“Let us agree to disagree” – Most of us have been in the meetings (Personal and Professional) where we’ve heard this multiple times, right?
In all honesty, this is the most polite way of saying someone that you don’t agree to their point of view however, to keep everyone at ease and not spend much of anyone’s time over the disagreement, we say “Let’s agree to disagree” and move on. And let’s admit it, every time we say this to anyone or hear it from someone, it’s not a nice feeling for anyone of us and we know it is not the right thing to do as well. However, we proceed with our discussion and choose to arrive at a decision without the agreement of the disagreeing person(s).
There are 3 reasons we hear “Let’s agree to disagree and let’s move on” in any of the decision making discussions,
- The project/discussion which needs the decision making is not important.
- Not enough respect for the individual(s) to reconsider the disagreement and clarifying things before proceeding.
- Avoidance of Conflict.
Let’s consider the first point I made above, “The project/discussion which needs the decision making is not important” Do you really think we can just disagree on something related to the important project and still continue to work as a team on it? Not really. I bet you, if the project you’ve been working on is important to you, you will try to get all your team members on the same page to make sure that the project gets everyones collective effort to make it a success. Because if you don’t get everyone in your team on the same page, the project will still get completed somehow but, I doubt if it would be one of those memorable projects that you’ve ever worked on, as it would lack your teams collective passion for it.
To the second point I made above, “Not enough respect for the individual(s) to reconsider the disagreement and clarifying things before proceeding” If you ever deal with an important person, let’s say a CEO of a company for instance, to whom you are pitching your product or a service, would you really say something like “let’s agree to disagree” on any of the objections or questions he might have which probably, you were not able to answer him or give enough clarity on? Definitely not! So, why do we make it a habit of saying “let’s agree to disagree” in the meetings we usually have with our colleagues or friends or even family members?
The third and the last reason, “Avoidance of Conflict “ Most of the times we either said or heard someone say “let’s agree to disagree” is because we are just decent human beings and would like to remain one, by avoiding conflict. We do not want to have conflict with our friends and colleagues. However, we fail to realise, that there is this unsaid and unrealised conflict that gets created right after we move on instead of addressing it. Which gets compounded over time and comes back to us in the form of resistance or dislike from the other person. Now if you compare this compounded situation of conflict to the moment of conflict you had in the initial meeting/conversation (which would have started all this) Am pretty sure, you resolving that conflict when it had come up, would have been much easier and less messier than dealing with it now, after it compounded over time.
To summarise what I’ve been trying to mean in this article, Conflicts, are unavoidable (and, Important) part of every conversation we have. It’s only when we have conflict, we know we have heard to different perspectives and have arrived to our decision, considering all the possible solutions (or at least there are no questions unanswered) The question is, does it make sense to avoid them for whatever reason by saying “Let’s agree to disagree” and move on or does it actually make sense, to understand the root cause of it, or to understand another perspective and try to resolve it before its too late.
Let me know in the comments section below, if you think there are any other reasons we say “Let us agree to disagree” or anything you disagree with from what I shared.
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