Everyone gets on perfectly with their fellow team members, all teams exist in wondrous harmony, and work procedures are a streamlined dream.
No? Okay, let’s get to it then.
Disagreement is good. Hold on… really? Okay, voicing disagreement CAN be good. It’s all about what we do next when confronted with differing viewpoints.
Any team in the workplace, sporting field or Escape Room is going to come across a situation where there is conflict in how to reach their objectives. Humans make mistakes. We don’t know everything. Even when we think we know all there is on a subject we usually hardly know about it (see also: Dunning-Kruger Effect). So getting a second opinion can be great, if we take it in a constructive spirit. The way disagreement can be seen as a positive or not is which direction we let it head in. Do we let it become conflict, or do we use it as a stepping stone to provoking creativity, solving problems and actually building trust in relationships.
Great Minds Don’t Have To Think Alike
An Escape Room might be just what your team needs to improve on disagreeing. One of the most fun activities around, in a fresh location and with a fresh mindset, this teambuilding opportunity provides a situation where a team can work closely to achieve a shared objective, but without the spectre of work looming over it.
We All Think The Same
Studies have shown a trend towards conformity, in fact it is how we have got this far as a species. Living in harmony with each other has progressed humanity, and the easy option in work meetings is to follow the apparent consensus. This part is important for occupational survival if you calculate that the consequences for disagreeing are too risky. The result, a false consensus. Put your team in an Escape Room, a false consensus brings you an unsolved puzzle and a steady ticking down of the clock, but hey at least you didn’t disrupt the boat with your suggestion of a different response. Let’s look at it again: the basic premise of puzzles to solve where a team needs everyone to get involved; this is a safe space to crowdsource different options as all team members have an easily definable goal to collaborate towards. By stepping out from the group, we are able to put forward creative solutions.
Don’t Tell Me What To Think
If you have hit the proverbial brick wall, be it in your work project or in an Escape Room, it can be best to get a second opinion with the specific intention that it disagrees with your failed approach. Are you stuck on making that sale, cracking that code, or finding that link? By purposefully not telling your would-be helper nothing about what you have already attempted, you can allow them to formulate their own technique without being primed to try yours first and risk being stuck in the same perspective. Avoiding having the mental agreement be made allows a fresh ‘disagreement’ to move in [hopefully] a creative and effective way.
Don’t Think About Me
What sets disagreement apart from conflict for us here is not allowing emotions into the equation. Keeping arguments narrowly focused, not involving any comment about any individual, and ensuring that what you say comes from a constructive place, can all contribute to your colleagues valuing your input, respecting your efforts, and putting the goals of the team above any possible discomfort.
Where an Escape Room can help with fostering good disagreement in your work teams is in giving permission to them to come together for a fun objective, with a series of puzzles that will easily allow for differences in approach in being solved. See how much disagreement you can have entering a code in a lock with 10 seconds left on the countdown, and know that in Monday morning’s meeting, you are all still working towards the same team goals.
What Do You Think We Should Do Now?
So the take home (take to work?) message here is to rock the boat: groups can reach their objectives better when they are able to voice different opinions freely. If you aren’t sure how well your colleagues can get good at it in the office, get them together and practice it in a fun location first.
