The Problem with Agreement and Three Questions to Fix It

Most team discussions open by finding common ground. Many of them stop there.

Over the years, Good Judgment has worked with hundreds of organizations, from new analysts to C-suite leaders and across industries ranging from the military and finance to energy. Here’s one thing we’ve discovered: the best decision processes consistently address three types of questions.

1. What do we agree on?

This is where most discussions begin. Unfortunately, it’s also where many of them end. Whether in boardrooms or casual conversations, people naturally look for common ground. Reaching agreement feels productive, and teams often assume that what everyone agrees on must be what matters most.

Shared understanding is important. But consensus alone can be misleading. The most critical issues are often the ones that remain unexplored because no one raised them. A team that focuses only on agreement risks overlooking the factors that could determine success or failure.

2. What do we disagree on?

This question can make the discussion uncomfortable, but it’s essential to better decision making.

Disagreements reveal assumptions and competing interpretations of the future. They surface risks that the team may otherwise overlook. Identifying sources of disagreement early allows a team to evaluate and prepare instead of discovering risks the hard way when it’s too late.

High-performing teams often assess disagreement naturally. But even newly formed groups can ace it with a structured approach. One effective method is adversarial collaboration, a concept championed by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and developed in research with Phil Tetlock, Barb Mellers, and others.

The idea is simple: make disagreements explicit and measurable. Competing groups identify the key questions that divide them, then track outcomes over time to see which views align more closely with reality. We teach the particulars of this method in our executive workshops.

Organizations can strengthen this process further by bringing in impartial Superforecasters with demonstrated records of accuracy. Independent forecasts help test assumptions and provide an outside perspective when internal debates become entrenched.

3. What would change our minds?

Superforecasters routinely identify the evidence that would cause them to revisit a judgment. They understand that confidence and certainty are not the same thing.

The same question is critical when evaluating expert opinions. If someone cannot identify any evidence that would change their view, that should raise concerns. Absolute certainty may make for compelling presentations, but it is rarely useful in the real world.

A more formal version of this exercise is the pre-mortem, pioneered by psychologist Gary Klein. Team members imagine that a decision has failed and work backward to identify the reasons. The result is a list of risks, opportunities, and early warning indicators worth monitoring.

We saw the value of this approach in 2019 during a workshop with a Canadian investment firm. Participants were assessing China’s economic outlook for the coming year. During a pre-mortem exercise, they identified several potential risks, including trade conflict, a real estate downturn, and a SARS-like disease outbreak. When reports of a new virus began emerging from China, that client was better prepared to respond than many competitors.

Better Questions, Better Decisions

Organizations rarely gain an advantage by discussing only what everyone already agrees on. The greatest value often comes from identifying disagreements, testing assumptions, and clarifying what evidence would change a view.

Teams that make these three questions part of their decision process are, in our experience, better equipped to adapt, staying ahead of the competition. If you’d like to learn more about how we can support your team’s decisions, get in touch.