Can your team disagree without falling apart?
Why the strongest teams don’t eliminate difference. They learn how to use it.
In February 2021, KPMG UK chairman Bill Michael resigned after comments he made during a virtual meeting with members of his team caused widespread controversy.
At the time, I wrote about the incident because it raised a question that went far beyond one leader or one badly received meeting.
What happens when people within a team stop feeling able to disagree with one another?
Five years later, I think that’s an even more important question.
Because good teams don’t consist of people who always agree.
They consist of people capable of disagreeing well.
DIFFERENCE ISN’T THE PROBLEM
Every team contains different characters.
Different experiences.
Different perspectives.
Different ways of processing information.
Different ideas about what should happen next.
That’s not an unfortunate consequence of putting people together.
It’s one of the reasons for having a team in the first place.
If everybody around the table sees precisely the same thing, thinks in precisely the same way and reaches precisely the same conclusion, why do you need all of them?
Difference creates perspective.
The problem begins when difference becomes judgement.
FROM A OR B TO A AND B
Much public debate encourages us to choose sides.
A or B.
Right or wrong.
For or against.
Once we’ve taken a position, something very human happens.
We begin defending it.
Then we start judging the people who hold the opposing view.
Eventually, people can become reluctant to say what they really think.
Inside an organisation, that’s dangerous.
Because if the only acceptable contribution is the one everybody already agrees with, the team gradually loses its ability to challenge itself.
And that has consequences.
Bad ideas go unchallenged.
Risks aren’t raised.
Assumptions aren’t questioned.
Opportunities are missed.
Leaders hear what people think they want to hear.
The organisation becomes less capable of adapting.
So perhaps we need to move from:
A or B
towards:
What can A see that B can’t — and what can B see that A can’t?
That’s a very different conversation.
CHARACTER MAKES DIFFERENCE USEFUL
Perfect Teams® is built around different characters and three fundamental ways of processing information and seeing the world.
Some people naturally want to move.
Some want to think.
Some want to understand how people will be affected.
We might simplify those as:
Go. Think. Feel.
Put them together and disagreement is inevitable.
The person who wants action can become frustrated with the person asking for more information.
The thinker may regard the instinctive decision-maker as reckless.
The relationship-focused person may wonder why neither has considered the effect on everyone else.
Each can judge the others from their own perspective.
Or they can become curious.
What are you seeing that I’m not?
That’s where character becomes useful.
RESPECT DOESN’T REQUIRE AGREEMENT
This distinction matters enormously.
Respecting somebody’s perspective doesn’t mean agreeing with it.
It means recognising that they may be contributing something the team needs.
The person slowing the conversation down may have spotted a risk.
The person pushing for action may recognise an opportunity that will disappear if everyone keeps analysing it.
The person asking how people feel may understand that the technically perfect solution will fail unless anybody actually supports it.
None has the whole picture.
Together, they might.
That’s interdependence.
LEADERS HAVE AN EXTRA RESPONSIBILITY
The Bill Michael incident also illustrated something else.
Leaders don’t communicate on equal terms with everybody else.
Their words carry weight.
A blunt comment from a colleague is one thing.
The same comment from the person running the organisation can land very differently.
So effective leadership isn’t simply about saying what you think.
It’s about understanding how what you say will be received.
That doesn’t require leaders to become bland, evasive or afraid of difficult conversations.
Quite the opposite.
It requires greater capability.
Can I challenge people without diminishing them?
Can I be direct while explaining why something matters?
Can I listen to a response I don’t like?
Can I change my mind?
Can I create enough trust for somebody junior to tell me I’m wrong?
Those are leadership capabilities.
THE DANGER OF THE SILENT TEAM
The most worrying team isn’t necessarily the one arguing.
Sometimes it’s the one where nobody argues at all.
Everything appears harmonious.
Everyone nods.
The meeting ends on time.
Then people walk out and say what they really think somewhere else.
That’s not cohesion.
It’s silence.
And silence deprives a leader of information.
A capable team needs enough trust to bring disagreement into the room.
Not so people can win arguments.
But so the team can see more of the picture.
PERSONALITY CAN DIVIDE. CHARACTER CAN UNITE.
This is one of the ideas at the heart of Perfect Teams®.
When we reduce people to positions, labels or opposing camps, difference can divide us.
Character gives us another way of looking at it.
Instead of asking:
Which one of us is right?
we can ask:
What does each of us bring?
Where are our blind spots?
What perspective is missing?
What can you see that I can’t?
That doesn’t eliminate disagreement.
It makes disagreement useful.
Because the objective of a great team isn’t uniformity.
It’s interdependence.
Different people.
Different perspectives.
Mutual respect.
And enough collective capability to turn those differences into better decisions.
Nobody is perfect.
But your team can be.
You can’t download capability.™
Can your team disagree well?
Perfect Teams® helps leaders and teams understand different characters, improve communication, recognise potential clashes and turn difference into collective capability.
Originally published 3 March 2021. Updated August 2026.
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