jonathan@researchcomputingteams.org
This resource first appeared in issue #14 on 17 Mar 2020 and has tags Managing A Team: Other, Becoming A Manager: Conflict/Difficult Discussions
Buster Benson on the art of productive disagreement - Buster Benson, Brian Donohue
Why We Need to Disagree - Tim Harford
We’ve talked before about the lack of disagreement on a team (especially a technical team!) being a bad sign, and about how Google’s Project Oxygen found that psychological safety (which is very much about being willing to express disagreement) was one of the most characteristic features of successful teams.
Tim Harford article emphasizes the importance of disagreement, and points out that some of the most catastrophic failures are often due to people being willing to disagree.
Buster Benson, who’s written a book on the subject, gives five guidelines in particular for having productive disagreement. None of the advice given is necessarily surprising, but all take real effort and practice to put into place; and these were the ones he identified as most important in his study, so are likely the most bang-for-the-buck in order to foster productive disagreements:
