Connecteam

A few weeks ago I shared the first piece of career advice I find myself repeating: lead without the title. Here's the second one, and it's saved me more times than I can count: Disagree and commit. I got this from Kyle Petersen while we were at Gusto. I was frustrated about something (I think a quota increase for my team, but honestly the specific thing matters less than what came next). I was venting, building my case, looking for backup. Kyle heard me out and then said something like, "It's fine to disagree, you should even say it out loud, but when we open this door, you have to decide whether you're going to commit to the plan or not." That hit me harder than I expected. The instinct when you disagree with a decision is to keep relitigating it. Bring it up in the next meeting. Vent to a peer. Let your hesitation show in the work. None of that changes the outcome, it just slows everything down and quietly poisons the culture around you. Disagree and commit means two things, and both matter: Disagree. Say it. Out loud, to the right people, in the right setting. If you stayed silent in the room, you don't get to be the critic outside of it. Commit. Once the call is made, get on board. Trust that the people making the decision have context you don't. Look for ways to make the plan work instead of waiting to be proven right. It's not always easy. Sometimes you'll still think the decision was wrong. But the people who do this well are the ones I want to work with, and the ones I notice getting pulled into bigger and bigger rooms.