Two people can leave the same conversation believing they were perfectly clear and still continue arguing about different problems. One is worried about the deadline. The other is worried about who will be accountable for the outcome. Until those concerns are separated, every explanation sounds like a rejection of the other person’s concern. The tone rises, and the possibility of making a decision recedes.
I understand practical intelligence as the ability to work through the gap between what is being said and what actually needs to be resolved. It does not require everyone to accept the same interpretation. It requires people to identify a decision that can be made, the limits each person is working within, and the conditions that would make a compromise responsible.
Imagine that one team receives an incomplete deliverable from another. It can immediately conclude that the other team was careless or indifferent. Or it can begin by describing what is missing, explaining the effect of the omission, and clarifying when the next stage of work must begin. The second approach creates room for inquiry. The first may force everyone to defend their character before anyone addresses the deliverable.
This does not mean ignoring repeated behavior or accepting every explanation. It means building a verifiable basis for the conversation. Was the document delivered? Which part remains unfinished? Did everyone understand the deadline in the same way? Did the requirements change? Questions like these help distinguish poor execution from ambiguous instructions or an unrecognized dependency.
When the description is precise, the request can remain firm without becoming a personal attack. I can say that specific information is necessary to proceed. I can explain that its absence prevents a decision. I do not need to claim that the other person never cares or is always unreliable. Generalizations may satisfy the irritation of the moment, but they rarely help define the next step.
A position often enters a conversation as a demand: it has to happen today, it has to go through me, or it has to follow this particular path. Before accepting or rejecting that demand, I try to understand what it is meant to protect. It may reflect a commitment to another team, fear of repeating an earlier mistake, or responsibility for a consequence that others do not yet see.
Understanding is not automatic agreement. It gives me a way to assess the demand according to the problem it is trying to solve. If the concern is that information will be lost during a handoff, perhaps the record can be improved without concentrating every decision in one person. If the issue is a confirmed external deadline, perhaps the scope of the first delivery should be reduced instead of pretending that everything can fit within the available time.
The useful question must be asked with genuine curiosity. When someone asks only to expose a contradiction, the conversation remains a contest. I prefer a concrete question: what consequence are you trying to prevent? After asking it, I need to hear the complete answer. Interrupting to defend my preferred solution can block the information that would make that solution better.
Not every part of a decision is open to negotiation. There are commitments already made, responsibilities attached to a role, and conditions that a team cannot change by itself. Yet many conversations become stuck because these limits are presented vaguely. Someone hears that nothing can change, even though alternatives remain in the sequence, format, or distribution of the work.
I find it useful to separate three areas: what is already determined, what can still be chosen, and what depends on another decision. That distinction can fit into a short conversation. It prevents people from promising authority they do not have while allowing them to exercise the authority that is available. It also reduces the temptation to send every question to the highest-ranking person, who then ends up deciding details without enough context.
In the case of an incomplete deliverable, the final objective may remain unchanged while the sequence shifts. An independent part may move forward while the missing information is investigated. That solution is responsible only if the dependency has genuinely been separated. Dividing work on paper while preserving the same hidden blockage does not create progress. It only changes the appearance of the delay.
A cordial conversation can end with vague promises to improve, follow up, or pay closer attention. The intention may be positive, but each person can imagine a different action. For me, an agreement begins to gain substance when someone can say what they will do, what information they will use, and when the result will be confirmed.
That confirmation does not need to become another meeting. It may involve providing the missing material, responding through the agreed channel, or updating a shared record. What matters is that the person depending on the deliverable can recognize when it has arrived. The person doing the work also needs to know when the commitment has been met, rather than remaining vulnerable to an evaluation that changes after the work is complete.
If a necessary condition has not been secured, it should be recorded as a condition. Agreeing out of exhaustion and discovering later that the commitment was impossible only extends the conflict. An honest answer may be less comfortable in the moment and more useful to everyone involved. The decision-maker can then choose with accurate information, including what is still unavailable.
After the immediate urgency has been handled, it is worth asking why the disagreement repeated itself or became so difficult. Perhaps the handoff between teams is unclear. Perhaps two leaders are giving incompatible instructions. Perhaps pressure led someone to make a commitment without consulting the person expected to deliver it. The correction should reach the point in the process that produced the problem.
This is also where a team must distinguish disagreement from unacceptable conduct. People can debate options firmly while continuing to respect one another. Humiliation, threats, and inappropriate exposure do not need to be tolerated in order to preserve a conversation. The behavioral boundary should be clear, and the response should fit the situation. Solving a problem does not mean requiring the affected person to endure everything in silence.
I would not judge leadership by the absence of disagreement. I would ask whether people can raise concerns without fear, whether they have a fair process for addressing them, and whether they leave with a decision they can understand. Calm has value when it helps people do this work. When it merely conceals an unresolved conflict, the problem is still waiting.
A conversation can end without enthusiasm and still have been useful. There may be a clear commitment, an identified responsibility, and a condition for revisiting the decision. That is enough to begin working.
Understanding does not need to be perfect before progress becomes possible. A well-handled disagreement does not erase every difference or guarantee that the chosen path will succeed. It creates an honest next step, makes its limits visible, and gives people a way to recognize whether the decision is working. That is the standard I would use: not whether everyone feels satisfied, but whether the group can move forward without pretending that the unresolved parts do not exist.
Adaptação editorial da peça publicada em https://opiniao.thebusinesshunters.com/noticias/um-desacordo-bem-conduzido-precisa-de-uma-decisao-possivel-pt-pt/index.html. Não é uma tradução literal do título.