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How Do You Respond to Dissenting Opinions?

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Dissenting opinions are useful even when they’re wrong.

That’s the argument Adam Grant makes in one of his chapters in Originals:

“Minority viewpoints are important, not because they tend to prevail but because they stimulate divergent attention and thought,” finds Berkeley psychologist Charlan Nemeth, one of the world’s leading experts on group decisions. “As a result, even when they are wrong they contribute to the detection of novel solutions and decisions that, on balance, our qualitatively better.”

When we have expertise in a particular area or more context than others or feel the need to move fast, it’s easy to discount dissenting opinions.  Or worse, to be threatened by them.

Humble confidence means truly listening to dissenting opinions, not shutting them down.

Coupling our confidence with humility honors others and (it shouldn’t be a surprise) leads to better results.

Collaboration is More than “Everyone Plays Their Part”

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You’re likely working with other people to produce or create something this week.

God has put us in this together—different skills and experiences coming together to accomplish way more than we could accomplish on our own.

As Christians, we understand this at a foundational level. We know the call to use our different gifts to serve as “good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10). Or how, in the body of Christ, “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you'” (1 Corinthians 12:21).

We believe deeply in coming together for a common mission, and we want the benefits that come from strong collaboration, whether in our church or our workplace.

But in practice we can miss out. More than that, we can experience tension or even conflict with our teammates when we approach “teamwork” or “collaboration” in different ways without realizing it.

As I’ve led and worked in different teams over the years, I’ve noticed two basic levels of collaboration and the challenges that come when we apply collaboration differently.

Here’s what I mean:

Level 1 collaboration looks something like this: 
  • “Everyone needs to play their part for us to do this well.”
  • “I’m responsible for making this decision.”
  • “You do this, I’ll do that, and together we can make a big difference.”
Level 2 collaboration, on the other hand, looks more like this:
  • “You’ve only been here a few weeks, but I really want your perspective.”
  • “Can I suggest another way to think about it before we make that policy shift?”
  • “I read about this new software. Wanted to make sure you knew about it…”
  • “That’s my idea. How can we make this stronger?”

We can limit our productivity as a team if we operate solely in Level 1. And we can actually be counter-productive when some of the team are operating in the former and others are aiming for the latter.

Level 1 collaboration has it’s place, but don’t settle for that. Level 2 collaboration is where the really good stuff happens.

Getting Collaboration Right

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A great post at the 99U: The Collaboration Paradox: Why Working Together Often Yields Weaker Results

A key excerpt:

Most of the heavy creative lifting happens when we’re by ourselves, working on our own. We’re in a better position to evaluate the merits of an idea after we’ve given a topic some thought, not when encountering it for the first time.

For collaboration to work, we need to understand the crucial role of alone time and focused, individual work. Collaboration is essential, but it only yields better results when combined with individual work rather than seen as something that renders the individual work unnecessary.

The Goal is Not to Show How Bright You Are By Shooting Holes in Ideas

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Anyone can do that.

Right?

Jim Collins nails the problems with this in his excellent book Beyond Entrepreneurship:

Most of us have been trained to do just the opposite [of acting on good ideas rather than spending hours deliberating on all the reasons they can’t work]. We’re well schooled in criticism, having learned that the way to show how smart we are is to cite all the reasons that something is a stupid idea or doomed to failure.

We’ve noticed many new MBAs, for example, are adept at finding all the flaws in a business idea, but they’re much less practiced at coming up with ways to make the idea work.

Many times we’ve stood facing a self-satisfied person who has just done a marvelous job of demolishing a new product idea during a discussion. Then we ask, “Yes, we know it’s an imperfect idea. But then no idea is perfect. So, now how do you intend to make this idea successful in spite of its flaws?”

Some people rise brilliantly to the challenge when they realize that the goal is no longer to show how bright they are by shooting holes in ideas.

But, alas, others do not. They’ve been trained too well in the ethos of criticism, and to build a great company, they’ll have to overcome this negative training.