When You Disagree: How You Disagree May Be More Important Than the Disagreement Itself
Day 34 of 80 Days of Excellence
From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
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How do you disagree? Do you express your disagreement with the person’s actions but affirm that you care about the person? Or, do you defend your opinion so profoundly that you leave the person feeling that you only love them if they agree with you?
When we agree, we can build trust and work together. But when we disagree, that is when we build respect if we do it in healthy ways. With this in mind, when someone disagrees with you but continues to respect you as a person, you know they are the kind of person you can work with for a lifetime.
None of us will agree with each other all of the time. None of us are right all the time.
If you think you’re always right, you just proved yourself wrong.
It is important to realize that if both sides of the disagreement support a worthy cause, they’d both better realize that bystanders don’t really care what you’re disagreeing about. As a result of their observations of your behavior, they’ll ruthlessly judge your cause and your organization by how you disagree.
All things considered, while the matters over which we can disagree can be vitally important, the way in which we disagree can sometimes eclipse the matter over which we argue.
Given these points, I challenge all of us (myself included) to affirm and support people even when we disagree with their actions. I also challenge us to disagree in a way that doesn’t harm the causes and people we love and support.
We can disagree and in fact, we’d better disagree sometimes – at least behind closed doors or we’ll risk groupthink. But learning how to disagree respectfully is a seemingly lost art form in a stop-your-foot and shake-your-fist defriend-your-friend world. When respectful disagreements are observed, it almost always earns the respect of those who see it happening. Additionally, healthy ways of handling disagreement create an environment where progress and the accompanying friction can thrive and move an organization forward.
Can we disagree in healthy, productive ways? If so, we and our organization have one hallmark of excellence.
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via Vicki Davis at coolcatteacher.com. Please also check out my show for busy teachers, Every Classroom Matters and my Free teaching tutorials on YouTube.
