How to disagree with your boss, productively

Tips on what to do when you and your boss disagree, esp. in meetings

Hey there, 

This week I am writing about something that one of our users reported as a recent challenge and it sounded so familiar: The situation when you are in a meeting with multiple people and your manager and you disagree.

Our user was describing his default reaction as: withdrawal, going quiet and not engaging anymore. While this is a common reaction, it typically backfires, because none of your ideas are getting through, your perspective is not seen or heard and overall your team will suffer from missing out on critical information that you are not sharing. And chances are that you will get more and more resentful over time (since no-one is happy to work in an environment where their PoV is not seen or heard). 

So what to do? 🤷

I’ve researched this a bit and here are a few resources and approaches that may help: 

How to disagree with your boss, productively

📺 How to Disagree with Someone More Powerful: The Harvard Business Review Guide by Harvard Business Review

Top Take Aways: Before deciding, how to do a risk assessment: Is it worth it to die on that hill? When and where to voice disagreement, what to say and how to say it.

🧘 4 Steps To Make Difficult Conversations Less Scary by Toby Sinclair

Top Take Aways: When in doubt, lean on questions. Instead of stating a contradicting opinion, try to uncover overlaps and shared goals first by asking open-ended questions, e.g. What do you want to achieve? or What do you want to explore?

😅 Difficult Conversation: Disagreeing With Your Boss by Toby Sinclair

Top Take Aways: Toby’s perspective is that we can use these situations (that seem really tough in the moment) as opportunities to strengthen our relationship with our boss. If we follow a few best practices, e.g. always asking questions and also get their consent on challenging their PoV. As a manager I can confirm, if I get asked a simple “Is it ok if I propose a challenging point of view to this?” before a team member challenges me openly, it basically refutes 90% of my otherwise probably defensive reaction.

🤿 Deep dive on the topic of “difficult conversations” with Bunch:

We’ve released a Learning Sprint on the topic of “Having difficult conversations” in Bunch, check it out if you’re interested in learning more about how to disagree with your boss or team mates constructively. Its a collection of tips from experts like Toby Sinclair, Louie Bacaj, Dave Kline and more.

Check it out here:

Have a great start to your week and have a few productive disagreements :)

Darja

PS: Download the AI coach to get 1% better in just 2 min a day