Disagree and Commit

In business, it's easy to make the mistake of thinking that coming to a consensus or agreeing on a way forward is a good thing.

Anything worth doing comes with a high level of uncertainty which by nature means that some of the people involved, be it a business partner, a spouse or an advisor will not agree with a certain strategy or idea.

Forcing a consensus will just lead to a comprise and a half-assed version of your plan. 

The important thing is to put all your cards out on the table. Disagree, commit, and move forward.

Most decisions are what can be called "Revolving Door" decisions which means you can go through the door but come back out again if it doesn't work out how you thought. 

Make sure you keep your ego out of it though along with any "I told you so's". No one knows for sure what the best decision is until you try.

Video Version

Transcription

Welcome to Training Tilt Friday Night Drinks. It's been a really busy week, and in this crazy old world we're living in at that moment, I hadn't even thought about doing what I was going to do for my video today. So I thought we'd just have a bit of a social occasion for a talk about what I've been thinking about recently.

Had a great day today -- this morning, actually. Went down to the beach and went for a run. Never seen so many people open water swimming without a race going on. And it's May, so it's cold.

So now everyone's allowed to go out, it's good to see everyone out and about. And restriction's going to be released even a little bit -- relaxed a little bit more next week. Hopefully, we'll be able to do more and more. So the world's coming right, I think. I'm going to be optimistic about it anyway. Everything feels good.

So, you know, what I wanted to talk about was the concept of consensus or agreeing. A lot of the time you think that you need to come to a consensus before you make a decision and go off and do something. So if you've got a business with a business partner or your working with your husband or your wife or a business advisor and you're making decisions about your business, many of those times, you can make the mistake of thinking that you need to agree before you can take action. Whereas, sometimes when you actually do agree it might not be a big enough action to really make a difference to your business.

What I've always liked to think about is that you disagree and commit instead of trying to search for some sort of compromise that you can both agree on. If you do that, you'll end up with some sort of half-assed approach to whatever you're trying to do.

This isn't to say that you're going to get it right. It's actually to say that you need to give it a shot to know for sure.

So instead of arguing about whether it's the right thing to do or not, disagree, commit, do it, and then you'll know for sure because you tried. So the important thing around that is not to have too much ego. Don't take too much ego into it. So if you're the one that decided was your path you took and it does work out, then you don't be too cocky about it. And if it was the decision you think of that wasn't a good idea that you ended up committing to, then you shouldn't have the "i-told-you-so" attitude because you never know until you try.

When you've been in business long enough, you'll figure out that you get half the things right and half things wrong. So you need to become prepared to make decisions that don't work out because otherwise you won't make any decisions at all. And that's the worst thing in business.

If you don't make any decisions, and then they just get made for you rather than you making them and controlling the destiny of your business.

That's all I wanted to talk about today. Don't disagree too long. Don't don't argue trying to find consensus because you'll end up compromising. Just make a decision. Get on with it. Commit a hundred percent and then just see how it turns out.

All right. Thanks for watching. Thanks for joining me for a drink and I'll talk to you next week.