“What is the Most Effective Way to Invite Dissent Without Diluting Decisiveness?” | Ask Dave Kashen

So what's the most effective way to invite dissent without diluting decisiveness?

So I like this question around inviting dissent already because I don't think most leaders invite dissent. So, you know, sort of the topic is kind of group decision-making. And it's an interesting topic in general, right? Like, how do How do we make decisions effectively with a group of people, right? You're leading a team. So first thing that comes to my mind is— and I know it's, it's already part of the question, but I do think inviting dissent is important, right? It's like if everyone agrees with you, what do you need everybody else for? And I do think a lot of leaders inadvertently create a culture where there's not dissent. So, you know, and of course it's risky for people to challenge your decision as a leader or, you know, to state like a contrary opinion. So in many cultures, people won't do that unless they're specifically asked. So I'm a big fan of like specifically asking, okay, well, you know, what doesn't make sense about this? You know, okay, guys, tell me, tell me who, you know, what's wrong with my thinking here? Or why might this not work, right? It's sometimes when we're like too much in our ego and we just wanna be right, there's like this tendency to get defensive and not invite opposition or actively put down, you know, opposing ideas. And so it takes real work as a leader to let go of, sourcing your worthiness from being the one to have the right answers so that you can learn and be curious and be more informed. So I find when leaders do that work, they're able to then say, okay, here's what I'm currently thinking. Tell me what am I missing? What's stupid about this idea? What's wrong? What might not work here? So that would be the first thing I would say is just, I do think it's important and valuable to invite dissent. And to very intentionally ask people to disagree. And then the key is what happens when they do? 'Cause some leaders are like, "Okay, who disagrees?" And then someone's like, "Yeah, I think this might not work." And then, you know, you like drill into them and attack them or get really defensive. And they're like, "Okay, I'm never gonna do that again." Right? Like it was a trap. So the way you respond as a leader when somebody voices a dissenting opinion is probably the most important thing. So those are like the key moments where you're like, wow, thank you so much, Brandon, for bringing that up. I hadn't thought of that. Or like, you know, just to really— right, you get more— what you appreciate appreciates, right? You'll get more of what you appreciate. So if you want people disagreeing and you want them speaking up, when someone takes the risk and does it, make sure you really show appreciation. And certainly not the opposite, right? Like do whatever you can to not get defensive and kind of cut them down. Because our system sometimes wants to do that again, if we're tied to like being right and having the right answer as like our value. So that's the first thing. And then, you know, the question was, how do I invite dissent while still being decisive?

Is that the question? Yeah, without like diluting decisiveness or— Yeah.

How do I invite dissent without diluting decisiveness? So I think there's a few keys here. One is let's just talk about the decision-making process because I think most leaders, most teams don't have a clear agreement around how the decision is made or how a given decision is made. They just sort of like discuss it for a while and then maybe they try to get everyone to agree. And then like, it's often there's like a lack of clarity in how the decision is made and then sometimes even in the decision. And I think it causes a lot of unnecessary drama and inefficiency. So for example, a lot of, if you think about like different decision rules, most of the time the decision rule that is intended is what we call like leader decides with input, right? So basically the leader is, whether it's team leader or CEO, is gathering input from the team so that she or he can make the decision. But often the team doesn't know that's what's happening. They might think, oh, this is a consensus decision. And so everyone's kind of like continues to voice their opinion because they're trying to convince everybody that they're, you know, that theirs is right because they think it's necessary. And so it's amazing how like what a simple kind of fix it is if you just say at the beginning of the meeting or the beginning of the discussion, All right, everybody, um, you know, I really want to get your thoughts and opinions. Like, I want to hear what I'm not thinking about, or what, you know, how this, you know, let's just say you have a pre-existing kind of opinion that they know, or even if you don't, you just say, hey, I really want to hear your thoughts on this decision. Um, so we're going to talk about it for 20 to 30 minutes, and then I'm gonna, I'm gonna, based on all of your input, I'm going to decide. So just that, that one little point of clarity helps settle people. And now all they need to do is know that you, the leader, have heard their opinion. And then they generally can feel settled and not have to keep repeating themselves, which if you notice that often happens in a meeting when they think they have to convince everybody. And so the key there is to be a good listener, be a good, like, active listener. Or practice conscious listening. So when someone voices an opinion, you, well, you know, maybe you write it down on a whiteboard or something, or at least you say it back. Okay, okay, I hear you saying that you really think we should do this because of that and that. Is that right? Yes. Okay. So once they feel gotten, like, okay, the leader got my view, A, they'll likely be able to just, you know, settle down, like, okay, like my opinion has been registered. And B, Even if you decide something else, if they really feel heard, generally, this is where like the disagree and commit happens. Generally, they'll commit and go along with your decision. It's when people don't feel heard that you end up with the most struggle around, like you make a decision, but people aren't really on board and they don't commit. And that often people don't realize that's what's going on. If you haven't taken the time to listen to their opinion, if they don't have clarity that like you really got what their opinion was, then they'll be unsettled and they won't be able to like fully commit to the decision. But if they're like, okay, you know, Peter heard what I said and decided something different, generally people are able to get on board, you know, obviously, especially if they trust you. And then in terms of decisiveness, yeah, so part of the decisiveness is having that clear decision role. Owning, I'm going to decide. And look, it's a little scary or can be a lot scary. That's part of leadership is taking the risk of being the one to decide because you might be wrong. You might get it wrong, right? Like I face this on a very small scale. Like I led a retreat this weekend and in each moment, I'm the one deciding what we're gonna do and whether to cut off a conversation that's happening to— because I don't think it's what's in the, you know, highest interest of the group, or whether to let it go, or which exercises to do. So in, in my kind of little sandbox of like running a retreat, I notice it's scary sometimes because I'm like, I don't, I don't know if this is the right exercise to do, or if they're gonna like it, or, you know, or if I should let them talk about this thing because they seem to want to talk about it. So, you know, part of it is learning to Trust yourself, trust your intuition, um, you know, letting go of attachment to being right and just recognize we're just running experiments and, you know, making decisions and seeing what happens. So, so when we think about decisiveness, um, part of it is making that clear decision rule of like, you know, this is what's going to happen, we're going to talk about, and then I'm going to decide So, that's a way that you can have dissent but still own that you're the decision-maker. I think what most gets in the way of decisiveness, again, is just fear. So, it's like, "Oh, gosh, these smart people disagree with me. They really think we should do something else." And I'll often ask clients like, "If you really trusted yourself, what would you do?" And I find when I ask that question, they generally know the answer. So that's an— that's interesting just to notice that a lot of it is they don't fully trust themselves. But you are the leader. So if you're the leader, you know, people have chosen to follow you. There's some, um, uh, like there's something important about you're the leader and your intuition, your sense, your energy is going in a particular direction. You have a particular want. So I think learning to trust yourself is probably the key to being decisive. And that doesn't mean you won't have fear, right? It's almost like, could you trust yourself even while you're scared? Just like courage is not the absence of fear, it's feeling the fear and doing it anyway. I've been fond of saying, like, confidence is not the absence of doubt. It's feeling the doubt and doing it anyway. That's what allows for decisiveness. It's like, okay, I have some doubt, including because other people have different ideas than me and they're smart. And, you know, this is, this is what feels right to me. And I think that's a useful— I use that phrase very deliberately. Like, I often ask my clients to discern between what they think is the right answer and what feels right. I tend to trust what feels right more than what they think is the right answer, because often that's based on a lot of, like, external ideas and this, you know, our mind saying we should do it this way or should do it that way versus, like, really connecting with your body, which I think is an under-tapped resource of wisdom. And like, okay, I just notice when I think about this decision, I feel this constriction. Like, even though intellectually it seems like the right answer and maybe my team thinks it's the right answer, like something just feels off to me. And when I imagine this decision, I don't know, I feel more settled in my system. I feel more expansive. And not to say, you know, that the mind is a wonderful servant, terrible master, as they say. So, it's not to say that we ignore our intellect, like our intellect is extremely valuable, but I think a lot of leaders override their emotional and intuitive wisdom by just purely trying to figure out the right answer. And I think often that leads you astray versus like really coming down to your body, like, okay, yeah, for some reason I noticed my intuition says, you know, to do option B. And when I tune into my heart, like I really want to do option B, even though A seems more logical. And those are the, you know, that practice of like tuning into the body and the intuition and your heart, you know, ideally you find that decision that aligns all three, like, oh, intellectually this feels right. My heart says yes. My intuition says yes. And, you know, not all decisions feel that way. And so at least I, I challenge and encourage leaders to kind of balance that. And I find that the more you trust your, your intuition, the more you trust your intuition, right? Like there tends to be this positive cycle because you see that something, you know, that maybe you couldn't have even known because the facts weren't yet available or intellectually, you couldn't have gotten there, but time usually shows like, wow, that's like— I've had a lot of experiences of that. Clients have had a lot of experience where I don't even know why intuitively I just wanted to go this way, but I'm so glad I did because look what unfolded. And I don't think that would have happened the other way. So, I think part of being decisive is learning to tap into those other sources of wisdom. And part of it is learning to be with fear. Because if you think that you're going to get to a place of certainty where there is no fear because uncertainty and the unknown is what generates the fear or fear arise when we're uncertain arises. Like, if you're waiting for certainty, you'll be waiting forever. How could we ever know almost anything with certainty? So, the role of a leader is to decide in the face of uncertainty And that means to decide in the face of fear. And so literally, like, expanding your capacity to be with fear is one of the most important things you can do as a leader in general, and specifically to get decisive.

Okay, so what if these really smart people on my team are disagreeing with each other and I feel equally split on a decision and just feel so stuck, I don't know which way to go? And I'm having like trouble tapping into that intuition and, and, you know, which one feels right. What would you recommend that situation?

So if your team is divided and you're divided, um, the good news is often hard decisions are hard because they're like, you know, it's like 51% chance this is right, 49% chance this is right, or even, even more because like this one is likely to be a little bit better than this one, or maybe this one's a little— like, if it was obvious, it would be obvious, right? So the good news is most hard decisions don't actually matter that much. They're hard because either choice could be great, right? So that already is useful just to like take the pressure off, you know. If, if one choice was so clearly better than the other choice, then it would be clear and it wouldn't be a hard decision. So, you know, decisions feel hard because you're scared of making the wrong choice. But often hard decisions again are like, yeah, it probably doesn't matter that much. That's the irony of it. So in that sense, sometimes all there is to do is just choose, you know, like occasionally I'll do, I'll do things with clients like flip a coin and then see how you feel right after the coin flip. So, okay, heads I'll do A, tails I'll do B. Heads. Oh, I was like, oh, I'm disappointed it was heads. Well, that's useful data, right? So sometimes you can kind of play with uncovering your sort of revealed preferences by sort of like, you know, something like that. Or just, okay, just decide, sleep on it and see how you feel. And then sometimes clients will be like, yeah, I decided, didn't tell anyone, slept on it and like just didn't feel right. So that can be useful too. Sometimes just the indecision can feel really angsty and just deciding can settle you. So that's, that can be useful. The other place, you know, you don't want to go too far into the like, what else do we need to know that would help us make this decision? Because you could play that game forever. But sometimes that's a useful question if it's really that ambiguous, that can be useful. Okay, what other information would help us make this decision? And that can be a useful conversation. Um, sometimes the answer is there is no other information, we just have to decide. But sometimes it's like, oh yeah, if we just looked into this, then I think we'd have more clarity. So that can also be useful. Um, and then, you know, there's this like Was it, I think Jeff Bezos had this whole thing about like type 1 and type 2 decisions, basically revolving doors, like which ones are irreversible. Most decisions are not irreversible, or at least not like risk the company decisions. So that could just be useful too when you recognize like, okay, this, we may make a mistake, but we're gonna learn either way, right? It may be the only way we learn which is the right decision is by making a decision seeing what happens. And so, you know, often it's better to make a decision quickly, you know, and then go run the experiment and see what happens. And then you might realize, okay, that didn't work. Let's try the other thing. The other issue is, you know, our minds tend to be so binary and life is so not binary. So that, you know, some, like if people are disagreeing, sometimes you just have to choose. Sometimes there's actually like a third option that combines aspects of the, you know, the options you were considering. Like, I'm a big fan of the framework of like win for all. So if you get really curious, like, you know, Team A that is supporting Option A, like, if you get really curious, okay, what is it that is behind their supporting Option A? What do they think is important about that? What does it give them? What's the underlying interest that has them think that A is important? And Team B, get curious. Sometimes there's an option C that emerges that satisfies both. And I love the— there's this adage of, I think it's 5, but for brevity, I'll say 3. 3 blind men that encounter an elephant for the first time, and one of the blind men grabs its tail and is like, "Oh, it's like a rope," you know, and another of the blind men grab its leg and they're like, "No, it's not, it's like a tree trunk," and then another one grabs its tusk. It's like, "Well, you guys are crazy, it's like a spear," and now they're all arguing about which one is right. Like, so many times that's what arguing actually is. It's people looking at different slices of reality and then arguing that their slice of reality is the true one when in fact, often everybody is partially right. And so if you get curious, especially about each other's positions, often you can see a more clear picture of reality. And I'm fond of saying like the team that sees reality the clearest wins. And having different team members allows you to kind of have different perceptions, different slices of reality incorporated. So if If you build a team where there's less territorialism, less defensiveness, more curiosity, more openness, you can get a more clear picture of reality. And so that's also important is like, well, what, okay, I hear you're really standing for A, like what's important to you about that? Like, tell me more, right? Like often you'll uncover the real issues that they're standing for, like, you know, well, we wanna grow sales. Okay, but retention is low. So we wanna make sure we're selling to the right people. And it's like, Those are both important, you know, dimensions of being successful. But if you're in a fight about like growing sales versus increasing retention, you know, you're gonna waste a lot of energy versus, okay, how do we grow sales and increase retention? You know, you're gonna come up with much more interesting, effective solutions.

Hmm, okay. So say I've got somebody on my team that's like overly disagreeable. And they just tend to disagree with, with anything I say. I mean, you've already mentioned like the conscious listening, uh, seeing what the underlying want is and stuff like that, but is there, uh, something else you'd recommend for dealing with these particular people?

I guess they're sort of in the moment, and then there's more like ongoing. Um, yeah, again, in the moment, I'd say if you can really acknowledge what they're saying, right? Like, and, and just to, just to really, really quickest course on conscious listening, um, according to Conscious Leadership Group, the way they teach it, conscious listening is listening from your head, your heart, and your gut, is listening from presence with no agenda. You're not trying to fix anything or get anywhere, you're just listening to listen. So from your head, you're listening for what are they saying. From your heart, you're listening for what are they feeling. And from your gut, you're listening for what do they want. So if you repeat back to someone, okay, I really hear, you know, that you think we should do this and you are scared that if we don't, you know, this will happen and you really wanna make sure blah, blah, blah, you know, that we do right by our clients. Is that right? Yes. If they feel deeply heard, One, their nervous system may calm down and they'll be less disagreeable and less defensive because a lot of it's just fear that they don't want to feel the fear, which is why they're getting so defensive. And then two, they'll usually stop, you know, stop disagreeing if they feel fully heard. I'd say more generally, if there's someone on your team that just disagrees for the sake of it, you know, they just like to argue and you don't think that's serving the team, That's more of a feedback conversation where you just have, you know, you get really candid with them. Hey, I noticed this pattern. I actually think it's not serving you and us in these ways, and I'd like you to, you know, adjust in, you know, X, Y, Z. And we can get into a whole conversation about feedback because, well, especially for someone like that, often you communicating your feelings and particularly your anger or frustration is important. 'Cause those kind of people disagree a lot like that. Sometimes there are people who crave intensity, often, you know, Enneagram 8s or like just people who really like, they like to fight, they want the intensity. And so often the feedback needs to feel kind of intense to get in. So if you're just like, hey, hey man, you know, I'd really love it if you could be a little less disagreeable, that might not land versus, hey, You know, this is not okay with me. I noticed I'm getting really frustrated that, you know, you're disagreeing with everything. Like, it feels more like a pattern of yours than actually serving the team. And I really want you to look at that and, you know, think about whether this is serving the team or you're just disagreeing just to be combative or something like that. And my point is, you know, there's more force. Communicating the frustration. Often that kind of intensity is useful for to get through. And then ultimately there's, um, like if they still haven't shifted— again, this is more about feedback— but you may need to create a boundary. Like, this is really important, this behavior is not okay with me, you know, if it continues, you know, there's not gonna be a place for you on the team anymore. And I want you on the team, It's not meant as a threat. I just want you to know, like, this doesn't work for me. So I don't want that to be the outcome. And I want to be clear with you about that.

Hmm. I see.

Yeah.

So it's almost like the mind is making all these decisions a much bigger deal than it really is. And to just kind of let go of all these intellectual justifications for what you should do, so you can feel into what feels right and just treat it all like experiments instead.

Um, you're going back to the initial conversation? Yeah, I was trying to track the relationship to what we just said. Um, let's see. So yeah, I guess if we're going back to just What gets in the way of decisiveness? What gets in the way of decisiveness generally is the unwillingness to be with fear. And I'm saying it very precisely because people think it's fear that gets in the way. It's not fear that gets in the way. Fear is natural, right? When, when there's something important, there's something at risk, um, there's something to be paid attention to, it's natural for us to feel scared when we're making a decision. It's the not wanting to feel the fear that gets in the way of being decisive and making the decision. So, again, the— and then sometimes, or often, what happens is we don't want to feel the fear. And so, one strategy to avoid feeling scared is to go into our mind and try to figure it out. There's a great Art of Accomplishment podcast called Feel Over Figure that goes into this. In great detail. It's like we feel scared about making a wrong choice. So, we go into our mind and use our intellect to try to figure out certainty about the right answer so that we don't have to feel that fear. And, it's very inefficient because certainty is not possible. It ends up a lot of ruminating, right? When we're ruminating about a decision, Sometimes it even affects sleep and things like that. And it's all really just a symptom of not being with the fear that's there. And so the way through is welcome the fear, right? It's like, oh, I gotta make this choice. I notice I'm scared. Whew, okay. You know, feel the fear in your body, notice where it shows up. And instead of what we usually do, which is like try to like make it go away or conquer it, It's like, okay, welcome fear. I know it's just here to alert me to something that might feel threatening and use it to kind of pay attention to something that maybe you need to pay attention to and then choose. And then yes, I do think seeing all of life as an experiment is helpful because it takes less weight. It does two things. One, it makes it a little less weighty, like, okay, we're going to make a choice. And then see what happens, and we're going to learn from it. So it's okay to get it wrong because there's learning. Also, it makes it less personal because often if we think that if I make a wrong choice, that means I'm wrong or I'm stupid or I'm not good enough, that feels really intense and heavy versus I'm running experiments. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try this and see what happens, and if it didn't work, well, that was a useful experiment because I learned, you know, I learned to do it this other way. I just want to credit Joe Hudson again. He really helped me kind of see that framing around experiments, which I think is very empowering.

I see.

Okay. Awesome.