If you’ve ever worked at a place that takes “Disagree and Commit” seriously, you know it’s a beautiful idea, and absolutely brutal in practice.
The principle is simple. You voice your disagreement. You push hard. You make your case.
Then once the call is made, you commit. Fully.
No dragging your feet. No “I told you so” three months later when something goes sideways.
Probably one of the hardest lessons I had to learn.
If you’re ambitious and want to get somewhere in life, you already know. Most of the things that actually move the needle aren’t the easy ones. We’re all different and in different phases of our lives different things are important to us. But underneath all of that, I think most of us just want to live a happy life? Right?
I feel a lot happier since I consciously started accepting certain things as they are and letting any resentment go, immediately. It’s honestly not worth feeling bad about a situation that wasn’t under your influence to control in the first place.
If you’re employed, at some point you have to accept that you are working with someone else, for someone else. Even if you’re self-employed, you’re still working for someone. Usually the most demanding boss you’ll ever have.
And if you work with other people, there will come a time where you disagree with someone. It’s just how we’re wired. Everyone has different beliefs, motivations and desires. No one can truly experience what you experienced. Only you can.
So the whole game is learning to manage your energy, and recognizing the moment where you go “I can’t win anything here anymore”.
Disagree and Commit.
You said your piece. You made your case. You didn’t get the outcome you wanted.
Now what?
Often I was stuck in the “didn’t win” part for way too long.
At Sentry, over the years I’ve been there, I’ve had plenty of these moments. It’s not rare that decisions get made I didn’t agree with, or that I would’ve called differently. A few of them honestly made me question if it was time to move on.
But eventually I learned that even if I disagree with someone, or with a decision that wasn’t mine to make, trying to keep bending it toward what I think is right only ever results in more dissatisfaction. Mostly mine.
So you just gotta recognize these things earlier and make the best of the situation.
I guess wisdom is the right word for it. The older you get and the more situations you’ve sat through with others, the better you get at seeing through likely outcomes before they play out. The juice is not worth the squeeze. That’s wisdom you earn the hard way.
You don’t need to re-experience a situation to remember how it ends.
And of course this isn’t just about work. Same thing applies to an argument with your better half, someone cutting you off in traffic, or even the small good stuff like holding the door for someone.
You’re still angry three hours later because some stranger cut you off in the morning? Congrats, they got an entire afternoon of your headspace for free.
Wenn man sich länger als 15 Sekunden ärgert, sind es die eigenen unerledigten Geschäfte.
If you stay angry for longer than 15 seconds, it’s your own unfinished business.
Vera Birkenbihl
You have a lot more control over how long you carry resentment than you think. Of course it’s normal to feel it in the moment, otherwise you wouldn’t learn anything from it. But once you’ve felt it, it’s on you to accept the thing, the decision, and move on.
That doesn’t mean you stop paying attention or pretend it doesn’t matter to you. It means you’ve gained the wisdom to understand what investing more of your energy into this situation will actually return.
Usually nothing.
If you keep replaying the conversation in your head all evening, “why did I say this stupid thing?”, you can’t change any of it anymore. It already happened. Living in that past moment trying to rewrite it isn’t worth your time. Reflect on it, make up your mind what you could do different next time and that’s it.
So be conscious about what you channel your energy into. If you keep dwelling on uncomfortable things in your head, you miss the time you could be spending on something that actually makes you happy.
Disagree, hard, when it matters.
Then commit.
Then let it go.