Productive Disagreement w/ Buster Benson

Speaker 1

Yeah, I use the analogy of the game of 20 questions versus the game of Battleship in Battleship. You can ask it questions like, Hey, is there a ship at before? And we do a lot of questions like that where we're like, Hey, are you a racist? And no matter what they say, we're not gonna be surprised, Really? You're gonna think they're a liar or that they're admitting your guilt.

Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. This is brave new work, a podcast about reinventing our organizations and the search for a more adaptive and human way of working. I'm Erin Dignan, and I'm joined by my co host, Rodney Evans. There on today's episode, we're going to talk about productive disagreement, learning to love and learning toe have healthy conflict.

But before we impact that, I think it would be productive to have a check in round.

Speaker 2

I disagree with

Speaker 1

you. We'll do it anyway.

Speaker 2

We're doing it already. All right, so we will check in now, as we always do, are checking question for today is what is the worst argument you've had it work.

Speaker 1

So this one is related to a former business that I had that was going through a tough time we had been acquired. Um, and the business that acquired us was not doing well. And the ship was kind of hitting the fan around us. And I had a conversation with some of my day to day partners. Where they're feeling was we should kind of jump ship. And my feeling was we should stick it out and let make it work.

And it just felt I just felt really alone. I felt really abandoned in the moment. And so the disagreement was it was hard to resolve because it really boiled down to, like, different perceptions of what was happening. Um, and I wouldn't even say in hindsight that, uh, that anybody was right or wrong. It was like, huh? A total values based judgment kind of thing.

But yeah, I remember being really shook by that and like, sitting in the car and just like, staring into space, wondering what it all means. So that's probably my answer.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that sounds pretty bad. It's a minor. Also made it, uh, mine was a similarly existentially work thing at a prior company when I was given my equity agreement and it did not reflect what had been promised to me when I came on board. It was very different than a lot of previous conversations that had been had. And I was not, uh, chill about it at all.

I was thoughtful or balanced. I did not take a walk around the block. I freaked the fuck out. And it was it felt like a betrayal, Riel, because I had given certain things up to do this and obviously done so under false pretenses. Oh, yeah, It was great. Uh, it was not great. So both of those arguments might have been more productive if you and I have had some different skills at that time.

Speaker 1

I think that's probably true.

Speaker 2

All right, so that's what we're gonna talk about today. Let's just start with, uh, why do we even need disagreement, Erin?

Speaker 1

So I find this one interesting to explore because I'm not very good at it. Like I wouldn't I wouldn't hold myself up is like an example of great disagree or great conflict mediator. Um, And so when I think about this question, I sort of have, like, the theory based response, and then I have, like, my emotional response, my emotional response, by the way.

Like from the checking question on it's like, Oh, okay, but But I want to get good at it. So I'm here like I'm present to to learn. Um, and I think the theory based response is when we know that we're navigating complexity, where there's a lot of dynamics and a lot of change and a lot of different kind of reality is happening at the same time, we need disagreement as a way to do sense making like we actually, if we don't have disagreement, that means that the most likely outcome is that we're gonna get it wrong because we're all seeing at the exact same way.

And if we all see something the exact same way, either were lying to each other, which is not great, or we have a mono culture of people that really do perceive the world in the exact same way, which is also not great. And so I think the real answer is like in complexity. If we want to know what is actually going on, and if we want to learn and improve and grow both inner personally and strategically and operationally.

We need to disagree. We need conflict.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I totally agree with you. It's so easy to be in a culture in a team where things were just, like, smooth and swimming along, and where even the slights that could become disagreements in other situation get smoothed over because of good relationships or because of general philosophical alignment. But I think also in those kinds of cultures of those kinds of teams, you have a lot of blind spots cause it's like it's all smooth sailing until something disrupts you that nobody considered because it was an anti pattern or just something that you're not looking out for.

All which is definitely happened to me,

Speaker 1

right? Right. And I remember I don't I think it was in Ah, Brad Pitt movie World War Z. Maybe they introduced this concept from, um, the Jewish culture of the 10th man, which I don't even know if it was, if that's apocryphal or not. But the idea was like when nine people in that culture agree on what's happening, you know, in a position of power around a big decision, the 10th person has to disagree just toe like just to provide some, you know, countervailing force, right? And I and I think that's really interesting, like a required disagreement, like somebody's got a challenge us a little bit, Uh, so So, given that it's important, I think the biggest question is what?

And this is true. I'm asking both for you and me and for the ready and for culture at large. Why is disagreement so hard for us?

Speaker 2

The short answer is, I don't know. Ah, and I'm I'm gonna be curious to get other perspectives on this. I noticed that disagreement and productive conflict seem especially difficult in American culture. When I visit other countries or when I work on projects with companies based in other places, I do find a lot of other cultures seem to be much less passive aggressive than particularly American business culture.

We did a project earlier this year with a Dutch bank, and it was so refreshing and also kind of startling that there was just a very high level of directness and they didn't even real so much like conflict. It just felt like this agreement. Like I say a thing and then you say a different thing that doesn't agree with my thing because you don't agree with it.

And it was it was really refreshing in that project to just be able to have that level of dialogue and not do the thing that I see happen in American teams, that all of them, but pretty consistently where somebody immediately was like, Well, I think we're saying the same thing or like I don't think of an issue as you think it is or like I think we're

Speaker 1

talking. Can I get Mom and dad to stop fighting?

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's like, How can we, like, smooth this over to make the discomfort? And And there's a question of just like, Why does it even have to be uncomfortable that you and I, who have completely different lived experiences, have different perspectives on things like that? Seems intuitively super obvious. But then in the room when we respect each other, but we don't see eye to eye on something, it can be very difficult to just get through that.

Speaker 1

I think it's because, at least in my experience, from a very young age, one of the main identify IRS of friendship was alignment on how we see the world right. Like you like the same band I like. You want to do the same thing on Friday night that I like. We played the same video game we like. Whatever it is, there was like this when we have things in common.

Therefore we are friends, right? And therefore we are connected. And the safety of alignment was kind of a big part of cliques and social groups growing up. And so then I think when you translate that to a workplace where for most of us, just given our lives and neighborhoods like, Ah, lot of our friends, a lot of the people we spend the most time with and have the most connection with are at work.

And then we go into a place where it's like, Okay, now we're gonna have a disagreement. It feels like disagreements are tantamount to disruption of that relationship, right? Like if you and I disagree, might we not be friends anymore? Right. And that's scary.

Speaker 2

I think that's so true. And I have the feeling at least once a week where I want to say something to someone that I care about that is, uh, disruptive or it is disagreeing or it's a counter narrative or it's something that upset me and there's just another voice in my head. It's like, Ah, don't like, upset the apple cart Or like what if there's even a question that immediately comes to mind of, like, Do you want to spend your relationship capital on this thing, which it doesn't feel like it should be? It doesn't feel like just because you disagree with me, it means you don't like me.

Ah, but those things have gotten so wrapped up together. And in fact, I I studied this model a few years ago. That was really about acceptance. But there was a formula put forth that made a lot of sense to me in this sort of domain. And it was the idea that you can only be as courageous as you are caring or love, and that most dysfunction in communication comes because people are weighing too heavily on one and or the other of that.

And when I look back at a lot of my worst moments in conflict, I would say I was too courageous and not caring enough. I do like it didn't hold the relationship as sacred, even as I engaged in disagreement. And then I see a lot of people on the other end where it's like I care about you so much that I am unwilling to courageously tell you that I think you're wrong,

Speaker 1

right? And this kind of connects to the feedback episode that we've recently recorded, Um, which, yeah, there's like the active how we given receive feedback. And then there's this sort of which is part of, I guess, this bigger narrative about disagreement in general. And I guess not all feedback has to be a disagreement necessarily. But there's a Venn diagram here somewhere.

Have you ever had someone or do you have someone in your life now with whom you can have productive disagreement? Just that you found your way there and it just seems like the steady state reality.

Speaker 2

There are a couple of people, I would say. My husband and I disagree about things all the time. It's become like a relationship Mim. We've been married for a long time and like the joke is that if you take out a night to any street corner in any city in the world and tell us the destination, we will turn in opposite directions to get there like our end.

State is always always aligned, and our care for each other is always aligned. And our method for getting to the end state is usually diametrically a post.

Speaker 1

I totally get that. And in some ways my relationship with my wife, Brit is similar, and I don't know if I've mentioned this to you on the podcast. But we have this thing that we've realised we do now after being together for literally 20 years where, um, if I take a stance, she'll take the other stance and she takes a stance. I'll take the other stance and will usually end up agreeing.

We do it. We literally, I think, do it because it makes the decisions better way are doing that 10th man thing. Except where the second man and woman,

Speaker 2

right, right? Yes, really weird. And it's not conscious. No. Yeah, it's interesting. It's like you just want to, like, be a little bit provocative. So I think that's really true of Ed, the other person that I have that with his alley, who is that one of our team members I've known Alley for a really long time This is the second company we worked out together, and I really trust her very deeply and I care about her very much and I can just ask her to be really honest with me, and she will tell me the straight shit even when she doesn't think I want to hear it.

And she's probably right. Ah, and so I really rely on her as a foil in our work to be like, you need to tell me if I'm being crazy. Uh huh. And surely she really does. And we really will wrestle with something where both of us are, like, not easily satisfied in our work with our work. And ah, and I think it's really productive. Teoh have oppositional views on things a lot of times

Speaker 1

the thing I take away from that and what's really itching me is it seems like when you ask that question to people, the answer is usually someone I have known or worked with or lived with for a long time, a long time. The thing I'm really sitting with that I want to ask our guest is can I short circuit that cause I'd really like to get there faster.

I don't wanna have to be with you for 10 years to be able tohave that state. And, you know, I'd love to figure out how to access that.

Speaker 2

So just to switch gears a bit, we work in a self managing system at the ready, and we help other organizations move in that direction. What do you think is different or similar about conflict in a self managing system versus in a traditional, hierarchical kind of paradigm?

Speaker 1

Well, I think in a traditional environment you obviously have a tie breaker or someone to intervene or deal with the conflict. In most cases, we can just look up the ladder somewhere and someone will deal with it for you. So I think that is President. There's still a lot of conflict at parallel, you know, to two different directors to different groups.

What have you? Um, so I don't I'm not not to say that there isn't any, but it has a way of getting resolved. That's maybe more autocratic. Um, and I'm not sure that that actually resolves it. To be honest, I think that that moves us forward with the decision or an outcome. But it doesn't necessarily find connection and real production between those two points of view in the self manage system.

I think we struggle from the opposite problem, which is there's not always a place to go. In fact, usually there's nowhere to go. You're kind of just with your conflict, and what I hear us doing a lot is we air our disagreement or our conflict to the group and kind of let it linger like who will? Who will solve this for me? Um and then and then, of course, we come to realize very quickly, like, Oh, yeah, it's me and I have to either go have that conversation or go have that disagreement and try to get something out of it.

So I think that that is true. I also think, though, that we have mechanisms like, for example, the way we govern the firm and create are working agreements is a disagreement mechanism like it is that process the way we collect reactions and objections and things like that, you know, that does that does integrate perspectives and it does do the work of productive disagreement.

I think it's certainly not the only way, and it's not the most fluid way to do it, but it does. It does do that work, so I think we have some tools in place toe to help with that. But I think what tends to happen is because we're self managing and self organizing. Is people to your point kind of pick their pick their battles quite literally.

Like When? When is it worth it? When do I want to expend the energy, the capital, etcetera? And And I think the aspiration would be that we get better at viewing the disagreement in the conflict as as something that is inherently productive. You know, that is generative. And so you know, I know. For example, when we created our quote unquote conflict resolution process, one of the people in the firm was like, No, no, no, let's not call it that.

Let's call it the conflict transformation process, right, cause it brands it as like we're transforming it into something else, and I think that is the aspiration. But I don't know that that's always the lived reality,

Speaker 2

right? A couple things that occurred to me as you were talking. One is I just last week coached a Duke program as I do a few times a year. And so I looked at a lot of assessments, and, you know, I looked at hundreds of 3 60 assessments in my career as a coach and almost always the lowest category of readers is who your peers always. It's always your peers.

And for all of the reasons that we know, right, like we're in some ways, we're in competition with them. And in some ways we're working on misaligned incentives. And in some ways we have competing agendas like there's a sure a bunch of stuff wrapped up in there. It's like, you know, it's the sibling layer. And in self management there is.

Of course, there's an implied power structure. Of course, there are different levels of experience, but on a project we are peers like well, it is not like it is my decision, how this project goes, and Ali just has to do what I say. Like I have more experience. She does defer to me on some things, and if she really strongly feels that I'm wrong about something, I don't get to just say like, No, it's this way and what I see in a lot of projects and particularly in our space, because we are in a young space where there's not a playbook that's repeatable.

That's like this is the one way to do this. We have a lot of duos and trios. Those people who are like we have differing opinions were all pretty sure ours is right, and there's not away necessarily to figure that out.

Speaker 1

And in some ways that's just That's just the macro Qassam of what is happening in the micro, which is even if just one of us was just doing what we wanted to do. We still don't know if it's right.

Speaker 2

That's right.

Speaker 1

Just because we have a direction doesn't mean we have the correct one and, you know, back to complexity. My response to that is like, great, You should do one of them and find out how it goes. And then, you know, if it didn't go well next time, do the other one that, uh and and you know, if you have a political and then political and and of course, you could also, you know, use some kind of a decision making protocol toe.

Evaluate those options more carefully, Um, and so I think that's possible, too. But the point being like even when you all agree what to do that doesn't make it right. That just means three random people who really want to dio

Speaker 2

exactly The other thing I wanted to ask you about was having gone through the conflict transformation process that we created, I think only one time what about it worked. And what about it? Did not?

Speaker 1

Well, I think the thing that works is if you have a way of of handling conflict or things that that are, you know, disagreements that need to be dealt with are mediated to move forward, then at least you have a path to walk that everyone's consented to. So just saying This is how we do this And the first step is this in the second step is that and in our case, our our processes actually a set of different processes leading to what is ultimately some mediation and arbitration.

But like the earlier phases, air like, have you checked in with yourself? Are you thinking straight? You know where you coming from and then maybe having a conversation with the person and actually trying to have productive disagreement, using some of the tools, right? So I think that there's there are different levels to that path. But you know what worked as we know where we're at on the rails and we know what happens next if we can't find a way through and so that that is quite helpful.

What is really hard about it is that and this is true of almost any process or or, you know, training regimen is it's only as good as you when you do it. So, like, how do you show up to that? If the first step is, check in with yourself while you can do that at a Dalai Lama level, or you can do that at like, I don't know, I'm fucking right and moving on.

You know you can. You can show up to that differently. And so I think that, um, that's the gap. Or that's the That's the place where it's wanting is, um how well do we do it and how well do we do it for each other?

Speaker 2

Yeah, so I feel like at this point it could be useful to have another voice in the mix, and I was thinking that the perfect guest to talk to us about this would be Buster Benson. He is the author of Wire We Yelling. The Art of Productive Disagreement. So when we get back after the break, we will be joined by Buster.

Speaker 1

Thank God. Ready, set, go! Hey, everybody were back with Buster Benson, author and co founder of 750 words dot com. That's the number 750 words dot com Buster. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm really glad to be here, so tell us a little bit about what you did before you wrote this book. This wire we yelling book that led to the genesis of it White.

Why write a book about disagreement? So before I wrote this book I had spent of 20 plus years in the Tech world a za product manager, engineer, designer, various roles in from large companies like Amazon, Twitter and Slack to my own smaller companies. And my most recent job was up a tree on building out the product there, and ah yes. So the reason I wrote this book was because as a product thinker, as a product builder and as Alec Organizational sort of designed person.

You're always working with people trying to bring their desperate interests and sort of incentives into alignment with each other. It's like, actually get something done. Um, and it was only after realizing that the skill have been brewing in me for a while that I realized it was also applicable to every kind of conversation, a disagreement that might happen, whether it's political or between friends or relational.

Eso just turns out that disagreement is everywhere. Well, you picked a good time for disagreement because I feel like it is present in the culture. Political economical. Yes, you know, social. I dub, it's gonna go anywhere anytime soon either. So

Speaker 2

you talk a lot about productive disagreement. So tell us what you mean by that. And how do we get more of that in our working lives?

Speaker 1

Yeah, it productive disagreement is, you know, we often think about the purpose of a disagreement being, you know, to be right, you know, to see who's right and moving on. I see productive disagreements as broader than that. It might be agreement, but it could be so many other things, too, could be learning something about the world that you didn't understand before seeing a new perspective, it could be building a relationship with the people.

You're talking to you So sometimes disagreement is the best sort of crucible for building relationships and trust. It also be enjoyable. I think enjoying disagreement is something that we just have really lost touch of as a culture. And yet it's so so. There's so much potential for enjoyment and disagreement because that's where our interests come to the surface in our passions and we get to hash it out with people.

See, I want to know more about that, cause I don't know if I have just don't know if I've enjoyed a disagreement in a while on I want to Learn. It's It's fascinating because you could think of disagreement as a sport, right? And, you know, if you think of if you go to the gym and you're like, I'm just here to, you know, lift some weights and it's like just a chore, you're not gonna enjoy it.

But if you go and you know, do it for fun and you play a sport, you might still get justice. Much exercise, but you're enjoying the process. I see disagreement is the same thing. If you go in seeking out, um, some things that sparks your interest in your passion and your urine actually built to enjoy it quite a bit. And do both sides have to be committed to enjoying it for you to enjoy it? Oh, no.

Thankfully, not, uh because then it would never happen. I think one of the things about, um, these tips is that they're all single player. Even though you're talking with other people, you're sort of the curator of the conversation as much as other person. And you can steer things into a direction where you're asking questions that sparked their interest, where you're pointing out things that you don't understand about them and asking probing questions that might surprise you all these things where you could do it, even if the other person is completely hostile towards you to begin with.

And hopefully flip that around that you know, eventually you are on the same side.

Speaker 2

I am curious, Buster. We kicked around a little bit in the first part of this episode. Why we have come to a place where conflict avoidance is so common culturally, Why do you think that IHS?

Speaker 1

I think it's because we just have not treated it as a competency to practice and to get good at as a skill. Um And so if you imagine, you know you're skiing down a mountain and you've never, you know, never thought about skiing as a skill before. You're just gonna avoid all of the good jumps, all of the good paths, because you're afraid that you might screw up.

But once you sort of see these like Oh, these jumps could be exactly the point of this one conversation. You steer towards them on DSO when you think about it as a way to practice having conversations to get into the flow of a conversation where the bumps are part of the fun. Um, then you can seek them out rather than avoid them. I love that.

So, since that's about perceiving it differently, are there other misconceptions about disagreement that you think you're kind of foundational that we have toe blow apart? Yeah, I mean, so we sort of touched on what the fruit of disagreement are. It's It's not merely to prove that you're right. Obviously, we know that, but we've never really talked about? Well, if it's not about that, then what is it about on DSO that that's what the enjoyment of the inside of the collection come in? But another big one is that we think disagreements are about facts and evidence, and I have found through just teasing us apart.

Having meaning you need to just disagreements with people is that the facts and the evidence are often least important thing in the conversation. More important than that is, why do you find this issue to be important? What, your values, what he believes. Why do you care about this? Like, what are the underlying motivations that make you want to explore this topic in a work situation? It could be, you know, impacted towards the customer, or it could just be climbing the corporate ladder.

Or it could be ending the meeting. There's a lot of different reasons why we might be using a conversation in a disagreement form. The last one that I think is even more important than all of than the facts and the values is the proposals like what is gonna be useful from this conversation? How can we take everything we know when we believe and think it's important and then do something with it so that we learn something and continue moving forward rather than being stuck in this what I call argument the gate arguing about whether or not it's a problem in the first place.

Well, let's just assume that we disagree about that and test it out and see what happens.

Speaker 2

We've talked a lot about just the number of avoidance strategies that you see, and I think the sort of argument at the gate thing is really right on. So your book suggest that there eight things you can try toe have better disagreements. Tell us a little bit about which one you found to be the most powerful. Maybe which one is the hardest on for our listeners? Go read the books.

You can learn about all eight, but for our purposes, tell us about powerful and difficult.

Speaker 1

Yeah, okay, so I think the 1st 1 is on the most important and powerful because it's sort of the foundation for the rest, which is toe watch how anxiety sparks. And by that I just mean reframing anxiety and cognitive dissonance as a as an invitation to something that's important to you that you want to discuss rather than something to avoid and reframing anxiety as a sign.

Post to your values is so important. And once you see it that way, you know there is everything else becomes possible. So we don't want to buy. Recommend is to just start a disagreement journal where any time you have a disagreement that goes poorly or that goes, well, just, you know, journal about it and sort of tease apart. What was it about? What were the values behind it on? But by doing this, you not only start to reframe anxiety, but you build the pathways so that next time you're, you know, in an argument you'll remember you might not remember one of the tips I'm supposed to do here, But you'll remember.

I'm not to write about this later. Oh, wait. Okay. So I could actually reframe what actually happens on my journal tomorrow when I read about it. Now, um, and writing about it often times just, like helps you practice those mental pathways. In a way, is that if you just read a book, you're not gonna necessarily have ready habits to go in a conversation.

What might you write down when you Let's say you had a disagreement that was interesting to you today. What, like, what is the kind of things you're going to write down and document I often time start with. Where did it go off track? So you know, what was the first thing that the other person said or that happened that made me get defensive or made me imagine a battle and then think about like what was threatened? What what did I feel was threatened by that person saying this or by this thing happening and tease it back to the belief, like whether it's like I value the livelihood of others or I value you know, that my work is seen anything like that and start there.

The second thing I would do is talk about like, What is it really about? What could I have said that would have gotten it to be about that value and not about whatever took it off track because often for just end up argument, something that's not even important to us? So how can we get back on track? And those two things are the sort of habits.

I think that help you in the in the rial moment of having a conversation eventually keep it on track.

Speaker 2

Yeah, Buster, What you said about anxiety really resonates with me. And a lot of the work that Aaron and I have have done and talked about is really using both, like bodily sensation and then emotional signal to understand where you're at in terms of whether you're coming from a place of ego are coming from a place of values. I think even talking about how people get to that state is valuable because I don't think we can take for granted that people understand, really whether anxiety looks and feels and sounds like to them.

Ah, a lot of folks that most of us interact with every single day are not embodied and in touch and integrated in that way. So when you talk about that, like what the anxiety is sparking, how do you counsel people to do get there and to really notice when their anxiety is is talking at them?

Speaker 1

Yeah, This is interesting because this is the active disagreement that we're now moving into itches. If you can help the other person understand what they're feeling anxious about. You've actually had the conversation and so asking the right questions about like Okay, well, what I'm hearing is this is it because you value that this happens? Or is it because what does it tell me more about? Like, what am I missing about your position that is causing me to interpret it this way, versus the way you really want to be interpreted? And asking these questions is is the path to navigate in the conversation? So it sounds to me, and I'm curious if this came up in your research for

the book or in your own journey around this, But it sounds to me like we're echoing some of those nonviolent communication principles around. You know, when you're I feeling what my needs, what are my request is like they're definitely feels like there's a connection. Yes, that first chapter about anxiety is definitely has a lot of influence from non communication.

Although one thing I would append to it is that oftentimes that exercise of sort of stating your needs and making the request requires you toe pull the emotion out of it. I think it's important that we keep the emotion in because that is, that's the the slaloming down the slope. Part of it that's exciting. On dso keep keep that, you know, interesting.

But rooted in like, this is a value that I have. This is something I think important and not as a I am angry at you for doing this like the emotion below anger or frustration. Or, you know, um, just few feeling of futility is usually something a lot more gentle and warm, and that's that's the kind of emotion we wanna keep in it. So then it sounds like even if you're operating at a Yoda level of disagreement, you know, fluency.

You still want some amount you like. You're still in touch with the motion. You're not having these like a motionless disagreements. You're just feeling it and using it differently. Is that right? Like you still get anxious when you are writing? Imagine a world where we didn't get anxious about anything. I think that would be world that we have, like, ceased to be alive in, um So, yeah, I think it's really important to keep the emotions in there, and, you know, in fact, that's the whole point of doing them.

The whole point of having these conversations is to basically find flow with our emotions and conversations with others so that we can actually talk about the most important things. If we have found a way around feeling something strong emotions about a topic we have often we've is dead to us. It's no longer, you know, the thing that keeps us interested in it invested in it.

Speaker 2

The the whole notion of using emotions as signal even that is so anathema in so many of the corporate cultures we see, you know, the old sort of like leave the feelings at the door thing is still real, and I think I only speak for myself. But I am often caught off guard and surprised when I hear that language and that narrative, because it feels like so inhumane and so sort of old school to be.

But you still see it a lot. I still see that improves words like there's, you know, there's no room for feelings here.

Speaker 1

Yes, they're always gonna be there somewhere, and they'll turn into resentment, frustration and even like unhealthy lifestyles things these, this repressing or our feelings is causing us to become a, you know, depressed, anxious, often early heart attacks and resorting to alcohol and drugs and suicide. These things actually affect our lives.

We have to let them out on bond. I think that the mistake there is that we don't have a shared language around separating that feeling of, like responding to a threat and feeling angry or mean versus the thing that's below. That's like what was threatened. What what is that thing that you care about below the surface, that that needs to be seen and heard by others? So in the book, you talk a little bit about asking questions that invites surprising answers, which I think is a cool trick for getting out of that loop of just like being too deep in the emotion.

You talk a little bit about how to do that. And how did you use the analogy of two things. The Game of 20 questions versus the Game of Battleship in Battleship? You can ask it questions like, Hey, is there a ship that before, um, and if it's if they could, they say yes or no and that your we do a lot of questions like that where we're like, Hey, are you a racist or are you just know and a mean evil person on doing what they say? We're not gonna be surprised, really? You're gonna think they're a liar or that they're admitting guilt versus you know, when you're playing 20 questions, you're taking the entire world of things you don't know and trying to cut it in half with

something like a tummy. You know, where did this belief come from? Or, you know, why is this important to you? What am I missing about? Know about you that, you know, that would help me understand? Worth is coming from, um these kind of questions. No matter what they say, they're gonna be new information. They're gonna be something that you learn about.

That person is also gonna give you a chance to move from feeling potentially anxious and triggered to listening for a while and buy you some time as they sort of explore this this answer on, give them a chance to move from, like this black and white world, where it's like, OK, I'm just trying to win this argument to actually I just wanted to tell you a bit of context about, you know, where I'm coming from? A minute shifts the whole conversation around on dso I think of all the tips, this is probably the one that's the easiest to dio and often the most effective or out of the gate.

You could just say like, What am I missing about your your life, your formative events, the things that happened to you that make this so important to you and help me get there with, with understanding that perspective because you don't have to actually understand anything about it to go going into it.

Speaker 2

I'd love to hear a story buster of a gnarly disagreement that you've been in that you were able to turn into something that felt like productive conflict.

Speaker 1

Yeah, this is there. So bunch s Oh, I could go into gun control, immigration reform, ghosts and spirituality. Aled, these different topics where I've had many, many unproductive conversations. Ghosts? Yes. Let's dio Yeah, because that's something right. Me and I disagree.

Speaker 2

And I have a lot of fights about ghosts.

Speaker 1

Awesome. I'm honestly, I have to, um and this is why I put it in the book is like, if I couldn't find a way to be have proactive conversations. I go said, I know this is working because I just haven't been able to. I'm very much on the scientific like, Oh, they don't exist. If they did, there would be some evidence for them. If they don't exist, how can you pretend they dio s o? What I did was I had a salon in my house where I just invited a bunch of people and so, like, you bring your perspectives on ghosts and we're just gonna talk about them and share the stories.

Um, and we're not gonna be about trying to prove if the red around, what we're trying to do is understand that where is each person coming from? Like what? How does this belief help them in their lives? How does this belief, how is it formed and just get deeper into the, um, personal histories of thes belief systems? And I had zero expectation that changed my opinion about them because I was still lapped locked in this, like, show me the evidence sort of mentality.

What I came away with after the doing this and sort of following up conversations with people and just inviting more of these was I found a different pattern. I found that the people that believed in ghosts really using this as a doorstop to mystery about the universe. And I refused to close the door to this belief entirely because I just don't think I'll ever know everything there is to know about the universe and to that and that not framing it became this language of like, This is how we talk about mystery.

This is how we talk about the unknown. This is how I talk about my own relationship with the unknown. And I was like, Wow, that makes sense to me. This is a way to talk about something, cause when I talk about mystery, it's really dry and boring, because I just use scientific words and that's no fun. So I understand why it is more effective and that, you know, has actually for me, um led to a whole series of weird interest Now, like, you know, I'm not into like, tarot reading and because, well, these are just basically ways to bring afford Ince's into a conversation to talk about the subconscious, the unknown and all these things that I'm really into it now.

Yes, that's so funny. Yeah, you're mirroring our lives right now because because Rodney is reading Tero right now, my wife is is interesting game eso who's on which side are you what it was. It was a typical argument.

Speaker 2

I definitely I believe in the spirit world, and I believe that the veil is fairly thin And, uh, you sound a lot more like Aaron. I feel like, though what's interesting to me about the story you just told is that I feel like you came to the same place that we've come to but in the like, more positive and involved way. Look, I think where Aaron and I have met it out is that it's like I can't prove to him that ghosts are real and he can't prove to me that they're not so like we'll just let it be there.

Whereas, uh, I think you know, you finding that these people use that as sort of their their connection to the other is ah is a really cool way of thinking about that's not scientific. Also, side note, there is definitely a ghost living in my link house area when you meet him His name? I am not sure yet. Actually, uh, he Yeah, he is very present and very large and masculine, and ah, finally my husband, who could be a bit skeptical about these things as well.

He has been convinced because my dog barks at him in the night at the ghost. Yeah, right around the same time that I feel dogs comes from the other end of the house to bark. So I'm pretty high convention on this particular

Speaker 1

Yes. So one of the things I would just add to this is that you know, when you argue about what Israel I put that in the realm of the head, like, sort of like the informational realm. We should build a look this up in a journal somewhere. Oftentimes, what I found is that when you're in that realm, it's better to go to the realm of the hands where it's either it's about.

How is this useful? What is this? What is this topic doing for me in my life? That makes it useful. It makes me sort of seek it out. Is it? It could be about something emotional. It could be about sort of telling a story about the past. It could be about relating to, uh, you know, people who have passed, you know who that were important to you or could be about just like, you know, being interested in the spooky stuff.

So when you think about the use, the pragmatic sort of purpose of it, it has all this other rich flavor that makes the factual evidence seem really dry and boring after the fact. I love that, and and to to bring us back to to work and to the pragmatic away from the Lake House for a second. What is your advice for someone who has been avoiding disagreement in the workplace and is now, like, all right, heard productive disagreement? I want to start doing this stuff.

Is there like a slow on ramp? Is it? Do we start with the journaling? Do we start with the questions like, What should I do tomorrow differently than today if I'm if I'm now ready to kind of try to get more out of my disagreements? Yeah, that's that's really the most important thing to figure out because it's it's just not viable for a lot of people to think about productive disagreement as something they put into practice.

So I do recommend the drilling. If journaling is something that resonates with you, not everyone likes to write eso. If you don't know going on a long walk in just musing about your past counter. No conversations, um, having another conversation with somebody else about it, you know, sort of string into this this under the surface,

practice into something above the surface where you could not talk about it as a thing that you're doing and just reframe it from Oh, I really screwed up that conversation to Okay, that conversation was probably above my skill level. How can I build up to it again by practicing on on simpler winds or easier ones and, you know, just see it as a skill.

You know, we're not expect to build a play, you know, Moonlight Sonata on the pain of the first time We stand down so down at the piano. But you could build up to it. And a lot of these productive conversations need to happen. We're just running the deep end, or like Okay, now go talk to your racist uncle. Um and you're just like, Well, this is way over my ability.

Build up to it, talk to your, you know, slightly your conservative cousin first and, you know, build your way up. So is there anything we haven't hit on that you think we should have? That would be, you know, important for listeners to know. Um, you know, I think part of the hope that I have for this conversation, this sort of topic is that we all think of conversation as a skill because we have to feel it internally before we can expect it from our leaders.

Our politicians are bosses, are CEOs there were not going to even build know what to ask them to do until we can feel it ourselves on. And so I think that's really vitally important that we see this responsibility and take it very seriously that we have to build a model and feel what it means to have a productive conversation so that we can then expect it from others above us.

And you know who have more power and that actually materially affect the large parts of the world. Because we have to solve some of these problems and the only way to get through it is by having this disagreements in a proactive way. Well, in this day and age, I can't think of very many skills. That would be, ah, higher order and more important than than this one.

Um, so that seems like a good place to draw things to a close buster, Thank you so much for joining us today and for teaching us today. Thank you was a pleasure, Rodney. Always a pleasure

Speaker 2

happy to be here

Speaker 1

and a quick tip of the hat to tailor Marvin in the booth for making a sound good. Brave new work is produced by the ready on or design and transformation partner to some of the world's biggest brands. You can get in touch with us by emailing podcast at the ready dot com. We would love your feedback, your guest ideas, your episode topic ideas if you like what you're hearing, A review would go a long way to ensuring that this show finds the people who need it and thanks for listening.

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