Disagreement is common these days, especially in our line of work.
Some spend weeks architecting a solution, convinced it’s the right one. Others bring years of experience from tackling similar challenges. Some hold strong convictions from seeing alternatives fail. Others face completely orthogonal constraints.
I’m no exception. I’ve been in each of these situations.
The trade-offs are usually clear to me. The path forward obvious.
Yet at the table, the person across from me disagrees, not because they lack competence, but because they seem unable (or unwilling) to see what I see.
I tried everything, but nothing landed except pent-up frustration.
In recent years, I began trying to see what they see, and feel what they feel.
In doing so, sometimes I realized that person at the other end of the table isn’t trying to be obtuse. They’re not trying to being unreasonable.
They’re simply operating from a different model of the world.
Everyone, without exception, sees through a lens shaped by their own experiences, constraints, and assumptions.
No two people carry identical mental models.
To me, this shift in perspective is critical and very helpful.
When you encounter disagreement, put yourself in their shoes and ask:
-
What assumptions are they operating from that differ from mine?
-
Are they optimizing for a different metric or outcome than I am?
-
What constraints do they face that I might not see?
-
What past experiences shaped their confidence in this direction?
Then, and this is crucial, ask the same about yourself:
-
What am I not seeing?
-
What blind spot might my experience have created?
The person across the table isn’t failing to understand you.
You’re both seeing the same world through different instruments.
The disagreement isn’t stupidity. It’s perspective.
This doesn’t mean you have to abandon your conviction. Nor does it mean the other person is always right.
Often, there’s no single “right” solution. There are only trade-offs, and which ones matter depends on what you’re optimizing for.
What this does mean is that the path to resolution shifts.
Instead of “convince them they’re wrong,” it becomes “understand what they’re seeing” and “show them what you’re seeing from their vantage point.”
The gain is mutual. When you genuinely try to understand their model, you often discover blind spots in your own. They see angles you missed. You see constraints they overlooked.
You grow in your ability to think more clearly about the world. You may still disagree, but the disagreement becomes much more comprehensible.
The world becomes nicer and easier to understand.
A nicer world is just pleasant, simple as that.
So, from time to time, try having someone see the world behind you too.