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The conversation today is fast paced, energetic, and touches on a lot of topics impacting organizations and individuals around the world. We look at how and why people are struggling with well-being, having a voice at work and if that’s even possible in today’s cancel culture climate, if you can really control technology or if technology controls you, the woke movement and the impact that is having on organizations and individuals including what Todd calls the speed to intolerance.
Dissent and insubordination aren’t typically associated with high-performing employees or successful teams and companies.
But according to Todd Kashdan, professor and best-selling author of The Art of Insubordination: How To Dissent & Defy Effectively, insubordination can be productive—even beautiful and powerful.
People conform daily, from following a line to get their morning coffee to taking turns for the copier at work and waiting for an open moment to speak in a meeting. Kashdan says conformity reduces the uncertainty in other people and helps avoid awkward or uncomfortable situations. When we know what to expect from other people’s actions, we can move smoothly through the day.
But conforming to every process and decision doesn’t challenge or improve people or companies. When people dissent by arguing a point or going against what’s been accepted by the group, they bring deeper questions forward. They are challenging the precedent and process of how decisions are made. Kashdan put it this way:
“That is the beauty of dissent. Even if you disagree with the view, even if the view is wrong, it improves the intelligent decision-making of the group.”
Members of a team or society don’t have to agree with each other on everything. That’s not how change happens or how the world gets better. But Kashdan points out that we can’t make assumptions about how people disagree with us and let it taint the rest of their identity. Dissent shouldn’t breed intolerance.
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