Rules of Thinking, The

RULE 67

Conflict is OK

Here’s a Rule to pick up where the last one left off. We established that it’s not helpful if you all think alike and agree with each other most of the time. So it follows that the most useful group is one that thinks differently and whose members often disagree with each other.

You can see the risk here. If you convene a group of people who keep disagreeing with each other, what’s to stop every session descending into acrimony, name-calling, sulking, animosity and – ironically, given the reason for it – dysfunctional lack of progress.

So avoid groups where everyone agrees, and avoid groups where you all disagree. What does that leave? Not so fast … I didn’t say you mustn’t argue with each other. You just have to argue ...