Working with agility involves developing some soft skills that make all the difference, especially when it comes to collaboration. One of these soft skills I learned from Plato, or Socrates - you can never tell who is who. It is a reflection of the concept of misology: the hatred of reasoning, of logic. From the dialogue of Phedon comes a maxim: we hate what we do not understand.
With the teams and in everyday conversations I have trained myself not to say "I agree", but "I understand". The reason is quite simple, I may disagree with what the person is saying, but if I understand what they are saying, then I am at peace with whatever that thought is.
Understanding means to put yourself in the other person's place, to understand the nuances that led the person to think that way, which, however crooked it may be, probably has its logic within a historical construction.
If I don't understand, all I have to do is say that I don't understand, and the person will explain his thought to me again, 9 times out of 10 the person makes even more of a point of going into detail, of giving even more context.
Because if I don't understand it is because it is not logical, because if it is logical I learn, after all it is logical. And if I don't understand because it is not logical, then each time the person explains it to me, the farther they get from incoherence, and the closer they get to logic.
The opposite is also true, if I don't understand because it is not logical, then from the moment I understand I get a little more logical and a little less ignorant. Understanding is sum.
To agree should have the same effect, but it is a word that refers to fla-flu. To disagree opposes me to those who agree, so here is my thought bubble, here with those who also disagree. To disagree is to oppose, to subtract oneself from the equation. It is loss.
Here is my provocation, in the next debate, don't agree, understand.