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#YourCareer : How To Disagree With Your Boss. Here’s How to Disagree with your Boss in a Productive Way. BUT, How do You Do It?

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Relationships are hard, both in our personal and professional lives. Invariably, disagreements arise between any two people who spend a lot of time together trying to work toward a common goal, whether raising a family or launching a product.

In your personal life, you may be more comfortable challenging your spouse or sibling on a decision. But at work, disagreeing with someone, especially someone more senior than you, can be difficult. The power dynamics between an employee and boss can make it hard to speak up. How do you do it?

First, an Assumption

Before answering that question, let’s first assume you work in a place where your opinion is valued. This is an organization where something called “team psychological safety”—a term coined by Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmonson and faculty chair of HBS Online’s new CLIMB program—is part of the culture. As Edmonson notes, psychological safety exists when people feel “confident that candor and vulnerability are welcome in their workplace.”

One trait of organizations with psychological safety is that people aren’t afraid to speak “truth to power.” This is important for any healthy organization and a necessary pre-condition to allow you to productively disagree with your boss. If your organization lacks this trait, then the following advice may not work. If that’s the case, you may want to consider looking for a new workplace.

But if you’re at a company with elements of team psychological safety, here’s how to disagree with your boss in a productive way.

Don’t just make a pitch for a different path from the one your boss is considering or has already embarked upon because your position on an issue “feels” right. While intuition is real, research shows it’s informed by experience. The more junior you are, the less likely your “gut” will lead you in the right direction. Those who have been in business longer may know this.

Therefore, find all the data you can to support your position. But don’t just find it. Make it tell a story. Throwing a bunch of numbers at somebody without context and a structured argument is not very effective. Think in terms of “if-then-else”: If the data shows X is true, then Y must be our course of action, or else Z must be true, and another course makes sense.

 

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Article continued …

Be Respectful

Just because you may be right doesn’t mean you should go out of your way to show your boss they’re wrong. This is especially critical since you’ll likely continue to work with that person once the issue is resolved.

I recently came across a wonderful article by Phillippe Duhamel titled “7 Tips for Respectful Persuasion.” I list them below with my own take on what they mean when disagreeing with your boss:

1. Tune in and connect: Connect on a level and/or topic unrelated to the issue you’re dealing with. Since you probably already know your boss, this sense of personal connection is hopefully in place.

2. Pace the energy: Don’t be overbearing; mirror the energy of the person you’re trying to convince of your point of view.

3. Pay attention to cues: If your boss seems unconvinced, recognize that, and ask questions like, “Does this make sense?”

4. Be transparent: Said another way, be human. You’re not a robot. You were hired because you bring a different perspective and good judgment to the table. Use both.

5. Listen carefully: Your boss has a reason for their position. Hear them out. You won’t convince them of where you stand if you can’t address their own decision-making logic.

6. Stay humble: Even if you’re right, nobody likes a know-it-all.

7. Go, then let go: Make your best case but recognize that, in the end, somebody has to decide. And if that’s not you, live to fight another day.

 

Pick Your Battles

It’s unlikely your boss is always wrong. If you decide to convince them that there’s a better way, be sure it’s worth your time, the expenditure of your political capital, and could have a material impact on your organization’s performance. Deciding what color balloons to have on either side of the door for a retail location’s grand opening won’t materially impact a company’s prospects. But deciding where to put that retail outlet could.

That doesn’t mean you should, or even can, chime in on an organization’s biggest decisions every time. I once heard somebody say you should pick battles big enough to matter but small enough to win. I think this is good advice for young professionals. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to have your voice heard no matter the issue. But I am saying that you only have so much time in a day, so use your incredible insight wisely.

Don’t forget something I noted earlier: Even in an age of ChatGPT, human insight and judgment are greatly valued. You have large measures of both. Use them at work. Be strategic but not timid when it comes to showing those more senior than you there might be a better path. Practicing that muscle early and often will set you up for professional success. It might even help in your personal life …

 

Forbes.com | July 26, 2023 | Patrick Mullane

Your #Career : How to Request a Lateral Transfer without Offending your #Boss …When you’ve Been at a Company for a While, you Might want to Switch Teams to Grow your Career. Here’s How to Have that Delicate Conversation with your Boss.

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At some point during your tenure at a given company, you’re apt to reach a point where you’re tired of doing the same thing day in, day out. And if a promotion isn’t possible, your next best bet may be to switch over to a different team.

A lateral move can help your career in a number of ways. There’s just one challenge: How do you ask for that transfer without offending your current boss in the process? If you’re looking to jump from one team to another, here’s how to approach that delicate but necessary conversation.

1. SCHEDULE A SIT-DOWN AT THE RIGHT TIME

Telling your manager that you no longer wish to work for him or her can come as a blow, so don’t have that discussion on the fly. Rather, schedule a face-to-face meeting where you can share your thoughts and hear your boss’s thoughts at length. That said, choose a time when your boss can really focus and listen, which means don’t have that meeting first thing on a Monday or at 5 p.m. on a Friday. Also, don’t schedule that conversation the same week a major project your boss is overseeing is due. The last thing you want is for your manager to approach that sit-down in an already frazzled frame of mind.

Related: Don’t make a big career move without checking these 3 boxes first 

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Continue of article:

2. MAKE IT CLEAR THAT IT’S NOT PERSONAL

Moving from one team to another isn’t necessarily a reflection on your boss’s management style–so make that clear. Tell your boss that your career has taken a shift, but explain how you got there so that your manager doesn’t think you’re making excuses. For example, if your boss runs a marketing team, but you’ve been growing increasingly interested in the analytical end of things, it makes sense that you’d want to move over to the data team. In that case, explain how reviewing that team’s weekly reports piqued your interest and drove you toward that decision.

3. THANK YOUR BOSS FOR A GREAT EXPERIENCE

Your manager might feel a little hurt that you’re looking to work for somebody else, even if you make it clear that it’s the nature of your daily tasks that’s fueling that move. Therefore, it never hurts to express your gratitude to your boss for all the things you’ve learned under his or her watch. You can also affirm your desire to continue working together in some capacity–perhaps as a cross-collaboration with your new team.

Related: Ask yourself these questions at every stage of your career 

4. OFFER TO HELP TRAIN A REPLACEMENT

Moving to another team doesn’t just mean potentially offending your current boss; it also means leaving him or her in the stressful position of having to find someone to replace you. So, make your manager’s life as easy as possible in that regard by offering to train the person who takes over your role, even if it means working evenings or weekends to keep up with your new duties all the while.

Your manager will no doubt appreciate that courtesy, and if your new boss is a good one, he or she will most likely agree to share you during that transition period. There’s nothing wrong with switching teams within your company. Just do your best to be mindful of your boss’s feelings in the process. The last thing you want is to spoil an otherwise solid relationship when you have the ability to make a clean break.

 

FastCompany.com | May 30, 2018 | BY MAURIE BACKMAN—THE MOTLEY FOOL 3 MINUTE READ