Guideline #3 – Encourage Disagreement

In “How to Cultivate Engaged Employees” Vlachoutsicos states disagreement creates engagement.  In addition, it makes for better decisions.

At Intertech’s yearly strategic planning meeting, debate’s encouraged.  I remind all of us “We can be hard on ourselves or our competitors will be more than happy to.” Last year, we spent half our time debating a particular goal.  I was pushing for an alternate goal.  We disagreed.  We debated.  In the end, others successfully argued their point.  The “winning” goal was to significantly invest in virtual training.  

Thanks to this disagreement and the resulting goal and action plan, we have a world-class virtual training solution.  From the infrastructure to our processes, it “ties” the remote live student into the classroom experience.  In addition, it ensures that the experience of the live “in room” student isn’t discounted because of the remote student.

Thanks in part to our virtual training offering, Intertech is having a banner year.  And, we’ve taken enrollments from throughout North America and added 100’s of new happy customers. 

Disagreement is good indeed.