"Disagree and Let's See"

"Committing to something you disagree with is an emotional contortion that is hard to do in practice. But the work of every team is a series of experiments at its heart, and by changing the onus from "let's commit to this thing we don't all agree with" to "let's try it and see what happens", we move from steamrollering dissent to mutually agreeing on an experimental hypothesis and testing it. You're learning based on agreed criteria."

"Third, use the phrase "disagree and commit." This phrase will save a lot of time. If you have conviction on a particular direction even though there's no consensus, it's helpful to say, "Look, I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?" By the time you're at this point, no one can know the answer for sure, and you'll probably get a quick yes."

Propose 'Disagree and let's see' as a team practice that preserves honesty while maintaining alignment. It frames decisions as experiments where team members acknowledge they didn't choose the path but agree on the experiment and learning goals. Framing choices as experiments reduces emotional contortion from committing to directions one lacks conviction in and replaces steamrollering dissent with collaborative hypothesis testing under agreed criteria. Outcomes produce shared learnings and next steps instead of winners and losers. The approach aligns with Jeff Bezos's original 'disagree and commit' intent by asking teammates to gamble together when uncertainty remains and evaluate results.

Read at Ben Werdmuller