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Healthy Disagreement: The Secret to Growing Your Business
Strategies for disagreeing in a more harmonious way.
“If you have learned how to disagree without being disagreeable, then you have discovered the secret of getting along — whether it be business, family relations, or life itself.” — Bernard Meltzer
Many years ago, when I worked as a Junior Developer in New York City, I had a coworker who refused to disagree with me. We’ll call him Mike.
Instead of letting me know when we didn’t see eye to eye on a project, he’d make snide remarks (you sure that’s the direction you want to go, Aytekin?).
Needless to say, this was not much fun.
But because we were coworkers and I was just starting out in my career, I didn’t want to rock the boat.
So we spent months in this passive-aggressive limbo. Mike would cc my boss on emails to me with the subject line URGENT. I, in turn, would message colleagues and complain about his childish antics (can you believe this guy?!)
Rather than have an honest dialogue and openly disagree with one another, we did what most people do under such fraught circumstances…
