Episode 119: Disagreeing without Being Disagreeable

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall" your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

Please let me welcome you to another edition. It's Randall. We talk today based on a conversation I had regarding a podcast I did several months ago. It was on the power structure and what happens in offices and why power is so difficult to deal with. That was episode 106, if you're interested in listening. What came of the conversation was it was very helpful to think about power and hierarchical power versus institutional power, but the question became what happens when we disagree with power. I thought wow, that's an interesting subject worth a little bit of inquiry. So today we're going to talk about how to be disagreeable, or excuse me, how to disagree without being disagreeable. It's challenging.

Right now we have a lot of moving pieces in healthcare and educational Services. The economics of where we're at as a country, philanthropy is being challenged and so they're naturally going to be moments where we don't agree. The question becomes what are those situations and what do we do about them? So let's put four separate anonymous situations on the table to show you where disagreement is very natural in the professional office setting.

We have a scenario, or I have a scenario, with a client where they're losing gift officers because the system office won't adjust the HR pay scales. It's costing them. Another one to consider is that in a large organization there are usually departments that handle certain aspects of our jobs and in one case I've got a client where the the particular department that's responsible for various things isn't doing their job and it's causing a cascade effect on to others. It's causing some disagreement as to who's really responsible. There are constraints on budgets all over the place. I have a client who was asked to try to reduce their budget by nearly 25 percent, kind of out of the blue, after they had already privately announced to several boards and major donors major campaign efforts which requires certain amount of investment. And the question became what are we going to do about this? The last was a conversation with a series of gift officers inside a particular client's foundation office where metrics and outcomes and goals were in disagreement in terms of what leadership thought was appropriate or possible and the gift officers were willing to accept.

Disagreements and natural way of life. I look at my life, particularly my home life and my wife and I don't always agree, which usually means I'm wrong. But there's not always agreement. The question becomes how you handle it. That's really what we want to spend the most amount of time talking about.

Number one is what's the environment that we want to allow disagreements to occur, and that's really a leadership issue. How do we create a world inside an office, culturally, that allows people to say I don't agree with you on that and there's not damage. The second piece is what do you do if you disagree with someone? What are kind of the things that you should keep in mind as you work through that challenge? So today is about personal development. If you're the leader, how do you create an environment where there can be disagreement?

Number two if you're the one who might have a disagreement, how do you handle it professionally, all based on that episode 106 about power? So let's start with the environment. Culturally, organizationally, how do you build a sense of ability, willingness, openness to not always agree? I was listening to one of my podcasts, this was more of a local one many months ago, but it stuck with me and then this conversation occurred and I thought wow that's right in line. I don't know why it stuck in my head but now maybe it was just there because it was going to be related to what we're talking about today. There's a radio, a podcaster, a sports reporter, however you want to call it localized here in Omaha by the name of Damon Benning. Great deal of respect for him. He really has insightful thoughts about Athletics. Part of it is because he was a remarkable College athlete at the University of Nebraska playing football at its most popular position at the time, running back, so he has a unique perspective. But he's very thoughtful in what he talks about. One of the things he does is he coaches high school sports and locally he talked about the environment in that coaching room, and while maybe not directly related to what we do in philanthropy there are a lot of tie-ins he talked about. That they had brought in a new head coach but had retained most of the staff, and the head coach had certain perspectives about what they do.

The question became when the team, who was projected to be very, very good, had a loss and they had to go back into the room with the coaches to a team that they should never have lost to to have a conversation about what happened. And he talked about that. It takes a really deep, well thought-out process to facilitate a conversation where there was going to be disagreement, blame, and in sports we're dealing with winning and losing. I'm not sure that we have that in philanthropy every day in terms of like a final score, but we do have metrics and outcomes and things of that nature. He discussed the fact that they were able to, in a very respectful closed-door environment, talk about where the problems were and be honest about them because the end result was they needed to get better. I'm not sure he has said this. I'm not sure he would say this, but he said this right after that early season loss, and this is a team that went on to win the state championship. They changed. They adjusted. They adjusted their coaching, they adjusted players in terms of where they played, they adjusted how they prepared for games, they just, how they played in the games, they made adjustments to allow for that success and that is very parallel to our offices. There are times where we have to adjust. How do you do that? Do people like it? Are people willing to accept it?

The key becomes, from the leader, what is the environment that we are building that allows that to happen and it's all based on one central concept, trust. Do you trust the people in the room that they are aiming for the same goal, that they have the organization or purpose best interest at heart, and are they being genuine?

I'm going to parallel this out of the coaching ranks and out of the philanthropy ranks to a little self-disclosure. I mentioned at the top of the show my wife and I don't always agree. We don't. We don't disagree that often to be quite candid, but there are...we're two human beings. No matter what the subject is, I know, I believe, I feel that my wife has our best interest at heart and our family's. That she's genuine in what she believes and that she's not blaming or trying to cast aspersions, the goal is the betterment of our relationship in a marriage and that of what's come from it, that being parents. That means we can have hard conversations, and frankly, we don't have that many. We're very blessed, but I'm not concerned about the conversations I have with my wife. Financial, how we raise children, how my work intersects with the work that goes on inside this house, every day how she manages and leads our family, there's a lot of things that happen inside our house that require conversation and we have to adjust all the time.

So what are those things that tangentially directly are related to make an environment inside relationships or inside an office possible? The first is kind of five, as a leader, to think about immense, constant consistent, communication. I think people sometimes are a little bit surprised. I talked to my wife probably four, five, six times a day when I'm in my office. Short conversations. We're always going back and forth on what's going on and what we need to do, and sometimes they're very trivial like hey you know we got a basketball practice, what are we doing for dinner with a short time frame for the dinner hour, two more complex ones like parents. Our parents who are a little older and have some challenges, or what what's going on with kids in school, which sometimes isn't always perfect.

Communication allows people to build a sense of trust. More you communicate honestly, effectively, openly, the better off you're going to be. The second is, as you deal in facts or sometimes metrics, depending, or key performance indicators, if we can keep the facts at the front it keeps the emotion out of the environment. We'll talk about emotion here in a few minutes, about you personally. But so if you have open communication and you're dealing with facts.

And the third is can you keep those facts and that communication consistent? There's a consistency in information flow in communication. It's not one-offs, it's all the time, and are those facts, and are those conversations, and those actions inside an office honest. Honest in terms of their practicality. What I say is what I do. But the data is honest it's not massaged.

And lastly, it's the ability to hold people accountable. The follow-up. If you, as a leader, can find a way to hold people accountable both formally and informally you'll create an environment where everyone knows, I know what the rules are. Think about it. like as a parent, one of the things we work really hard on is ensuring that there's a consistency in that accountability for our kids, thus they know where the lines are. We're really blessed. We have two amazing children but part of that is is that we've been very consistent as to what our expectations are and so they know where the lines are. Doesn't mean they don't cross them because they're kids, but they know because they don't move. And when you cross them, there are consequences. So for a leader, can you create an environment that is based in trust and openness, that has great communication, constant communication, that uses facts, that is consistent? It's always facts and communication are always happening in tandem, that you are honest or people feel like there's an honesty in the direction, in the communication, and in the work that goes on, and finally is there a sense of accountability, follow-up, willingness to hold people accountable. You can do those five things inside an office setting. You'll be surprised how quickly people will get in line with where we're all trying to get to this all. Assumes that we're all always also driving to the same goal or direction. So what do you do on the personal side? And this is really what was the communication or conversation I had with a individual who had listened to the podcast, who happens to be part of a client, part of an organization where their client about, well I disagree. How do I do this because I want to be, I don't get in trouble. I said well, let's talk about that.

Well, the first thing is that most things aren't personal. You may perceive them as personal. You may feel that they're unfair, but my experience is in 25 years in complicated environments, is most things aren't personal. There's a real simple reason why most people just don't care that much. You may think they do. They got a million other things they're dealing with, and usually decisions are made not with you in mind but with a whole lot of other factors, so when you make it personal what ends up happening is is it changes the ability for there to be a positive outcome, or at least neutral outcome. Don't make it personal to do that.

Number two, back to what we talked about a few minutes ago, use facts, undeniable facts. Simple. Easy example. If somebody wants you to raise $5M but you have $500,000 in your portfolio, meaning of possibilities, then the question is, is that realistic? Factually we know what the cost to raise the dollar is and how many people we can work with and how many visits we can make. Big picture, it's not possible or the work that I did is not being reflected because we're not pulling from the right facts or the right data. So use facts to make it personal.

The third is, don't put down the other side either physically meaning you know verbally or non-physically meaning emotionally. Inside, you you might disagree with someone and I and certainly, especially the boss, and that good agreement may be deep. But as soon as you put down them or their ideas, without elevating your perspective, what you're doing is you're denigrating and that becomes personal on their end. That's why facts are important. Can we agree that these are the facts? Well then this is the data that we should be using, and it says x, y and z. So no in this process that when you push someone down you're really causing them to become defensive, use your side of the argument more positively, which leads us into number four. Use a lot of I feel messages. I think I've mentioned this on the podcast, my mom many years ago when I was, when I was an adolescent I said something or I did something, couldn't have been that bad. I don't know what it was but my mom said well it makes me feel this way and I tried to challenge her, and she said no, I feel this way when this happens and that's my prerogative, that's my right, they're my feelings not yours. Don't judge someone's feelings, but if you are in a position where you feel as if something's happening or you see something happen, it makes you feel this way, then say I feel this way. Well that's not fair. You can say well wait a minute, that's the way I feel. You may not intend it that way, but this is the way it comes across when you speak in that kind of language. It demystifies kind of the confusion in the middle of the of the disagreement because you're able to express where You are and that's really important. i

It also doesn't allow the other person to say well that's not true. Well they're my feelings. They're true to me.

Number five, in those conversations and moments be willing to listen to the other side, be willing to be open to the fact that they may have a point, or that they may be right in some way, or that usually the truth lies somewhere in the middle, which means some of what they're saying probably has a little truth to it. If you're not open to the other side's conversation, thoughts, perspective, what you're doing is you're shutting off possible options in terms of discussion and agreement. Be open.

Number six, remember the big goal and use that in the conversations. If our office goal is x when you ask me to do a, b, and c it makes me feel this way. But it also to me seems if that's detrimental to the bigger goal. So when you when you think about the options of what the bigger goal is, figuring out how you fit into it and using that in the conversation generally can get you to a place where there's an agreement because if you all agree on the bigger goal the question becomes how you fit into that bigger goal, and then the conversation or the disagreement may be on how does that actually happen.

Number seven, and this is a tough one, particularly if you feel that if it's not fair, everything in your power. Try not to be emotional. The minute you get emotional, overly emotional, show that emotion, walk too far away from logic, it's going to change the nature of the conversation to the way it's received by the other side. Or maybe you see something or doing something that might be a detriment. It's not easy. I've spent a lot of time even with all my law school training. You know 25 years ago, in terms of negotiation, things of that nature and these things are taught and discussed it's really hard for me. I take things personally. Take me a long time to realize most people just don't care because it's not personal and the more emotional I get the worse it gets for me. Logic, data, steadiness, slowing your conversation down, not having a great deal of range in your voice are all important tactics in making sure you keep your emotions in check.

Number eight, kind of the easy one. No one to move on if something is so disagreeable. It's maybe time to think about other options. If you can't create a similar path where everybody wins, where the organization's on the same page or there there's not, you cannot get to an agreement on a specific issue, and it's really core to who you are or what the job is or what the off. Then you have to move on. This goes back to that power podcast where sometimes power just wins. Then it's up to you to take care of control or have power over you. Sometimes walking away is sometimes the best answer. I will say, concluding, that when you don't stand up for what you believe and you think things are unfair and you need to have that conversation and there's again this, you can disagree without being disagreeable. If you don't do that what ends up happening is a building of resentment. It drives a a particular bent on not meeting expectations because there's a lack of commitment, and eventually that emotion is going to come out and it becomes backstabbing or negative, and you look bad. So be willing to engage appropriately, respectfully, using these these eight different methods, from don't make it personal all the way to, you know, don't getting upset and be willing to walk away, to your advantage to address things that are core. Don't overuse them. It can't be well the water in the water cooler's two degrees off so we have to have a big row. You have to use situational awareness. What's up? What's really meaningful for disagreement?But at the end of the day, if you don't address things you're the loser, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. I'm hoping today gives you some tools to do that individually as well as if you're a leader. Create an environment where disagreement can actually happen because those environment's usually the ones that last.

As always, check out the blogs - 90-second reads at hallettphilanthropy.com. And if you want to get a hold of me here on "Around with Randall" podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. Don't forget what we do is critical. You're the critical part of it. You bring great value to your nonprofit. If you're a board member, a staff member, or CEO, whatever you have a critical role to play. Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. That is my favorite all-time saying because we fall into one of those three categories. Every second we're breathing, and don't forget as people who make things happen, finding others who want to do the same partnering with us and our nonprofit. We're making a difference in our community and I don't want you to forget that, because sometimes we let the trivial get in the way of the big picture and that is what philanthropy is defined as, love of mankind, helping others. I'll look forward to seeing you next time right back here on another edition of "Around with Randall". Don't forget, make it a great day.