Two Minute Drill: Disagree and Commit
What’s up Kaizenovators, happy Tuesday Two Minute Drill. Today’s topic of conversation is to disagree and commit. I was having a conversation with our awesome advisor, Rob, last week and we were talking about process and how to expedite the process. Someone on the development team wanted to change our process a bit and Rob said “I disagree, but I commit”.
“I told you so”
In other words, I don’t necessarily agree with this particular step that we’re taking, but I’m going to commit to doing everything I can to make sure that it works to the development team’s desires.
I thought that was just such a great comment. Too often I’ve had people on my team in my past where people have disagreed and not really committed, saw something fail, and then gave me, “I told you so” at the end.
When people can disagree and commit, it’s a great thing. It’s a great leadership quality, it’s a great human quality. We want that out of our leaders and we want that out of the people on our team.
Sometimes people who are on the front lines making the decisions, doing the things that need to get done, if they make a decision to do something a bit different than what leadership maybe has set out, as leaders, we just have to buy into it and say, “Okay, if you’re on the front lines, you know what’s going on, I understand. I don’t necessarily agree that this is the right tactic, I would do it this way. But if you want to take these steps, I disagree, but I’m going to commit to making sure I do everything possible to see us be successful”.
I think it’s a great lesson learned. I think there are too many leaders in too many positions who either just don’t let people try things and therefore it decreases engagement, or if they do let people try things, they’re waiting in the back wings to give you “and I told you so”, and there’s nothing really good about that.
Sometimes we got to let people on the team make decisions. Even if we disagree, we voice our concerns. We try and overcome any challenges with those concerns, but ultimately, at the end of the day, great leaders commit to ensuring the success of the individual, the team, and the goals.
That’s this week’s Two Minute Drill.
See you all next week.
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