Life Principles - The art of thoughtful disagreement

business, establishing a business, startup-3639565.jpg

People who change their mind because they learned something are the winner, whereas those who stubbornly refuse to learn are the losers.

When two people believe opposite things, chances are that one of them is wrong. It pays to find out if that someone is you. That’s why it is important that you appreciate and develop the art of thoughtful disagreement.

In thoughtful disagreement, the goal is not to convince the other party that you are right – it is to find out which view is true and decide what to do about it. In thoughtful disagreement, both parties are motivated by the genuine fear of missing important perspectives. Exchanges in which you really see what the other person is seeing and they really see what you are seeing – with both your “higher-level you’s” trying to get the truth – are immensely helpful and a giant source of untapped potential.

To do this well, you need to approach the conversation in a way that conveys that you are just trying to understand. Use questions rather than make statements. Conduct the discussion in a calm and dispassionate manner and encourage the other person to do that as well. Remember, you are not arguing, you are openly exploring what is true. Be reasonable and expect others to be reasonable. If you are calm, collegial, and respectful you will do a lot better than if you are not. You’ll get better at this with practice.

To me, its pointless when people get angry with each other when they disagree because most disagreement s aren’t threats as much as opportunities for learning. People who change their mind because they learned something are the winner, whereas those who stubbornly refuse to learn are the losers.

You should be what I call open-minded and assertive at the same time – you should hold and explore conflicting possibilities in your mind while moving fluidly towards whatever is likely to be true based on what you learn. Some people can do this easily while others can’t. A good exercise to make sure that you are doing this well is to describe back to the person you are disagreeing with their perspective. If they agree that you’ve got it, then you are in good shape. I also recommend that both parties observe a “two-minute rule” in which neither interrupts the other, so they both have time to get all their thoughts out.

Some people worry that operating this way is time consuming. Working through disagreement does take time but its just about the best way you can spend it. What’s important is that you prioritize what you spend time on and who you spend it with.

There are lots of people who will disagree with you, and it would be unproductive to consider all their views. It doesn’t pay to be open-minded with everyone. Spend your time exploring ideas with the most believable people you have access to.

If you find you’re at an impasse, agree on a person you both respect and enlist them to help moderate the discussion. What’s counter-productive is spinning in your own head about what’s going in, which most people are prone to do – or wasting time disagreeing past the point of diminishing returns. When that happens, move on to a more productive way of getting to a mutual understanding, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as agreement. For example, you might agree to disagree.

Why doesn’t thoughtful disagreement like this this typically occur?

Because most people are instinctively reluctant to disagree. For example, if two people go to a restaurant and one says he likes the food, the other is more likely to say “I like it too” or not say anything at all, even if that’s not true. The reluctance to disagree is the “lower-level you’s” mistaken interpretation of disagreement as conflict. That’s why radical open-mindedness isn’t easy: You need to teach yourself the art of having exchanges in wats that don’t trigger such reactions in yourself or others.

Holding wrong opinions in one’s head and making bad decisions based on them instead of having thoughtful disagreement is one of the greatest tragedies of mankind. Being able to thoughtfully disagree would so easily lead to radically improved decision making in all areas – Public policy, medicine, philanthropy, personal relationship and more.

Culled from Ray Dalio’s Principles

Related Posts

sylvester, happy new year, sparkling wine

Cheers to 2025

Every New Year holds promise, as though it is any different from the turn of

THE PYRAMIDS OF GIZA: A Monument to Everything We Do Not Know Egypt’s Impossible Gift to a World That Cannot Explain It (Part 2)

There is a category of question that polite intellectual company tends to avoid: the kind that, if you pull the thread long enough, begins to unravel not just a specific mystery but the entire fabric of what we think we know about human history. The Pyramids of Giza are that thread. They have been standing in the Egyptian desert for roughly 4,500 years.

ATLANTIS: The City That Never Was — or the City We Have Never Found

Let me take you somewhere. Not to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean — at least, not yet. First, to Lagos. Nigeria. Sometime in the late 1980s. A teenager who should probably have been revising for exams is instead sitting cross-legged on the floor of a library, holding a book that is older than most of the furniture around it, reading about a city beneath the sea.

The Burden of Forever: Why “The Age of Adaline” Stays With You

This is my story of discovering a film that challenged everything I thought I knew about the gift of time, every pulsating detail documented to inspire you to leap beyond your limitations and appreciate the beauty of growing old.
This story explores the paradox of immortality and why a movie from 2015 still resonates so deeply with audiences today.
I hope you find it worth your time.

THE PYRAMIDS OF GIZA: A Monument to Everything We Do Not Know Egypt’s Impossible Gift to a World That Cannot Explain It (Part 1)

There is a category of question that polite intellectual company tends to avoid: the kind that, if you pull the thread long enough, begins to unravel not just a specific mystery but the entire fabric of what we think we know about human history. The Pyramids of Giza are that thread. They have been standing in the Egyptian desert for roughly 4,500 years.

THE TAOS HUM: The Sound That Is Slowly Driving People Mad And the World Cannot Explain Why

There is a peculiar kind of madness that does not arrive with hallucinations or trembling hands. It arrives quietly. At two in the morning. In a small desert town in New Mexico. It sounds like an idling diesel engine somewhere in the distance — except there is no engine. It sounds like a bass note being held by an invisible orchestra — except there is no orchestra.

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE

Let me confess something. Long before LinkedIn articles, podcasts, and leadership keynotes became my world, I was a teenager sneaking to the library

I Parked My Car Five Minutes Away: So the Kids Wouldn’t See It.

There is a particular kind of silence that falls on a man when the phone stops ringing, the proposals go unanswered, and the diary that once groaned under the weight of appointments sits quietly — almost mockingly — open. If you have ever been there, you know it.

Wired for Me

Let me tell you something uncomfortable: the most generous person you know — the one who volunteers every weekend, donates quietly, never asks for anything in return — is probably getting something out of it. Not money. Maybe not even recognition. But something.

When the Burnt Toast Saves Your Life

Adaeze had been awake since 4 a.m.
Not because she was anxious — though she was — but because this trip felt different. After eighteen months of follow-ups, phone calls, and PowerPoint presentations polished to a mirror shine, the deal was finally ready to close. An investor meeting in Abuja. A partnership that would change the trajectory of her small but gutsy consulting firm. She had triple-checked her flight, her documents, her outfit. She had prayed. She was ready.

The Loudest Person in Every Room Is Often the Most Afraid

When he told his father, Dare’s first response was a sigh. Then: “I told you to practice more. I told you months ago. You don’t listen. You never listen.”

There was no “I’m sorry, son.” No pause to let the boy simply feel the loss of the thing he wanted. Just a swift, seamless pivot to what Temi had done wrong — and, by extension, how Temi’s failure was evidence of Temi’s failure to take his father’s wisdom seriously.

You Only Heard One Side. That’s the Problem

I want to tell you something that took me embarrassingly long to learn. Not because the idea is complicated — it is not. But because it cuts against something deeply wired in us, something we are rarely honest enough to admit.

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

8 thoughts on “Life Principles – The Art of Thoughtful disagreement”

    1. Thoughtful disagreement, really an art and needs to be learnt. Thanks omo Akin, reading from you somehow is able to drain fatigue out of my body.. Nice one brother

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


Discover more from Akin Akingbogun

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

error: Content is protected !!

Discover more from Akin Akingbogun

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Contact Us

Just write down some details about you and we will get back to you in a jiffy!