Introducing The Disagreement

We are building a media and learning company to celebrate healthy disagreement

Something shifted for me during the pandemic. Like so many of us, I’d been having political arguments for my entire life. But never before had they degraded with such frightening speed and predictability. Even with close friends and family, there was a degree of toxicity that I had never before experienced. I found it bewildering, and at times, mildly deranging. I was at a loss for how to proceed.

And then I found a coach – one of those gentle, spiritually gifted people who maintain impeccable eye contact – who led me to a deeply uncomfortable discovery: I was a big part of the problem. In my quest to explore the topics that had begun to feel off limits in Cambridge, MA, I’d fallen into the trap ensnaring so many of us: I had brought a deeply adversarial energy to most conversations. I was trying not just to win, but often to tear down and vanquish my conversational partner. I had been nursing a quasi-religious brand of enlightenment and disdain; aggrievement had become part of my identity.

Through coaching, I learned that there was an alternative path: a core set of best practices around how to disagree – skills, tactics, conditions, strategies and mindsets – that I could use to create entirely different outcomes. I was skeptical at first, but started taking them for a spin. I revisited previous conversations with a new disposition: I cultivated curiosity, I actively listened, I entered into them in genuine good faith. The results were transformative. The disagreements were still difficult, but the vast majority of conversations felt healthy and productive: rather than tearing us apart, they were laying a foundation for further engagement. 

In 2023, I was connected to Bob Bordone, a world class mediator and founder of the Harvard Law School Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program. He quickly became an advisor, partner and friend. We teamed up with Catherine, Claire, and Greg, and embarked on a mission to showcase the power and potential of healthy, productive disagreement as far and wide as possible.

Productive disagreement is how we learn, grow and collaboratively solve problems. It’s at the core of healthy relationships and it's an engine of progress. Yet, as a culture, we’re increasingly avoiding conflict or hurling ourselves into it in fundamentally toxic ways.

After nine months of work, we’re incredibly excited to unveil what we’ve created:  

Introducing The Disagreement – a media and learning company that celebrates healthy disagreement in all aspects of life.

• On the media front, our goal is to create catalytic cultural examples of productive disagreement. We lack good role models. We need to demonstrate that we can do this. And that the results can be transformative.

• On the learning side, our goal is to develop a rich, comprehensive taxonomy of effective disagreement practices, then create scalable services and products to bring the power of productive disagreement to every corner of the world. 

Please join us!

Xoxo,

Alex