A Better Way to Disagree

Hey friends,

As a leader or someone who manages people, you’ll often get into situations where you’ll get ideas or feedback from your team members and then you’ll have to decide on moving forward with those ideas or simply rejecting them. The issue with saying ‘No’ to people’s ideas is that they can sometimes get offended and feel disappointed. Now, obviously, your job is not always about taking care of the feelings of your team members as tough decision need to be made from time-to-time, but, what if there was a better way to reject someone’s idea?

I found a better way to disagree with people, or reject their suggestions and ideas. Any time I ran meetings at Morgan Stanley or at my previous startup, I loved getting the input of my fellow team members on the project and how we should tackle various streams. Generally speaking, everyone would opine with their best idea and share it with the team. The problem was that most ideas I had to reject. To do this the right way, instead of accepting a single idea from each person, I would always ask them:

“That’s good, what else are you thinking?”

This simple question wouldn’t negate their idea, but would get them to think a bit harder about their idea. Not only that, they would also then think about a couple more ideas to bring to the table. After a few minutes, that same team member would then tell you, the manager, their other ideas. Here’s the best part: when I would hear the collection of ideas, now I could actually reject 2 out of 3 of their ideas (including potentially their first idea) and accept 1 of them. Adding options allowed me as the manager to get my team members to think harder, bring more options to the table, and comfortably reject some of their ideas while accepting others.

Ultimately, this strategy makes your team members feel better; they know that you (as their manager) are open to their ideas, you actively ask for their suggestions, and even if you disagree with them, you do put some of their ideas into action.

Give it a try this week with your team members and see how you feel. Good luck! 🤗

Sherjan