"Differences in Opinion" - join Mike and Sam

Hello and welcome to The Mike and Sam Show. Hey, Sam, how you doing?

I'm great, Mike. How are you today?

I am fantastic. This morning I had one of my online courses in the 2020 Transformational Training and really great group. And we were talking about self-care today. So, it was a good conversation.

Oh, awesome. Very good.

How about you? What's new with you?

Are you sure that everyone felt it was a good conversation? Maybe someone felt it wasn't a good conversation.

That is possible. What we try to do is create an environment where they feel safe to give that feedback and let us know.

Yeah, which kind of brings me to the, the whole idea of what happens in an organization when there's a difference of opinion. What has been your experience when there's a difference of opinion? When Sally thinks one thing and Mary thinks another, or John has a third opinion. Does it all fall apart? What happens?

Well, it really depends on the structure of the organization, right? That has a huge influence on these discussions and the culture of the organization. Those 2 components are huge. So, if an organization says everybody's voice is equal and you come down to a moment where 2 people differ and you have to make a decision and you say, well, the person who's in charge of that department gets final say, Then stop telling everybody everybody's voice is equal because that's not a true statement. What you'd want to rather say is we value everyone's voice. And in moments of decision, the person who's in charge of that area will get priority, right? That would be more honest than saying everybody's voice is equal because what that does is when I have a differing opinion, I think I don't count because you said I'm supposed to count and you didn't count my voice.

Yeah, and that's why I like to phrase it when I'm dealing, when I'm working with leaders in an organization to create a safe environment where everyone has an equal voice around the table from the standpoint as everyone is heard. Everyone is heard.

Yeah.

We listen to you. We evaluate it. Now, I think at the end of the day, if— look, at the end of the day, the CEO makes a decision. Or at the end of the day, the head of the department makes a decision. And so, yes, we need to recognize that. But the question becomes is, do you create an environment in your organization where people feel safe to express a differing opinion? Do they feel safe to express an idea that may be way out there? Do they feel safe to, to be innovative in, in dealing with challenges? Because if we don't create that, then what happens is those differences in opinion, they just fester because people hold them inside.

Yeah. And look, we go through different phases in our career where we're better at this. or our own self-esteem and stress can weaken us as leaders at being good at this. And what I mean by that, I know myself, there have been times where I wasn't as good at this with my team. And, you know, you, both of us have teams, right? We have people that work with us that help us. And I know there's times I've been way better at this and times I wasn't the best. And what I would notice is if there was, if there's a fracture in a relationship or, or if I'm under high stress, I just feel myself. There's nothing with the other person. You get into a yeah, but mode, and that stops people from sharing. And that makes people think, if I have differing opinion, why even share it? Because they're just going to yeah, but me, right? So they say, hey, this, and I go, well, yeah, but, and it just ends it because I'm not really listening. Instead of saying yeah, but, and this is something I teach companies all the time when we talk about creating a culture of respect, instead of yeah, but, you say, wow, Thank you. Can I share some challenges we've had with that in the past? Because you might be able to be the one who can help us overcome them. Because the yeah, but is almost always, yeah, but we've tried that before. Yeah, but that doesn't work. So instead of what didn't work, open the possibility that this person could be the first to solve it. And that's a different mindset.

Yeah, exactly. As soon as the word but comes in, then people already know that they're being marginalized. The word to use is and. If if the situation requires something like that. So, we talk about— that's something I want to share. But I love what Denise says here. I think that it has to be set as a norm and modeled by leadership in order to work effectively. And that, in essence, is really what an effective culture is. It's a positive situation that's modeled by leadership. This is how we do it here. Not only is it modeled by leadership, but leadership doesn't accept anything less than that. So, if If I'm cutting people off, if I'm not letting people be heard, then whoever is above me needs to come to me and say, Sam, around here, people have a voice. People get to be heard. We evaluate what everyone says. You need to be listening to everyone. And if I continue not doing that, then I don't fit into that culture. But let's take this to the next level. So, what happens when you have 2 people that just disagree?

Well, I'm gonna pause before we even go there because I think there's some valuable A pausing moment there is—

I'll determine if it's valuable.

Yeah. So here's the issue that I think happens, and that is— oh, now watch, I'm having a brain freeze. You gotta love live, right? Because this will happen.

But I shook you up when I said that.

You did. You did. It threw me off. So that's all right. It'll come back to me here. The difference of opinion can be how you hire. And what I mean by that is you need to know that when you hire people, they need to know they're walking into a culture We're throw the idea out doesn't mean we're going to use it. And there's a big difference in I hear you and I do what you say. Those are two different worlds, and that has a huge impact on differing of opinions. Because if somebody if you throw out ten ideas on me to me and I use one of them, and you only focus on the nine I didn't use, well then this is probably going to be difficult for us to be innovative because one out of ten things get put into place in a business. You're doing really well actually. That means you're being innovative. You're coming up. If you think I'm going to put 5 out of 10 into place, we're probably not staying focused. There's probably too many distractions going on.

So— Well, and that goes down to communication, doesn't it, Mike?

That's what I'm saying. But it plays huge in how people are willing to bring up differing opinions. Because if you think, well, if they don't implement it, I'm not going to share it, you have not trained properly so people understand sharing does not mean implementing. We want you to share. It doesn't mean we're going to implement. And that has to be understood on all parties.

So let's move from the macro to the micro. Let's, let's look at where we have a situation where we have 2 people in an organization either, you know, that just differ on opinion. Not so much looking at the creative side of things, but just, you know, it's like Sally and Mike. They just, they disagree on how something should be done. You have a difference of opinion. How do you handle that?

Yeah, well, what I want to do is I want to, one, let's take a break and come back. Because you and I both know, especially if you were close with someone, your first instinct might be to push back on each other. And then this is true in marriages too, and relationships, especially in marriages. Some people are like, what have you thought of this? Like, what do you mean if I thought of that, right? And then the next day you're like, I should do that, right? So you have an awakening. So one of the first things you want to do is give those 2 individuals time. Let's not decide this second if we don't have to. Let's take a day on it and see if either of you have a different view on what the other person contributed, or how you could work with that. How could these ideas come together in any way? So I think that's a big one is to pause. We're so quick to want to make decisions. Pause. Then we have to look, what is the goal of what we're doing right now? What is the goal of this project? What is the goal of this decision-making process? Which of these is totally— is closest— there's never a totally— is closest in alignment with that? Because that is why we're here. So that could be a brilliant idea that doesn't align with this project. We got to look at that. Sam, what are some additional ways you would throw in to help in that moment?

Well, I want to make sure that all decisions align with the values. And so, you know, I think that that's always an element of consideration. Are these ideas aligning with our values? Are we, you know, you mentioned, are you, are you Are you on goal, your goal, your mission, your purpose? I think that yes. Are you aligning with your purpose? Are you aligning with your mission? Are you aligning with your values? That's always a litmus test for me. And then sometimes there's just a difference of opinion. You could have 2 ways of doing it that both align. Sometimes you'll see that one doesn't align as much as the other, and that'll reveal what the answer is. But what if they both align? And then, and what if those people just totally disagree? And that's where I think I think that part of the values in an organization need to speak to how we get along, how we build relationships inside the organization. Because if you and I, let's say we're at an equal level in an organization, we disagree. Is a sense of respect built into the norm that is expected in how we communicate, how we collaborate, how we work together, what we say about each other when the other one isn't around? All that is part of that fabric of the culture. And so, it's not just in this moment when you and I disagree on something. It's what foundation has been built in the organization long-term so that when this moment does happen and we disagree, that we handle it in a way that it doesn't fractionalize things. It doesn't pit you against me. It doesn't pit your team against my team. We see that all too often happen in organizations. So, like many situations, This is one of those things that you deal with yesterday. You lay the groundwork for an environment where we can disagree with each other, but we know that we must respect each other.

Yeah, that has to be at the core. And of course, you know, that's what I live and breathe is that word. And so, it's got to be at the core. And here's a key component, acknowledging when we failed on that level. Because we're going to.

Right.

You and I talk about this a lot on the show. Everything we talk about is an ideal and an aspiration, but none of us are perfect. And none of us are perfect. Like you, I don't like the word but. So, and none of us are perfect. So when I fail to do that, I need to own that publicly, by the way, so that everybody sees, oh, Mike knows that's not acceptable, that that's not the values we stand by, or that Mike is— that doesn't align. So I have to own that. So if it looks like that we disagree and I'm like, well, they're always getting their choice picked, I— if I say that within the day or the next day, I should catch that if somebody doesn't bring it up to me and say, you know what, they're always choosing theirs because it's taking us down the right path. I need to come up with better answers, better solutions. It has nothing to do with them being chosen because it's them. It's because they're coming up with great results. Probably take note of that. And that's That takes some being humble and recognizing. And that's a struggle for people. But we have to help ourselves understand if my idea is never being used, there could be a reason.

Right. And so, if leadership's doing their job in evaluating the ideas and providing feedback and there is no bias, then if if your ideas aren't being used, it's one thing. But—

Now, you brought up a key word there. That's if there's no bias.

Bias, yeah.

Because if somebody is being always heard over the voices of everybody else because of either an intentional or an unconscious bias, we have a major, major problem. A major cultural problem.

Well, then you don't have safety in the culture. Then it's not safe to express your opinion. Your voice is not heard.

It's— You're not valued.

Right. You're not valued. It's not a healthy environment. So, the bottom line, create a healthy environment for people. Create a place where people are heard, where their ideas are listened to. And that's in the big picture. But in the small picture, it's about creating an environment where people learn how to, where we teach everyone in our organization how to communicate with each other, how to share ideas, How to have a difference of opinion and through respect, work to a solution that everyone can agree on and then move forward rather than having that difference of opinion being something that disintegrates a relationship and creates a worse situation in your culture.

Correct. When you have a healthy culture, so there's, let's say there's, there's not blatant bias taking place or even unconscious that's harmful because there's biases in all of us. We understand that. But if you have a healthy culture in those moments, then that's gonna lead to me not being caught up in making it about me, right? It's about me when we have an unhealthy culture. If everybody's trying to make it about me, why didn't they choose me? Why didn't they choose me? Instead of, all right, I'm curious why they chose the plan they chose, 'cause that's not about people. Right. Why did they choose the solution they chose? So, I can better understand what they're looking for in the future. That's not about me. That's understanding what they're looking for, what we, what the we versus the I. And it makes a huge difference.

And when an organization takes the time to focus on this, they create a better culture. They create a place where people are happier. They retain the best. They attract the best. They build a better organization. Being able to handle a difference of opinion effectively and in a positive nature is always going to lead to a better culture and a better organization.

Absolutely! That's a great place for us to pause today. You are listening to the, and you're watching potentially, The Mike and Sam Show. Sam, you want to let everybody know how they can find us?

Sure. Well, absolutely. And if you want to bring Mike and I in to work with your team, to work with your leadership team at any level of the organization to help you build that amazing culture, reach out to us. You can follow us on youtube.com/TheCenterForRespect And youtube.com/samsilverstein. And of course, you can reach us directly at thecenterforrespect.com and beaccountable.com. We'd love to talk to you.

And by the way, I want to pause on that because if you want just Sam, that's cool. If you want just me, that's cool. If you want the two of us together, really, really cool.

Rock it out.

This is a great example of it's not about either one of us. Right? It's about getting the solution that can help you. So, it's not about whether it's Mike or Sam or it's both. It's about what's the best solution for you.

And I also want to thank Denise for her comments. Susan today, thank you, Susan. It says Susan, it didn't look like Susan. And then Doug, appreciate that. Always love hearing from everyone in the audience that's listening either live or in And if you're listening to this and it's recorded, leave your comments, we'll respond, and that's always a great way to get in touch with us. Everyone have a great week. Mike, thanks for the conversation.

Thank you, Sam, as always.