Understand People · Lesson 2 of 2

Working through disagreement

Agree on the shared goal first, then disagree about the path.

6 min read · Free — no account needed to read

Disagreement is not a failure of a team; handled well, it is where better ideas come from. Handled badly, it breaks trust.

Separate the person from the problem. Find what you both want (a good result, a fair outcome) before arguing about how. Talk about specific behaviour and its effect, not character.

Some conversations should never be outsourced: an apology, difficult feedback, telling someone you care. AI can help you prepare — the conversation itself is yours.

See it happen

You and a colleague have argued three times about whether to rewrite the onboarding documents or record short videos instead.

The read that arrives on its own

They are wrong about videos, so you go and assemble better arguments for documents.

The same situation, with this idea

You write down the goal you both actually share: a new person should be able to finish their first task without having to ask anyone. Stated that way, the real disagreement is about how new people prefer to look things up — which two phone calls would answer.

What changed

The argument had no fixed point, so both of you were defending positions rather than testing them. Naming the shared goal turned a clash of preferences into a question about the world, and questions about the world can actually be settled.

The takeaway

Agree on the shared goal first, then disagree about the path.

Easy to take the wrong way

Assuming a shared goal is always there to be found. Sometimes there genuinely is not one, and discovering that early is also a result — a much better place to be than three rounds into an argument nobody can win.

Try this

Think of a disagreement you are avoiding. Write the goal you and the other person share.