Your Opinion Isn’t the Problem (Secrets of the Career Game #4)

This might be the most misunderstood feedback in the workplace.

You’re not too direct. You’re not too opinionated.
You’re just communicating disagreement the wrong way.

In Secret #4 of Secrets of the Career Game, Kendall Berg unpacks the career-limiting communication habits that hold people back from promotions, leadership roles, and real influence. If you’ve ever been told to “work on your tone” or “be more collaborative”—this one’s for you.

🎧 Listen to this fourth episode in our 6-part mini-series leading up to the book launch on May 13.

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📌 In this episode, we discuss:

• Why is how you disagree more important than your opinion?

• What do people mean by “work on your communication”?

• How do I give feedback without sounding combative?

• What’s the best way to disagree with a senior leader?
  
  

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That Career Coach

Want to know more about Kendal Berg, that career coach?

Follow her on Instagram: @thatcareercoach_

Check out her courses on the website: https://thatcareercoach.net/

Build out the tools you need to navigate the corporate game: — Self Driven Mastermind

 

Episode Transcript

Kendall Berg (00:00):
Welcome back to week number four where we are sharing secret number four of the career game. This secret, honestly, I feel like should be printed on most companies orientation manual. I feel like when you started a company they should be like, hey, just as a heads up, want to make sure you know this feel like it would set so many more people up for success. This secret is how you communicate. Your disagreement is actually more important than your opinion. I feel like I could mic drop and that could be the whole episode for this week. I just want you to noodle on it. I want you to absorb it, meditate on it, think about it while you run how you communicate. Your disagreement is more important than your opinion.

(00:49):
The reason that this is a secret of the career game is because people think the reason they're getting feedback that they're too assertive, too aggressive, too direct, they're difficult to work with, they don't know how to communicate. They need to work on their communication. They're not ready to get promoted. People think that the reason behind that is because they're sharing their opinion, but that's not it. The reason you're getting held back in your career is because the way you are sharing your opinion is not collaborative with other people. This is so important to me.

(01:25):
So important to me because this is the mistake that I made all the time before I was a career coach, before my career accelerated, back when I was told by a senior leader that I looked up to that I needed to become likable or I was never going to get promoted. This was it. This is the single secret that held me back in my career the longest. When you are communicating disagreement, we all have a tendency to get emotionally reactive, defensive, argumentative. We tend to get frustrated. We use shorter, more aggressive language. Everybody on earth when you disagree, tends to go that route. All right. Or you shut down completely, which obviously is not ideal either. Okay. When it comes to communicating your disagreement, there are better ways to share your opinion. I'll give you three better ways today.

(02:24):
And then if you want more, check out the book first. Better way is to ask a bunch of questions. There is no need to tell someone that they're wrong or that you disagree. If you can prove to them that they're wrong by asking the right question. Somebody says, hey, I want to change this process. And you're like, that's not going to work in this situation. Ask the question, how would that work in this situation? Maybe they've already found answer and then you don't look dumb for arguing and they're Right. And great, now we can side with them, but maybe they don't have a solve and you're correct and they shouldn't go that route. And they're going to find out when you ask that question that they're wrong. And that's way better than you sitting there and going, you're wrong. That's not going to work.

(03:06):
It's going to be way better for your relationship with that individual. Right. It's the first thing we need to communicate your disagreement. Start asking questions. Maybe you're wrong. None of us like to admit that we could be wrong in a situation. I know this. I do. But you could be. I've been wrong plenty of times. Lots of times. Okay. Ask questions. It'll not only save your face in case you are wrong, but also it's easier to lead a horse to water. That's a Southern saying. Okay, Second thing, when it comes to communicating your disagreement is not to disagree but to state alternatives. Right. And when you do this, you must acknowledge first, okay, the mistake people make is they say, interesting idea. I wouldn't do it that way. I would do it this way, or I don't want to do that.

(03:54):
What if we did this instead? Instead we're going to say, I can totally understand why you would make that recommendation. Because a lot of the time we can. We get it. We know where they're going. We might think they're wrong, but we know why they got there. Right. Hey, I appreciate your perspective. I totally get where you're going with this. In my opinion, it might be more effective if we tried this alternate route. Do you think there's something that we could do in the middle there? Now, we have acknowledged that they are not an idiot and that we get their thought process and we've made a recommendation for an alternate path. We didn't shut their idea down. We just offered something alternate. This is huge when you're disagreeing, because a lot of the time people skip, acknowledge.

(04:34):
They go straight to their own idea, which then makes everybody defensive, argumentative, emotionally reactive, and all things talked about earlier. Great. Okay, so ask questions, acknowledge their position and recommend an alternative solution. Or third and last, depending on the seniority of the individual, state the potential risks and then just drop it. If your CEO comes to you with a great idea that they want to do and you're like, that is so stupid and that is not going to work, and I don't like it, and that's terrible. Probably don't say that to your CEO just for job security purposes. You say, hey, love this idea. There's a couple of risks I've identified with this. Risk one, Risk two, if we want to move forward, we can I just want to make sure everyone is informed.

(05:20):
And if they say, I want to do it anyway, you go, okay. And you go and you do it anyway. You may document those risks. If and when those risks occur, you may say, hey, so remember when I brought up this potential risk, how would you like us to address it? But you just do the work. This is where people get emotional connection. They think I'm right, so I'm not going to do this thing. Yes, you are, because they run the company. And you're going to listen. How you communicate. Your disagreement is more important than your opinion.