Personal Mastery · Module 1.4
Disagreement is legitimate. Whether it lands depends on when and how you raise it, not on how right you are.
Same disagreement, different reception
Picture a dean who disagrees with a new initiative to evaluate every program, prompted by enrollment declines. He thinks the criteria being used are flawed.
Two ways this can go
If he raises his concern in the first meeting after the initiative is announced, before doing anything to implement it, the provost hears an obstacle.
If he spends the next several weeks assembling committees, gathering data, and inviting external reviewers, and only then brings forward a request to revisit the criteria, the provost is far more likely to see a partner.
Same disagreement. Entirely different reception. The difference is not the concern itself, it is the sequence in which it showed up.
Stand up for your leader, so you can stand up to them
A track record of visibly moving the work forward is what earns you the standing to disagree later. Without it, your leader has no way to tell the difference between a legitimate concern and simple resistance.
What happens without it
If your first instinct is always to advocate and push back before you have done anything to move the work forward, your leader eventually tunes you out and files you as a resistor. At that point, even your best concerns stop landing, regardless of how legitimate they are.
This is not about staying quiet. It is about which comes first.
What is actually in it for you
This is not just about being a good soldier for someone above you. Moving the work forward first is also what makes your own job easier.
When you have already shown you are working to get to where your leader wants to go, your concerns carry real weight when you finally raise them. Skip that step, and you are just someone who blocks. Do it, and you are a partner whose pushback actually gets heard.
Map your own concern
Think of a change you are currently implementing where you are holding back a real concern.
What is the concern you are holding back?
Capture your answer in your own notes.
What visible progress could you demonstrate on this change before you raise it?
Capture your answer in your own notes.
What is the right venue and timing to raise it, once you have that progress to point to?
Capture your answer in your own notes.
Sophia practice
Once you have moved first and have something real to point to, rehearse how you will actually say it. Bring the concern and the progress you named, and work with Sophia on presenting it as a partner rather than a resistor.
Practice with Sophia