Forging Resilience
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Forging Resilience
S3 Ep 88 Dean Leak: Disagreeing Well
If the room is full of nods but decisions still stall, the problem isn’t a lack of harmony it might be a lack of skilful disagreement. Aaron sits down with leadership and culture coach Dean Leek to unpack how teams can turn conflict into a competitive advantage without burning people out.
From elite sport to FTSE boardrooms, Dean has seen what happens when “win at all costs” collides with real human limits, and why sustainable performance starts with health before high performance.
We dig into one gold‑medal story that still stings: a last‑minute weight cut that delivered a podium but raised hard ethical questions. That moment became a leadership pivot—plan for dilemmas, debrief honestly, and define what “winning well” actually means.
Dean breaks down the practical side too: how to narrow the authority gap so people speak up, how a two‑minute meeting primer invites challenge, and how to build structures like disagreement zones that create clarity about when to debate and when to decide. The goal isn’t consensus for its own sake; it’s progress through rigorous, respectful thinking.
Along the way, we explore serendipity, imposter syndrome as a hidden superpower, and the both‑and mindset that lets empathy and accountability coexist.
If you lead a team, coach, or just want better conversations at home, this is a roadmap for disagreeing well and enjoying it.
Subscribe, share with a colleague who avoids tough talks, and leave a review telling us one norm you’ll try at your next meeting.
Connect with Dean on LinkedIn or via his website.
Welcome to Forging Resilience. Real conversations for high performers facing transition. I'm Erin Hill. And join me as I talk with people about challenge change and the adversity they faced in life. So we can learn from their experiences, insights, and stories. Today on Forging Resilience, I'm joined by Dean Leek. Dean's a high performance culture and leadership coach who's worked with Olympic gold medalists, FUTSE and Fortune 100 leaders, and teams inside inside organizations like British government, Microsoft, and many others. Dean Blends Psychology with his work and with let me say that again. Dean Blends Psychology, his work with Professor Steve Peters and years inside Elite Sport to help teams disagree well, stay emotionally fit, and build healthy high performance cultures. Dean, welcome to the show, mate.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Very, very delighted to be here and uh interested to see where this conversation goes. And it was been very delighted to have been introduced uh to you by our our mutual connection, Josh Fletcher. We'll we'll keep those stories for another day, but um when you have somebody mutually in contact.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it's always great um I w when those connections pull through because I feel like there's so much work that's already done there's a sort of m there's a certain groundwork that doesn't have to be covered, and they they already know these two people, so they'll connect them and the conversation flows a lot quicker, I think. It's uh so yeah, thank you, Josh. Tip of that hat. Dean, um mate, I I'm really curious. I'm gonna go straight to the end. And if there's only one thing that people take away from our conversation, what what might that be for today? What's the important thing that you feel that you'd want to communicate?
SPEAKER_02:Jump in straight to it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sorry, mate.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I love that. It's actually very different to where we normally start. I would say the thing that's top of my mind at the moment, if the audience are going to take some away that's really valuable for them, and I think not just in the context of them professionally, so whether that's the workplace environment that they're within, maybe it's working with colleagues in their teams, maybe it's them running their business. I would even say, hey, Litworth, we're entering the family season, right? So the the one thing that I hope people might take away is that we don't need to be disagreeing less, we don't need to agree more, we need to learn how to disagree better.
SPEAKER_00:Talk to me about that, mate. Disagreeing better, because uh my interpretation of that is a stand-up argument, chess poking, um, maybe some swear words, um, and quite a bit of emotion. So, yeah, I'm curious. I'm curious how how how do we go about disagreeing better?
SPEAKER_02:And everyone will have a different interpretation as to what disagreement means, right? So, as soon as you hear the word disagreement, it will create some type of visceral reaction within you. So that word association will create a feeling and an emotion, right? You might have that sense of uh what most people might experience, which is a discomfort that might show up in the body that leads to the behaviour of avoidance. Or you might get, as you described there, the kind of the shouting match. So I I almost I almost uh try to articulate this in a like a bell curve in the context that when we are like in a disagreement, you've got the two extremities of like one side, perhaps on the right, you've got conflict and disagreement showing up as uh fairly toxic, it's quite top-down, people are talking over one another, can be quite aggressive, it's a win at all cost type environment. I think of like your tech bro type environment that almost like gets over-glamorized um online, right? And then I I I talk actually about this big overcorrection that's happened in society where we have perhaps lost sight of what performance really means, and what we've focused on is to the detriment of performance, employee satisfaction. So the goal is like how do we make employees happy, harmonious, and aligned rather than how do we create the right conditions for success and performance? And when in this overcorrection, what we've kind of opted for is um, you know, trying to um you know keep the peace, keep everybody happy, keep it really sort of like low friction, um, really comfortable, really safe. You know, it's that whole psychological safety interpreted as it just being that safety, and it's um kind of shielded people away from the realities of what work and life is, which is it's really uncomfortable, it's messy, it's high in friction, it's complex. The one thing that is consistent in any organization or any team or any family, because of the very fact that when you bring people together, there's differences, there's different attitudes, there's different beliefs, there's different opinions, you can't avoid the fact that there is going to be disagreements. So the the thing here is we can't avoid it, we can't push it away. It's there. So, how do we actually harness that into disagreement being a healthy ingredient for us leading a better life in the context of making better decisions, being more innovative, being more creative? And to be honest, like I you you'll hear me often talk about we live in such a binary world now where it's all about this one thing, it's all about empathy, or it's all about joy, or it's actually all about being like really high performing. It's all about like for me, how things coexist together. So it's a both and winds up. In teams that disagree well, right, it's a bloody fun environment to be in when it's done really well. Like people with smiles on their face, they they they have that sense of energy and uh uh thriving thrivingness within that culture because they're because they're speaking their truth, you know, they're they're really they're really speaking up, they're being honest, and that's quite a fulfilling place to be in.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and and I'm keen there's quite a lot you said in there that sparks my interest, but I'm keen to go back to the performance thing then and because it's maybe more relevant in sport, but then we we we sometimes put certain sports or people or even professions on a pedestal and assume that we have to behave and act like like them. Um yeah, so I'm curious then, and my mind is going so performance, and especially looking at my my boy and playing basketball. So performance for for some people it's only about winning. So I'm yeah, I I'm not sure even what I'm trying to ask here. So let me pause and catch myself. Yeah, so are we misunderstanding what really perform what performance is then potentially, Dean Dean, and in quite a few different levels?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's a it's a really good question and observation, and I think I think it always depends, and it depends on obviously the individual the the coaches and the environment that that person's within. But if I think about my time working in an elite sport, and of course I think yes, there's definitely principles that apply in different contexts. So so maybe maybe we could unpick you know your world as well, you know, when you were within the military, and I think about the work that I do now across multiple different contexts, including private sector and public sector, right? Is the question really is like what what creates the conditions for us to be able to get the best out of people? And I think about my time when I worked in elite sport with the very best athletes who went on to achieve success. You know, there was never one thing that you know made the biggest difference, um, but but there was multiple things at play here. Um, you you know, you had athletes who had a a brilliant team of people around them, you know, and for many years I I talked about how we need independent, you know, adaptable athletes, and I quickly learned that that was actually the wrong frame. And what we needed was interdependent athletes who knew how to work with people to get the best at themselves. So they've got a brilliant team of coaches around them, they've got multidisciplinary team of practitioners that are helping them to, you know, focus on the things that matter for them on their own development journey. Um, you know, there's a brilliant leadership team um in place that you know removes distractions and just enables that team to go and deliver their best. Um, and one of the things that I think the Olympic system I guess reflected on over a period of when it first received quite considerable money from UK government to go and be more systematic in how it achieved gold medals at the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It had this, whether it was perception or reality, this focus on a no-compromise approach to winning medals. And the lessons learned over series of different cycles and decades was that in order for there to be sustainable performance success, they needed to learn how to win well. They needed to have the healthy in front of the high performance. Um, and and and that's where we started exploring the the duality, as it were, this both and between, you know, how do we create a high challenging environment but a hair high care environment? How do we create accountable teams, but teams were that were highly supportive? How do we how do we talk honestly, but we do that with compassion? So it's not this kind of binary world of us focusing on one thing, but how do we coexist behaviors that can supplement each other? How do how do we create an environment where it is insatiably demanding? There is a relentless ambition, but we also do that at the same time as having fun, and we take care of each other at the same time, and I think that's where the the context has shifted, and I'm almost seeing that almost playing out in the corporate space at the moment as well. I don't know if that answers your question.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I've I've taken away what I needed to there. So it's the ability to hold almost like paradoxes and tensions between this and and my personal interpretation for that for me is it's almost yeah, the juxtaposition of everything that I've done, military background, and the space and compassion that I can hold for my clients and myself. It's not one or the other, it's not fixed because it can dial up or dial down according to the need. Um, but what's really jumps out at me is yeah, is it healthy, is it sustainable?
SPEAKER_02:And there's been some there's been some stories that have really cut into that tension where it's just being facing you front on and it's questioned your own moral compass and your ethical compass. So there's there's been a couple of occasions where I've been leading a team. So there's an example where I took the junior taekwondo team out to the world championships in Taiwan. I mean, for me, it was about how do I get to them over there without there being like people missing missing their planes, and let alone actually getting them to the the actual you know the the the fighting mat and let alone going to deliver performances. So you take a team of youths out there from the age of 14 to 17, and you've got an experienced group of taekwondo coaches who have been in the game for a long time and they understand like the technical, the tactical aspects of the sport, um, you know, good human beings, but fundamentally are there to try and drive success. And I was very young in my career when I took this team over, and we faced this dilemma where we had a young female athlete who was fighting in a light category, so it was about 46 uh 46 kilograms, which by the way is very light, and this this this poor human being um was highly talented, um, but arrived in Taiwan needing to lose about two kilograms. Okay, so this is a couple of days before the fight, and the convention about them was that in order to lose the weight, you um you dehydrate and you limit the amount of food that they're taking. Um and and that was tried and tested, and it wasn't working. So, what you do next is um you obviously make them sweat out even more water, so you put bin bags on them. Okay, day to go. In Taiwan. So, what do you do? You put the bin bag on them and then you put them in the sauna and you get them kicking pads. So there's extreme hydration, you know, taking place here. And at the time, as a young leader, you know, I was um you know, lacking a huge amount of experience and like knowing what to do in this type of scenario, apart from lead it leaning into the coaches who who you know are just used to the way that it's always been done, right? You know, that's the way that you cut weight and that's and that's what you do. Um, and even though in my mind that voice was saying this doesn't feel right, you know, I I I didn't want to lose my job because you know I pulled the plug, you know, for the wrong reason. So we we we basically um continued until she got down to the weights um at 46 kilograms. And here was the thing that was most paradoxical was that she turned up the next day, obviously, you rehydrate overnight, she had five matches and she ended up winning the gold medal. So there's the tension, right? Yeah, and the rear forcing behaviour. This athlete's just what gone and won the world championships in arguably a very unhealthy way by stripping weight. Um, and I and I tell you that story because it's made me reflect on like what is the right thing to do in those scenarios, and on in hindsight, when you're dealing with an athlete's health at that age, what is important is their health. And I look back now, obviously, with hindsight and having way more experience in terms of leadership. I wish I handled that better. I think I'm richer for those experiences, but you know, being able to maybe do some what-if scenario planning around if this happens, what do we do? How do we respond? You know, and and having a conversation before the competition in a rational way, so that we can all be aligned on what we might do in that scenario, rather than just in the moment rabbit in the headlights trying to impress my boss, stay silent.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, which so many of us have so many of us have done. And I yeah. I I'm I'm curious, did you ever get any feedback from her about how that experience was in terms of cutting weight and and what those those those fights and the the go or the medals meant to her?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like pure joy, won the gold medal. Wow, yeah. Um and also that's just the practice of the sport. It's what's always happened. But you know, when I look back and I think who who has the choice here in terms of who's the responsible adult in this situation, and of course, like sports massively moved on, you know. Um, but yeah, pure joy, you know, gold medal, gold medal for her, gold medal for the sports. Um, but it had that it was a real leadership moment, inflection point for me to to really think about decision making in terms of like how do we plan for it more effectively? How do we debrief? Um, and how do we how do we manage those really complex kind of ethical situations? And that's why for me, because because there was this clear tension, I didn't quite know how to navigate the conflict. It it was an eye-opener for me in terms of me working on myself to figure out how do I manage conflicts more effectively, but how do how do I disagree more effectively as well, and that's where that became quite passionate for me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but I I guess there's some lessons that we're not ready to learn or that we wouldn't have been able to s to fully accept or or or take away that knowledge, wisdom, or experience just because yeah, we're not ready yet, or this is this is the lesson or the road that we have to walk before we're ready to.
SPEAKER_02:Um Yeah, there's there's not ready, and there's also being unaware.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So even though back then I was aware of some type of discomfort, I I don't think I was consciously aware of like what the ethical dilemma was playing out in my mind. So sometimes you only become aware when you've come into contact with an experience that then gets you questioning previous experiences, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Hence the importance of just you know that sense of just being very self-aware and reflecting on experiences.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and like you said, taking it back, taking it back to yourself. Yeah. Dean, now now that we've warmed up, mate, give us a give us a bit a bit about your backstory and what what brings us um to be to be sat here today, mate.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so born and bred in Exmouth, down in Devon. Um so from a very sort of humble beginnings, mum's a hairdresser. My dad was actually ex-military. Um, and then when I came along, he he left and um yeah, pretty much spent most of his career uh sort of middle management within BT. Um, I was a very anxious child, actually. Um albeit the um that playing sport and being a fairly good footballer was a um was me wearing the mask covering that anxiety. But sport was always my sense of outlet, my identity, the thing that kind of like brought me real joy. But I really, for much of my career, up until I would say mid-twenties, highly anxious, hated social situations, it almost like critical levels of imposter syndrome where you know I wore the mask of sport, but also like drank far too much, was highly conflict avoidant. I would like avoid situations where I'd have to speak out loud. I didn't want to go to like university, like lectures in case like they asked me a question and gave my opinion on things. So I was, you know, I was very avoidant. I never wanted to speak up. Um, and I'll talk about what some of the what some of the inherent strengths are of that that I've learned all the time. But yeah, as a result, really curious about psychology and understanding what's going on inside my dysfunctional minds, um, which led me to studying psychology and coaching at university. And then I went on to uh yeah, luckily meet my supervisor, Professor Steve Peters, which then led to my job in elite sports. I worked in elite sport for um the best part of 15 or so years, initially working with athletes on their own mental skills um and how they prepare for you know championship type performances and helping them to develop like emotional fitness and developing a better relationship with their own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. And then kind of accidentally fell into a uh leadership role while I was basically head of talent. So my job was how do we find athletes? Um, how do we create the right environment for them to flourish so that we can win more medals, hopefully, for the Olympic and Paralympic um system. And then got to the pandemic and set up my own business and uh yeah, worked with um All sorts of different contexts from UK government to um British Army to big kind of FTSE companies, helping them with high performance culture, disagreeing well, do workshops and leadership development. So yeah, that that's uh I've kind of skimmed over that because I'm sure there might be some bits that you want to dive into.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there is. And I think for me, the biggest thing that I that I'm I'm drawn to is the the transition from leaving the world of of tracksuits and shiny medals to and uh you know high performance to to creating your own business and that that that transition for yours from yourself and the identity around that. I'm I'm curious how that process was for you, as well as a hundred other little things that will that pop into my mind.
SPEAKER_02:Totally. So one thing that I talk a lot about of is the power serendipity um and what I'd call increasing your luck surface area. So for for for off for most of my life, I I saw luck, broadly speaking. This is a dramatic kind of oversimplification, but luck as something that is something that happens to us rather than it being something that can be created. So I really started to explore this idea of serendipity, which is that how do you try and create like lots of different happy accidents by being intentional about how you create success? And actually, the the my sliding door moment was meeting Professor Steve Peters, right? So when I was at university, my partner at the time was studying medicine up at Sheffield University, and she said, Dean, look, there's this guy who works for the British cycling team. Um, he um talks about sort of psychiatry within sport. I think you might be interested in it. Um, but it's a closed shop for medical students. So this takes this required a huge dose of courage. But basically, I got on the train up to Sheffield and I basically just broke into his lecture, sat at the back and listened to his talk. And as he was talking, I was like, this is what I need. And and and I was learning a huge amount at university, but it was um, it's what I would describe as like almost like symptom-level type interventions. We're learning a lot about like goal setting, visualization, self-talk, and like things that are incredibly powerful. But he was going into the sort of like the medical model side of things, and he, you know, he's had a background working with um in forensic psychiatry, so serial killer psychopaths. He's really interested in the neuroscience, really getting underneath the surface of like how people think and behave. So he was given this talk, and I went up to him like a shivering mess at the end and said, Um, hi Steve, really love what you do. He's like, Who are you? And I was like, Well, I'm Dean, and I'm studying sports psychology down at down down in Bournemouth. And he said, What are you doing here? Um, and I think like, I mean, his words were that he kind of liked the the courage and the ambience of going up to him. Um, and after sort of badgering him for a couple of months afterwards, he said, Well, why don't you come up to Manchester? Um, come and join me at the Bellodrome. And I literally just sat in on uh almost like a supervisory session when he was working with some of the top Olympic athletes, so the likes of Chris Horry and Victoria Pendleton, just watching him in action, and I was just in awe. Um, and very lucky at the time in the context that he was um you know developing a very small trainee group. Um, and he said, Why don't you come and join um our group? Um, I know that taekwondo are um looking for some support in this like talent coordinator role, and you can have the opportunity to work with some athletes on their mental skills. And um, I don't think you would ever get away with it these days from a HR perspective, but he was basically like, I'll give you a job. Probably felt a little bit sorry for me. Um, probably felt like um yeah, that that there was something there, and uh I went from there. So the luck surface area from that was my side and doors moment because I look back and I told the story so many times that I was just really lucky, and I was doing that with a lot of situations where I'm just really lucky, I've just been really lucky through circumstance. And actually, as I've looked back at moments when I've um had opportunities, moments have kind of presented themselves. Most of them were actually down to the fact that I did something, yeah. So I didn't, it wasn't luck, it was actually serendipity. I created the opportunity, and so then that kind of shifted my mindset of ha, you know what, actually, this isn't about waiting for luck, this is about creating it by planting as many seeds as you possibly can. And and and I tell you that story because that's what I've had to do since leaving sports. Because as a like a practitioner who like had a level of technical knowledge in perhaps like how to lead talent development, psychology, I had no idea on marketing and sales, I had no idea on how to create a business. And the the lesson from my experiences of seeing imposter syndrome as holding me back that I was a fake, that I wasn't good enough, that you know people felt like that I was fraudulent, actually transpired as being a as a as a super strength for me, which is when working with people, listening, empathizing, seeking to understand, um and and um showing some level of genuineness and authenticity when showing up to conversations.
SPEAKER_00:Love it. Yeah. What what what was your biggest lesson in in terms of yeah, uh getting out your own way and letting go to to move on to that to that next step and and take that leap and create your own business? What do you think then?
SPEAKER_02:I think for me, and I I have to keep on reminding myself of this, which is that sometimes you can get drawn to this illusion that like knowledge is power and that you can influence people or win business or create s success by just constantly trying to prove yourself or like tell people how brilliant you are or talk about your credibility in terms of qualification experiences. I think oftentimes people just want to feel seen and heard. So I so I talk a lot about like the problem is the solution. So when I'm on calls with people, I just get really fascinated by asking a bunch of questions to understand like what's happening in their world. So what challenges are you facing, like what's holding you back, like where are some of your pain points at the moment, and really immerse yourself into their world. Because let's face it, you know, it's done some work with L'Oreal this year. I've got no idea about their world, like no idea. Um, I actually did some work with the dermatology department. I mean, I had really bad acne when I was growing up, but that was the only thing I had. There's a bit of a story there, but really it was about, you know, we developed this whole project around the race to win for the year. So how do they sort of move away from feeling really complacent in the work that they do to actually continuing to be the number one in the market? But I've got no idea. So the only thing that I can really rely on is um asking some really good questions and and and immersing myself into their world as a place to then co-create with them how we might move forward. So, really, this is about understanding where you are, understanding where you want to get to, and then you start to become, as in the business owner, the person who can help them shift from A to B. But for me, it it often just comes down to to being that coach in those scenarios and asking really good questions and try to understand unmet needs, try to get underneath the surface, and and that's the thing that I've I've always felt that has become, if I had any strengths, like one of my strengths because I listened quite a lot because I didn't want to speak up. I listened, and the thing that felt less scary was asking questions. I've had to learn over the years to balance both inquiry, so asking questions and being the coach with advocacy, which is my opinion and my perspective on things as the consultant as well.
SPEAKER_00:Would you subscribe to the statement then that we can't take people that we places where we've not been? As in, if we if we are only surface level, we've got all this technical knowledge, but we're not actually implementing them, we can't hold that space or or create that space for somebody else. Because we will be guiding, albeit subconsciously, the conversation down a channel that we think is effective or or the the the right one to make or take.
SPEAKER_02:It's a good observation. What based on your experience? Because I've got I've got a perspective on this, based on your experience coming from your world, and you're in conversation with a client, and do you like if you ever come across scenarios where perhaps you feel like that you're not connecting because you haven't been in their world? You know, you're from a military background that doesn't apply here. How have you navigated that yourself?
SPEAKER_00:No, because then that means I'm thinking about me and my attentions on me, not them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or if I see this obstacle as, ah, well, there's the solution, it's because I'm projecting my map of the world onto them, which indicates some sort of projection from me. So that that that means that it's a potentially a blind spot from me. Um, that I could learn something about myself, about holding space for them to take their own or make their own um walk their own path, give them give their own answer, not not try and put words in their mouth or or nudge them in a direction that I think is better or or more effective. So I I don't think in generalizing that that we can help guide people if we've not not necessarily gone there, but at least emotionally created that space to be able to navigate on our own.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think that's that's fair. Because I think part of what we're talking about here is empathy. So it's it's a classic kind of buzzword at the moment, and it's overgeneralized. Along with resilience, but yeah. Resilience, yeah. Um I think so for me, like empathy is like how do you create a bridge between two minds? So I like the quote that like empathy is not about walking in somebody's shoes, empathy is imagining what it's like to walk in somebody else's shoes. So for me, I don't think if you're helping to solve somebody's problem, you don't necessarily have to have lived to their experiences. But what we must have is the capacity to emotionally and intellectually understand the position that they're in. So it's connect before correct, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I and and I guess then listening to that, we will if we are open, then we will hear what they say. And if not, then we can ask.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Yes, 100%. And that's actually uh our brains are wired to be distracted, right? So when we're in conversation, particularly even more so, I'd say, in the virtual world, this the amount of times I'm on meetings or I'm facilitating workshops or I'm just observing a group dynamic, people are just tapping away. Like you, and you know when somebody's not present, you just know, right? It's like we have a sixth sense for it. So you know when somebody's not present. So learning the art of this is easy, isn't it? Well, just be present in the moment. It takes a real skill to be able to do that. So for me, it's not it's not the skill is not about focusing, it's about how do you recognize when you've lost focus and learn how to refocus because we're wired to lose focus, you know, it's a it's an inherent um sort of reaction within our DNA to avoid danger, right? So we you know we we we will get distracted, and more so now in the technological world that we're in. So, how do we refocus and um find find a way to be able to just hook into what somebody's saying, and you know, whether that's just through eye contact or taking notes, whatever it is, but the the the art of being present is so important, and and one thing that I've I've really learned over years, and again, it's like a mantra that I follow, and and and in my notes, I have I capture and update quite a lot my leadership manifesto, and that's just some values and some principles that I live by that really matter to me, that almost act as my anchor and my compass to navigate the world in a more optimal way. And I I I love the phrase we need to spend less time being interesting and more being interested. We're so oftentimes I taught that you just need to try and find a way to, by the way, storytelling's really important, but like be interesting, show your knowledge, show your credibility, and it's very much about you imposing your world onto somebody else's rather than being interested, which is taking time to take an interest in others. And then they find you interesting because they feel seen and heard.
SPEAKER_00:And would this lead on to bridging the the gap then in conversations in terms of disagreement if we're gonna if we're gonna look at that as well?
SPEAKER_02:100% it is the gap, it's um it is the it's the bridge that enables you to create the space for and if we if we build on disagreement for me healthy disagreements, productive disagreement, disagreeing well as a concept is about creating the space for there to be a respectful exchange of ideas, perspectives, opinions, rubbing together with a with a necessary bit of heat, because there's differences, to move towards a more productive outcome. Disagreement for me is not about always finding an agreement, disagreement for me is actually just about being comfortable with the fact that there are differences and that what's more important is creating the space, I think even more so in this divided world, and they get me onto politics. We've only got an hour late, but like you know, there's going to be moments where there are going to be a real difference of opinion on topics, but and I think that we're but we're not we're not giving ourselves justice if we take the stance of we just avoid the conversations all the time. So how do we how do we create the space where they actually can um collide and also be in partnership with one another and still have a trusting relationship at the end of it? Yeah, and you know what by having that really healthy, compassionate, caring, intriguing, curious conversation, we might change our perspective um on things, and we might actually find that we increase our trust and we might find a more productive way forward, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and what comes up to me is as as I imagine that is or a different way of explaining our own perspective or point of view because we understand there, so rather than shouting about it, maybe we could sing it or dance it or or or or find another way of communicating. Um so how might you go around holding and creating that space for an organization? Because I'm also quite skeptical in uh in yeah, it's really out easy for an outsider to do that because they're not emotionally bought into the the company or they don't live it day to day. So I'm really curious how how you create that and how do you try and sustain that for them?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, so there's several layers to this. And this is a really complicated and complex topic, right? So there's there's no there's no silver bullet that's gonna be the math formula here. Um but that but there's a couple of things that I've done with teams to really help them explore this. So I like to break this down and look at disagreeing well in terms of how we think about it, disagreeing well in terms of how we are able to be disagreed with, disagreeing well in the context of what we say and how we say it, disagreeing well in terms of how we lead the conditions for disagreement to emerge, and then how we disagree well through structure, and actually how we create um forums and structures within our teams and with an organization that bring about like better decision making and um you know the better use of people's talents through disagreements. I think there's there's an interesting interplay, and you talked about paradox earlier between the individual and collective. So the question is well, is this about the individual developing the skill? And therefore, if everybody improves that ability, then you know everybody would just start disagreeing more effectively, versus the well, it's actually just about the environment that if we create a safe place for people to disagree, then people just by proxy become better at disagreement, right? So I so I think again, I think it's a both end, it's both of those things. Now, my starting point, and it often depends with teams. I I like to again go back to just if I'm doing a piece of work with a team, let's just really understand where some of the tensions are here. So try to move away from like what's the singular problem, but what tensions are playing out that's causing, you know, whatever the challenge might be. So the the the inherent conflict within the team, what's holding the team back, is it um competing priorities? Is it a lack of clarity? Is it that people would feel disempowered, whatever it might be? Let's just understand what the tensions are. So the tensions then become really important because they're the things that often aren't spoken about. So that gives me some really interesting material to throw on the table when we start doing some workshops to put them into the uh put them into the fire so that they can start actually having some healthy disagreements. I I work typically um if I was looking at what's the biggest bang for buck in this, I would be doing quite a bit of work with leaders in terms of exploring like how do they enable or disable the environment for people to speak up and challenge one another. And you can have some like huge effects just by how the leader might show up or talk or or what they might not say that creates the conditions, and sometimes that that those can be really simple interventions, but it requires obviously the leader to really reflect inwards and look at their own current practice and how they're showing up, and you know, I think about leadership as being the the mirror for how people behave, and a big part of that is like how do you lower you'll you'll probably recognise this, um, it'll be interesting to get your thoughts on this. How do how do leaders narrow the authority gap between them and the rest of the team? Because I think as as humans, certainly people like myself who struggle with self-doubt, have high levels of imposter syndrome, the thing that I don't want to do is upset the boss. Because if I do that, I'm gonna get thrown out of the group. So I'm gonna avoid doing that. So all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna stay silent, I'm gonna nod, so I'm gonna say what I think is going to impress the boss. And we know that that's not helpful, even more so in this world now where problems are solved on the front line. So we need People to be speaking up, solving problems, making decisions more effectively and independent from the leader. So as a leader, I need to create the conditions that are going to enable people to speak up and challenge me and each other. So I think from the outset, it's really important that leaders state that this is a critical property of a team that is high performing. That we must disagree effectively. Now we both know that putting a value on the wall and saying we need to disagree more effectively by itself is not only ineffective, it can be very harmful. So what's important is like how do how do the leaders actually start to embody these behaviors? And some of this might be really interesting. So the the the there's the interplay here between the leader and the structure, right? So we I've created some work with teams where we create a forum, and whether you want to call it like a creative tension lab or a disagreement zone, this is a boundary where we are going to put attention on the table and we're going to disagree effectively to meet said outcome. Whether that's just we want to voice what we think or that we want to um make a more effective decision. Leaders can play a critical role in that first two minutes, priming the environment by saying things like, look, this is a really complex topic. Um I recognize that we all have differences here, that we're all going to see things in a different way. That at times the conversation might get heated. But I I want to say at the outset that I recognize that there might be some things that I say that might be really flawed, and oftentimes I don't really know what the answer is, and I might be wrong. So I want you to challenge me if I say something you disagree with, and I want to invite that you know, for you to try that with each other as a team. So just that couple of seconds of priming at the start can dramatically increase the level of safety that people feel to speak up. And again, this isn't a one-hit wonder. We must do this regularly and consistently. But leaders can have a profound effect on shaping that environment.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and I can't help but reflect then that that back to my question of a few minutes ago around that you you can't fake those sorts of statements because what you who you are being it will come out in what you're doing. So you can't give a I think you can't give a speech like that yet when you walk away from that table having not reflected or acted like that in your own life, or it's okay today, but not not last week or tomorrow, in terms of opening that that gentle challenge or opinion or conversation. Um which which means which means that that that m yeah, when we stand in front of people, we need to have done a certain amount of that work. Not not aiming to be perfect or get it right all the time, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So so that then that that's a critical point, right? Because at the moment what we've got is we've got the um we've got the microphone out, haven't we? And we and we've we've made a compelling speech. So that's the start. What what's important now is what I'd call the two A's. So this is not just um applicable for leaders, but this is for anyone, right? So the two A's are absorb and acknowledge. So the the way to create the conditions for disagreement to emerge is first being able to develop the emotional maturity to be able to be disagreed with. So this is being able to take a step back when somebody says something that you might feel like that you disagree with or you find really challenging, and you feel that real discomfort in your body, this is creating the space between that stimulus and response to press the pause button. And then I say, let your breath be your first word. So this is the absorbing that emotional feeling that you've got, and then what we do, um, and again, I learned this from Professor Steve Peters. What we're doing is that space is allowing us to shift the blood supply from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, so allowing that almost rational brain to come back online for us then to choose how we want to respond. So just it in that space, what we're avoiding is reacting because when we react, we often will um counter arguments. We might do what um John Gottman talks about in his research, and he's done a huge amount of work with couples that have demonstrated the consistent behaviors that basically lead couples to divorce, but it applies to uh everyday relationships and and uh you know professional relationships, and those things are getting defensive, criticizing others, treating people with contempt, and then stonewalling, which is like going inwards. So when we press the pause button and we take a breath, we we give ourselves space to move away from those type of behaviors, and then rather than jumping into some type of like counter-argument or trying to instill your view on somebody and tell them that they're wrong and here's my view on the world, we acknowledge it by saying something like, I really appreciate you saying that. I have never I've never thought of it like that before. Tell me more about that. Or that's really interesting, that challenges what um Jane says. Um, I think there's something that we would be sort of well-verse to unpick here. Would you be up for exploring that? So you're what you're doing is you're absorbing, but then you're you're just showing a micro behavior that shows a genuine sense of, I've not considered that. Tell me more about that. You but you turn it into a question rather than jumping into this wrestling match where which ends up going down rabbit holes, endless conversations. You get this environment where you've got a lot of people talking, but they're not talking about very much, and then decisions just get pushed down the road and the conflict remains unresolved. So absorb and acknowledge.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love that. In in terms of absorbing, is that uh how long might the average person need to absorb? I know it's gonna vary, and if if if we're not able to catch um our first words being our breath, what what other sort of things or tools or ideas might we lean into for that, Dean?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so part of the we we spoke we've spoken about this before. I think part of creating the space is noticing the tension that you feel in your body. Because we don't often sort of catch the emotion and the label that we've given the emotion, right? So that that feeling of um anger or contempt or frustration, whatever it might be, but we can notice it in the body. So I think there's an element of like trying to practice the skill of being in tune with your body. So I I really draw on and love the work of acceptance and commitment therapy. I don't know if you've ever come across that before.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, I've heard of it. Yeah, I've not looked deep into it if I'm gonna be brutally honest, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's just um it's developing what it would call psychological flexibility or emotional flexibility, and it's this concept which is moving away from the conventional wisdom that you might see on social media, which is you know, stop thinking the way that you're feeling, or stop, um stop your thoughts, control your thoughts, get rid of those thoughts, you know, kill the imposter. And and this theory would say that you can't stop your brain from thinking the way that it does. Like our brains are wired to tell stories, and the more that you try to change it, the more that you become enraveled in it, and more that you become part of the dance, and then all of a sudden you become stuck, and then that story turns into a sense of identity. This is saying spend less time trying to change your thoughts and spend more time trying to notice them because when you learn the art of noticing your thoughts, what you actually do is you create distance from it. And when you've created distance, you then can say, Well, actually, I've got a choice now in terms of how I want to show up. So um, what was her name? It's not Lisa Fildman Barrett, and she has a very good book called How Emotions Are Made. It was her name will come to me in a minute, but there's a famous psychologist that um talks about the theory that well, it's a question. So, how how long when you've f when you have a physical sensation in the body, so you have that that moment of discomfort, that that emotion which manifests in the body, how long do you think it chemically stays in the body for?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I I think around 90 seconds. If I can for me personally, if I can sit with it rather than think about it, it's around 90 seconds or a couple of days, if I think about it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, she I mean, her argument is that um the the actual fact is that it sits in the body for 90 seconds. Anything longer is because we're holding on to it. Which makes sense, right? So that gives us hope in the sense that, like, yeah, you you can't stop the feeling and you don't want to stop the feeling, but what you can do is learn how to notice it and then use that to channel it into a breath or a question, or perhaps you just might want to ruminate on it for a little bit and just observe the dynamics. You know, there's options here. It's just trying to prevent you from engaging in the behavior that's actually holding you back.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. What I'm hearing is just yeah, if if we dip into reaction, that's that's potentially the bull in the china shop. Whereas if we can catch it and sit with it, then then then it opens up a different perspective for different options, and we get to respond, and maybe one of them's more aligned or in a greater interest of the two.
SPEAKER_02:Because I I totally understand that there's um there's times when you don't have time, and in a crisis, like we don't want to be sitting back and creating space for a nice little disagreement, right? You know, actually we need to act fast um and we need to make decisions and somebody maybe needs to pull rank and you know and actually decide what needs to happen. But in the context of perhaps maybe out of the crisis, but if you think about your reflections in in your world, if you're if you're happy to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, of course, mate. Yeah. Well, um how how did like like did did people disagree? Like, did did what like with high-ranking officers, did you find that the teams felt like that they could show dissent towards authority and with each other? How didn't it kind of work?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, not very often. And and I think I was a very young, very immature, very mask laden young man. And so I I a lot of these things I've only learnt since I've left the military, which is quite a while ago now. Um, and yeah, so I I did 10 years and relatively junior, so we I didn't have the opportunity to move up into those positions, and like I say, I was I was I felt like I didn't belong there, it was a mistake. Um, it's an accident. I I know that's not true now of having reflect on it, but my my self-awareness has come in the last six, seven, eight years that I've been able to, or I've had this space created for me to be able to reflect on past lessons. Um, so I would have said that was a necessary process and journey for me. And I I wasn't it wasn't my time to stand up. I didn't have the self-awareness or knowledge or even courage, to be honest, or compassion for myself to be able to speak up, maybe to make a mistake. Um, so it's part of that's not a relevant question.
SPEAKER_02:Um how much do you think that you felt like you didn't have the courage to stand up and speak up because of the environment that you're in? And also let's say that hypothetically, all of a sudden you developed the appetite to challenge or show some level of disagreement towards somebody, would that even have been tolerated?
SPEAKER_00:Generally, no.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Generally no. In in the latter part, my career.
SPEAKER_02:Is that a good thing? Or um is that just like is that just the way it is, or is that effective or ineffective?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think there's like you've alluded to, there's a time and a place for that, unless remember what the military is for. I think in the latter part of my career, when I was fortunate enough to serve with special forces, uh, there's a bit more lenience and tolerance of that, but there's still a bit of a pecking order, and different leaders worked in different ways. Um, but yeah, I think the military's got a very specific job. And the the question that I really ask myself now then is is it is it healthy, is it sustainable? It doesn't quite the military doesn't quite complete the circle. It teaches us how to act and perform in a certain way, but for so many of us, it doesn't quite give us the tools or the awareness to drop that or tone the a certain type of behaviour um or way of being down or how to transition from this high stake or high risk into dad, partner, um surfer, book reader, whatever it might be, you know. So there's um there's a there's a bit of a bridge there that in my case a long time ago was missing. Would it have changed? Maybe. I know people are working hard on those sorts of things, but change can take time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 100%. It's the I think you I think you make a really good point. And it's it's I use the analogy of the right ties for the right track. So, you know, you talked about the the different kind of areas of life, but even just in the workplace, there'll be different meetings for different um for different purposes, right? And disagreement is a tool that we can use that enables us to get to attention more early. Like disagreement is about raising things early so that we waste less time, we risk disengagement, we risk cynicism to actually people feeling like that they can contribute to move that in a direction that's way more productive and way more performing. So it's it's a tool, but yeah, it's as much about knowing when to use that, right? And and and and actually agreeing that as a team, as a set of principles. This is where we use it and this is when we don't.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean in it now that you say that, I reflect back to certain jobs where the the the the slightly more senior lads would definitely be engaged in planning where it would have been not not more voices would have been heard than the decision would have been made. Um, especially like I say in my my my latter job. Um yeah, but that I didn't have a big exposure to that just because of the the the time or relatively small amount of time that I that I spent there. Um but yeah, interesting question and more things to reflect on. Yeah, I like it. I like it when I get questions from the guests. So yeah, I apologize. No, no, I like it. I like it. Um yeah, Dean, I could I could speak for a lot longer, and my my and my gut says we're almost there. I'd love to drag you on. Or I mean, sorry, I'm not gonna belittle this conversation, but I'd love to bring you back on for another conversation as well, mate. But I I'm curious, is there anything that we've not talked about that you would want to mention before we start to wrap up?
SPEAKER_02:I'd love to come back on for another conversation. Um and I'll take some responsibility um in me uh waffling on a little bit. Um, but I I I enjoy this. I I think I think we've we've covered a fair bit there. I I I think my my sort of parting like message with a lot of this is that I think because of the nature of the topic, conflicts and disagreements, and it feels like it's an attack on our immune system because it feels really uncomfortable. It's so easy. It's a bit like going to the doctors, right? You know, we don't feel particularly enamoured by it. Um, so we often just you know try to avoid it, you know, do the checkup a little bit later on down the line, and it just creates like an either an even greater rupture or illness like with within ourselves, but also the organization. So I I talk about disagreement by design, like how do we try and become really intentional about this to to to make an impact? And I genuinely mean, and it and for me it's obvious because it's it's in the research and the evidence that it leads to not only um economic benefits, you know, it costs unresolved conflict, costs the UK economy about 30 billion pounds a year. You know, it's it's huge. And but not only that, I just think that it builds a sense of belonging. You know, there's nothing worse, and it's that cognitive dissonance, right? So if I'm thinking one thing and I have a real belief about something, but I feel like that I can't express that disagreement, that creates illness within people. It creates a sense of loneliness. You get situations where people, because they're smiling and nodding their heads, they look physically present, but intellectually they've checked out, and it's leading to, and I've heard this so many times from really senior people in organizations talking about talent just getting so fed up because it's lacking that performance culture of having the conversations that need to be had. So I think just maybe if you're listening to this and you're a leader and you're a team member, you know how how are you showing up in the context of there being the presence of a disagreement? How are you maybe enabling or disabling a culture of disagreement? And um, and what one or two things might you do to sort of build some awareness around this?
SPEAKER_00:Love it, and yeah, I'll be I'll be taking those questions away for me, mate. Um, but Dean, I've I've really enjoyed today's conversation. It's absolutely blown by. Um, there's so many levels to this. I'm definitely gonna go back and listen to this again, make some notes uh for myself. Um absolutely fascinating around around the disagreement and uh how to do it by design and intentionally to do it better or more effectively. So yeah, thanks, mate. It's been fascinating, and um, yeah, let's get another one in the diary.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. And I mean this genuinely. It's it's very enjoyable to come on to a podcast, and we've met a couple of times now where it feels really genuine. Like it doesn't feel performative, it felt it doesn't feel like my my imposter isn't amplified to the point where I feel like I need to impress. Like you've created a really good environment for that. So you've obviously been doing this for a while now. So yeah, thanks for that.
SPEAKER_00:My pleasure. Thanks, T. Cheers, mate.