Disagreement

Disagreement isn’t always easy to handle, it can feel uncomfortable or even upsetting. But I’ve learned it’s where the real work begins. The best meetings I’ve been in didn’t end with fast nods. They started moving when someone said, “I see it differently,” and we had to slow down, ask better questions, and sharpen the idea.

History backs this up. For centuries, many people in Europe followed the Ptolemaic view: Earth at the center, everything else moving around it. It fit what the eye could see. In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus put forward a controversial thought: the planets, including Earth, orbit the Sun. Decades later, Galileo Galilei pointed a new tool, the telescope, at the sky. He saw moons circling Jupiter and the phases of Venus. They were clues that supported a Sun-centered system. His support for this view sparked fierce debate. Tragically, he was tried and kept under house arrest! The cost was real. But the long-term result was a shift in how people looked at the world and what counted as proof.

I think about that when I was a lab asisstant coordinator back in univetsity. A junior colleague pushed back on my lab schedule. He said the rotation looked tidy on paper but would force weekend shifts and slow the experiment timeline. It stung a bit. We sat down with the calendar, mapped prep times and equipment slots, and tried a new rotation. The change pulled the lab schedule forward by a few weeks and kept weekends free! It's not because yes sir yes bos mentality, but because he was willing to openly disagree.

Good disagreement isn’t a fight, it’s a method. It asks us to explain our thinking in plain terms, to listen for the detail we missed, and to separate pride from truth. It works best when we come in curious, not combative. We don’t grow by saying yes to everything. We grow by holding ideas up to the light. That takes some courage, and it takes respect.