consensus. It's not finding a negotiated compromise. It's can we disagree, but in a way that makes you want to talk to me and makes me want to talk to you at some point in the future.

Host: Today we're speaking with Julia Mson of the Harvard Kennedy School. She's the author of the book How to Disagree Better and co-author of the HBR article, A Smarter Way to Disagree. Julia, welcome.

Julia Minson: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Host: So, why do teams and organizations need to do a better job of disagreeing?

Julia Minson: Well, I mean, disagreement is such a crucial skill for any organization, right? The reason we bring people together into teams is because we want their opinions. If I didn't want another person to express their views, why am I paying for their presence in the room? There's a great quote by William Wrigley Jr. like the Wrigley Field and the, you know, Wrigley chewing gum guy, who said, uh, when two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary. Okay.

Host: And so, what do teams normally get wrong? Is it they're not disagreeing enough or they're disagreeing in unhealthy ways?

Julia Minson: So, I mean, honestly, I think it's both because it's a system, right? So, when we don't feel like our ideas are going to be received uh with appreciation, with uh receptiveness, we don't want to speak up. And so, you know, we can advise leaders and team members all day long about how disagreement is important, but it's important in these like fairly abstract ways, right? like it'll be good for the company, it'll be good for the team, but the cost to me as an individual if I disagree with my boss or if I disagree with my team member is very immediate and very real. And so people are always making this trade-off between do I want to speak up for the good of the future and have a difficult and unpleasant and risky conversation right now. So there's a real tension there.

Host: Yeah, I imagine that um personality differences and cultural differences also come into pretty significant play here also.

Julia Minson: Yeah. So I think you know there's always kind of different factors that predict how well we are at any skill, right? And so disagreement is you know like musical ability, right? Like some people are just better at it than other people, but all of us can get a lot better with a little bit of training and attention to, you know, how we're doing it.

Host: Yeah. And so do you encourage the leaders that you work with to embrace disagreement to sort of encourage it among their team members?

Julia Minson: So what I really work on with leaders is uh a skill set that I call receptiveness to opposing views. And it's basically engaging in any disagreement in a way that shows the other person that you're thoughtfully considering their perspective. Because I can tell you that you should disagree with me all day long. But if you work for me, you're going to say, "Well, does she really mean it? Am I going to get ostracized? Am I going to get kicked off this project?" Right? So, I have to show with my behavior that I really mean it. And the way I show it is by, you know, showing you that I'm really thinking about what you're bringing to the table and I'm really engaging with it instead of just saying, "Oh, you should disagree." Because disagreement is good for us.

Host: Yeah. given that you know most of us probably do have a distaste for disagreement particularly in workplace settings and particularly in times that feel divisive and so you don't want to bring that divisiveness to the office you know what's the first step in just sort of overcoming that hurdle as a leader yourself you know even before you start encouraging it on your team how do you sort of get into the mode of okay disagreement is healthy and I actually want it here

Julia Minson: leaders have a tremendous amount of agency and leverage by modeling the type of behavior that they want to see. Right? So, if I can change my own behavior to demonstrate receptiveness to opposing perspectives, uh then my team members see it. And it's really useful to model the behavior we want to see in very public settings, right? Because if I'm having a one-on-one conversation, then I have shown one person that I'm receptive to their views. If I'm having a regular, you know, team check-in, then every Tuesday I'm showing 10 people that I'm receptive to their views. And so, as I start showing and behaving in the way that I want other people to behave, then I am telegraphing to the world, this is the type of thing that's welcome here and this is the values that we have as an organization.

Host: Yeah. So I definitely want to dig into sort of how you demonstrate receptiveness to others views and opinions and disagreement. But first let me just ask you there are leaders who say yes I love disagreement but what are the biggest mistakes that they make in modeling disagreement to others? Like what are the problems that you see out there in the world?

Julia Minson: So I think people who say that they love disagreement they probably do love disagreement but they are not recognizing that they're a minority. Most people don't love disagreement. Um, that's one difference. The other thing is that if you're a leader who loves disagreement, uh, you might be forgetting about sort of the status differences that give people different opportunities to act on the way they prefer to act, right? So, a colleague of mine and I were doing a training in a hospital system a couple months ago, and that hospital system had one of these leaders that loves disagreement. Uh, and then when we got there and we're talking to some of the other employees, you know, fairly senior people, they basically said, "Look, when the executive team disagrees, it sounds like mom and dad fighting, right?" And so the people who were in the position of power felt very comfortable with it, but everybody looking on didn't feel nearly as great about it. Right? So that appreciating the fact that other people have different circumstances than you do and different preferences than you do um I think is a really useful thing to do.

Host: And what are some other um ways that you think leaders subconsciously suppress disagreement while thinking that they're doing a good job of embracing conflict and embracing viewpoints.

Julia Minson: So I think a really sort of highlevel, you know, upstream way that we suppress disagreement is by hiring people that uh we agree with, right? And it's a it's a very funny thing because of course you should hire people you agree with because those are the smart people because they agree with you, right? You know, maybe they're the smart people, right? We right I you know I work at a school of public policy and so a lot of our students manage large public organizations uh and many of them are very like ideologydriven right they sort of went into public service because they have a mission and so they will say things to me like well Julia I work at an environmental nonprofit should I be hiring people who don't care about the environment I'm like yeah you should, right? Because otherwise everybody at your organization is sort of drinking the same Kool-Aid, right? Um and that I think feels quite counterintuitive to folks. By the time you have a team in place that feels really comfortable, you might be problem.

Host: So your research has identified reasons why most of us are pretty bad at understanding other people's perspectives. So just outline what you found about that.

Julia Minson: Sure. So a lot of my work is grounded in uh an old social psychology theory called naive realism. The idea behind naive realism is that people think that they get it. They like naively believe that their perceptions are a reflection of an objective reality. Right? I see the world as it is. I am a smart, reasonable, good person who basically like I'm with the program, right? And that makes sense because how else could you get through the world? The problem with naive realism is that when we encounter disagreement, we have to say, well, if I'm a smart, reasonable person who basically gets it, why are we disagreeing? And the obvious answer to that question is that the other person doesn't get it.

Host: Right? And because they don't get it, I am going to fix them.

Julia Minson: Right? And of course, fixing then takes different forms. So sometimes you say, "Well, let me tell you how it really is. Let me show you the report. Let me show you the data. Let me give you the customer feedback." And then you will see that I'm right and you're wrong. Right? And that often doesn't fly because of course the other person, they also think that they get it. Uh and they've seen the data and they've interpreted the data in a different way, right? And they have sort of years of experience that dictate their understanding of the situation and they prioritize different things.

Host: They prioritize different things.

Julia Minson: Exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, when just sort of telling people facts doesn't work, uh, you jump to, you know, a couple other conclusions that are even more nefarious, which is, you know, one is, well, maybe they're not that smart. They went to the lesser business school and so we can forgive them for not being very good at understanding, you know, complex relationships or even worse, they are biased. They don't want to get it. You know, if they admit that I am right, it will look bad for them. You know, their budget will get cut or their staff will get cut or they will have to recognize that I'm a better fit for this leadership position. Uh and so they are just sort of intentionally not seeing the light. Yeah. Right. And so once you tell that story to yourself inside your head, it's very hard to have a respectful conversation between adults. Yeah. And at the same time, we also don't see how they are perceiving us, which is with all those same judgments. Right.

Host: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. That's exactly right. So, one of the main points of your book and your article is that to disagree better, you need to focus on not your mindset or your emotions, but on your behaviors. We recently did a podcast with Amar Kisy of Trinity University who talked about the importance of positive intent mindset. Why do you think that narrowing down on the behaviors rather than sort of what you're thinking and feeling ahead of time is most important?

Julia Minson: Because honestly in like a very practical way I am focusing on ROI. Okay. All right. So I think that if we all had positive intentions and kind of warmer evaluations of our counterparts and you know had better emotional self-control, the world would be a better place. It's just that's really really hard work. Um and it takes a very long time and there's something that gets in the way which is interpersonal perceptions. Right? So if I think the kindest, nicest, best intention things towards you, there's still two things that have to happen for that to impact our interaction. One is I have to be able to express all that. I have to express it consistently and with signals that you understand, right? And then you have to interpret the signal. Mhm. And so at every step along that chain, we lose information and we misinterpret each other. Right? So what often happens is I prepare for a conversation that I expect to be difficult by saying, "I'm going to be really patient and I'm going to be curious and I'm going to exercise intellectual humility and I'm going to show empathy, right?" And then I walk into the conversation, the person starts talking and like half of my intentions are out the door, right? because I'm still trying but like I am not you know Buddhist monk so I don't have amazing control over my you know emotions I just have like medium decent control right and then I try to show my empathy and I try to show my curiosity but I might accidentally ask a snarky question like I didn't intend it to be snarky but it came out to be snarky yeah right and then you are reading all of this and of course this is a disagreement So, you have negative expectations about me, right? And so, the question that I asked that was kind of snarky, that wasn't intended to be snarky, comes across as super snarky to you. Right. Right. And so, I'm doing all this work in my brain, but what you're perceiving is not good. Yes. Right. And so if that's the problem that we're trying to solve, then we need to get sort of like closer in the production chain to the thing that we want, which is the perceiver to experience us as being empathetic and curious and engaged with their perspective. And so that's behavior.

Host: Yeah. Now this does presume that the goal of the person in the disagreement is to come to a common happy place as opposed to just win the argument. So what do you say to people who are like well no I actually want to win so why should I approach things that way?

Julia Minson: Yeah. Okay. I'm so glad you brought up goals because that's you know it's it's either my second favorite topic or it's tied as being my with my favorite topic. Um the goal of winning an argument. um is generally uh unrealistic, right? Uh when you are imagining your winning argument uh and the other person saying, "Oh, I'm sorry, Julia. You were right. I'm wrong. You're so smart." Right? It's never going to happen. My husband's really going to enjoy this conversation. I have to tell you. Okay. Go ahead. You know, so because in in any argument again, the math is that both people are living that fantasy, right? So at best your odds are 50/50, which are not great odds, right? Uh but in reality, most conversations, if a person feels like they're sort of being argued into a corner, they're just going to walk away, right? They're going to roll their eyes and they're going to say, "I don't need this." Right. Right. And I think that's something we often forget in conversations. It's an optin voluntary activity, right? And so if the other person doesn't like how you're treating them, the easiest thing for them to do is to just walk away. Yeah. Um there are, you know, probably the most familiar example of all of that is teenagers. But there are a lot of settings. So for example in healthcare if you're a health care provider and you're trying to persuade a patient to do something they don't want to do get a vaccine or you know take their you know blood pressure medications or get a particular set of tests if they don't want to do it they will leave your office and they will just never show up again right and so that's the real risk and so I think we need to be very very careful and thoughtful about what our goals are how realistic they are and what they might lead to inadvertently. Yeah. And in a workplace setting, you know, you might not walk away. You might see whoever has less power in that situation. I mean, you would see a client walk away, right? But, um, whoever has less power would perhaps agree with you, and then walk away feeling hugely resentful, maybe talk about you behind your back, say you're a terrible boss, and then eventually leave, which is costly to the organization. Right. Exactly. Exactly.

Host: Okay. So when we talk about behavior change, what exactly do you want people to do?

Julia Minson: The kinds of behaviors we care about are behaviors that are visible and interpretable, right? So, you know, there's all kinds of, you know, behaviors I could be doing that you don't notice or you can't interpret correctly. Uh, and it turns out that the thing that is the most visible and the most interpretable uh in a disagreement is words, right? So this is another place where a lot of my research sort of diverges from popular wisdom which is that I think body language is not the thing we should be focusing on because body language is very easy to misinterpret right um or not even notice or not even notice right because again we are not trained actors right so our nonverbal signals are really really messy um language is also easy to misinterpret but We are far more consistent at interpreting each other's language than we are at interpreting non-verbal behavior. So if we want to clearly communicate engagement with opposing views, we need to use our words.

Host: Okay. And do we need to get better at both articulating our own views as well as soliciting the opinions of others?

Julia Minson: So I think that's a great question. What tends to happen is that people are very very focused on articulating their own views and they just don't spend enough time soliciting and really engaging with the opinions of others. What I often notice in courses and workshops is that as soon as I ask people to engage with other perspectives, they start playing like amateur therapist. And so then they ask questions and they never express their own views. Mhm. They go completely to the opposite extreme which is unrealistic in real life because in real life at some point you need to say what you believe. Right. Right. So I think one of the ideas that I really want to get get across to folks is that you can do both. Right. You know you can express your beliefs and you can engage with the ideas of other people and those two things are not uh at odds with each other. You should be able to do both in equal measure.

Host: Yeah. And so how do you start um training people to pay more attention to their linguistic behavior to what they say?

Julia Minson: Pay attention to your linguistic behavior, right? Being aware of that uh is step one. And then thinking about what what are you trying to do, right? What are you trying to accomplish? What I always tell people is that a constructive disagreement is a disagreement that leads the two parties to want to talk to each other again. Mhm. Right. So, it's not reaching agreement. It's not building consensus. It's not finding a negotiated compromise. It's can we disagree, but in a way that makes you want to talk to me and makes me want to talk to you at some point in the future. And so, if that's the goal, right? What are the words we use?

Host: Okay. So, I'd love to walk through just a few roleplay scenarios here so our listeners and viewers just get an idea of what language you're actually talking about. So, say I'm a middle manager who disagrees with my executive level boss on a decision. How should I approach that?

Julia Minson: So, the first thing I would do, and I suspect it's going to be true for every roleplay you put in front of me, uh, is try to understand the other person's perspective better. Okay? Right? People often jump into persuasion mode. Right? If I explain to them how things really are, then they will recognize the correctness of my view. Yeah. Right? And maybe that's true, but you have no idea where they're coming from and you're just as likely to, you know, frankly make a fool of yourself because you're arguing without insight about the other person's perspective. So, I would start with really exploring the other person's view, which takes time and usually takes more time than we expect it to. Uh but it really sort of protects you from making your own argument with kind of no awareness of the landmines.

Host: Yeah. So what language specifically would I use again if I'm a subordinate talking to a boss?

Julia Minson: So I would say something like I'm really glad we're having this conversation. I'd like to understand more about your perspective. Right? So I don't know what we're talking about in the scenario. Let's say we're talking about a product launch, okay? Uh and let's say the boss thinks that the product can be launched sooner and I think we need more time. I might say, "Help me understand why it's important to launch it on this particular timeline. We as the team have some concerns about the timeline, but you know, you have been doing this for a long time, and I'd like to hear your vision for how this can get accomplished, right? And you try to ask follow-up questions that again show curiosity and show your desire to learn about the other person's perspective because the big risk is that they're going to say something you don't agree with, something you see as unrealistic or something you see as unfair to the team and then you're going to start arguing, right? like you went in, oh, I'm going to, you know, learn and I'm going to understand, but then as soon as the other person says one thing, you start arguing, right? Uh, you have to be more patient.

Host: Okay, that's really hard though. So, if you know my trigger is the boss saying, "Well, why wouldn't you be able to get that done in a week's time and they're not respecting my opinion? How do I disagree better with them when they're not disagreeing better with me?

Julia Minson: Yeah. So, it takes quite a lot of self-control. I I absolutely agree with you there. It takes self-control and it takes time. I think about the goal of modeling receptiveness as sort of a north star. And you know, the north star is supposed to be your guiding principle that you don't get distracted from, right? And what often happens in conversation is I go in with that guiding principle and somebody says, "Well, why can't you get it done in a week?" And I get distracted by, you know, that feeling of, "Oh, I'm being disrespected." Or, "Let me tell you why we can't get this done in a week." Right. Right. Uh, and so you really have to sort of exert some selfmastery to stick to the goal. Yeah. Right. and say, "Well, you know, I have some concerns, but I would like to hear why it's so important to get this done in a week, right? What is at stake for the team, for you, for the organization? Maybe we can figure something out, but let's let's discuss sort of where we're coming from and what our priorities are." Yeah. Right. So, don't take the bait, I guess, is what I'm saying.

Host: Yeah. And then what about organizationwide? You know, if a company would implement this sort of every leader would model the right behavior, there might be training. What sorts of improvements would you expect to see?

Julia Minson: So I would expect uh people first of all to just be happier at work, right? which matters because so much of our uh mental distress comes from conflicts we've had that we worry about having handled poorly or conflicts we anticipate. And if you know that you have a toolkit for handling disagreement effectively, it just reduces all of that sort of like mental angst. Um, I would expect people to make better decisions because more voices are speaking up and uh, every sort of, you know, every fork in the road is really examined more carefully and more vocally. Um, I would expect fewer disasters because when people speak up, uh, they're more likely to say, hey, you know, here's a risk of this idea. Maybe we should do it, you know, a different way. Yeah. Um, so I think there's a uh tremendous amount of potential uh with honestly very little downside.

Host: Okay. And is there a person that you've worked with or seen in your own life because I think a lot of the push back on this might just be like that's just not like how I behave, you know? So is there a person who you've seen just dramatically change the way they manage disagreement? Like going from a yeller to a questioner, you know? Is there a good example you have?

Julia Minson: Can I say myself? Yes, please. Yeah. So, you know, I have to tell you, so I am actually I'm a first generation immigrant from Russia. Um, and so I come from a culture of uh people who are very very direct. I come from a family that's very very direct. Uh, you know, an argumentative uh, and is sort of like, you know, I will tell you how to live because I love you and it's good for you, right? Um, and I identify with that, right? So, a lot of people at Harvard do. Yeah. Um, and what I have found is that it leads other people to shut down. It doesn't matter how right I am, right? I'm a very smart person. I'm right a lot. Okay. But when the other person can just walk away from the conversation or can just sort of sit there like silently waiting for me to finish the rant, I know I'm not getting the best out of them, right? I'm not getting the full power of their intellect and their ideas.

Host: And it's important to say that your intentions are good. You know, you're you want what's best for that other person. I'm sure.

Julia Minson: Exactly. No. And it turns out people don't like to be fixed. Right. Right. And so it's been sort of a real journey from, you know, my teenage self that had a very loud opinion about everything to my probably much more correct and accurate and smarter self who is now, ironically much quieter, right? Like I know a lot more, but I say a lot less.

Host: Yeah. Interesting. Julia, thank you so much for being here. It's been a pleasure.

Julia Minson: Thank you.