Hi Reader

Sean McVay, head coach of the L.A. Rams is an interesting character.

One story involving him prompted this weeks newsletter…..

The room fell silent after Sean McVay finished outlining his game plan for an upcoming play-off game.

Not the good kind of silence. The uncomfortable kind.

His coaching & performance staff reportedly exchanged glances. No one spoke.

Later, after a crushing playoff loss, McVay discovered his defensive coordinator had spotted a critical flaw in the game plan; but kept quiet.

"I didn't want to challenge you in front of everyone," he explained.

That moment changed McVay's approach forever.

Great teams don't just work well together. They argue well together.

It’s a piece of inverse logic that many miss and that’s worth exploring……

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The Dangerous Illusion of Harmony

Most sports clubs/organisations mistake peace for progress. They value harmony over honest dialogue.

This feels good. It looks good. But it kills innovation.

I've seen & studied how this plays out across dozens of teams, from Premier League football to Olympic programs. The pattern is always the same:

1. The highest-ranking person shares an idea
2. Everyone nods along
3. Private doubts remain unspoken
4. Problems emerge too late to fix

Real growth happens at the edges of discomfort, in the moments when someone asks the question no one wants to hear.

The trick is creating those moments intentionally…..before your opponent creates them for you.

The Dissent Deficit

Most teams can't tell the difference between destructive conflict and productive dissent.

A common trend when I first took over teams/clubs was that team meetings ran one of two ways: either polite head-nodding or personal attacks. Nothing in between.

After particularly heated exchanges, key staff would retreat to corners of the facility for "real conversations" where honest concerns could be shared without fear.

All the valuable insights happened outside the room where decisions were made.

So, seeing this pattern repeat, I introduced a simple framework: "Strong opinions, weakly held."

Everyone got permission, actually no, the obligation, to state their view forcefully. But everyone also had to be willing to change their position when new evidence emerged.

This shifted the dynamic entirely. Disagreement became about the quality of ideas, not the status of the person.

Invariably, within three months, our decision-making speed doubled while implementation errors dropped by 60%+.

The performance differences followed shortly after.

Four Practical Approaches to Productive Dissent

Over years of trial and error, I've refined four approaches that transform how teams disagree. Each addresses a different barrier to honest dialogue.

1. Create Disagreement Roles

Most people avoid challenging ideas because they fear being labeled as negative or difficult.

To outweigh this, assign temporary roles that make disagreement part of the job, not a personality trait.

Before major decisions, designate someone as the "Red Team" whose specific role is finding flaws. Rotate this responsibility so it doesn't stick to any individual(s).

An NRL coach I worked with took this further by creating an "alternative futures" role. They’re someone tasked with imagining how a decision might look wrong six months later. Suddenly, raising concerns became a contribution and a real positive rather than an obstacle.

2. Change the Question Format

General questions e.g. “Anyone have any thoughts on this?", lead to silence construed as general agreement.

How about this. Ask specific questions that make silence the awkward choice, not speaking up.

Replace "Does anyone disagree?" with something like "What's the strongest case/reason against this approach?" or "What would make this fail or fall flat?"

A basketball general manager found that asking "What are we missing?" yielded polite responses, but "What will our rivals think is stupid about this decision?" generated immediate, specific insights.

The exact wording matters enormously. It gives people permission to say what they're already thinking.

3. Celebrate Changed Minds

Once people stake out positions, they defend them regardless of new information.

What if you make intellectual flexibility a higher status behaviour than consistency?

Publicly acknowledge when you change your mind based on someone's input.

Create a "best pivot" recognition for team members who abandon their own ideas for better ones.

The All Blacks coaching staff implemented a version of this with their "Better Than Before" ritual.

They explicitly recognise when someone improves a strategy by incorporating opposing viewpoints.

4. Create Decision Pre-Mortems

Why do we only evaluate decisions after they fail?

In most teams, we conduct post-mortems after things go wrong. But by then, it's too late. The damage is done. What if you run the same process before implementing a decision?

Pre-mortems flip the timeline. Instead of waiting for failure, deliberately simulate it. Before finalising a major decision, gather your team and say: "Assume this plan has completely failed. Your job is to generate specific reasons why."

This psychological technique works because it transforms criticism from an act of disloyalty into a contribution. People who might stay silent can now speak freely because they're helping strengthen the plan, not attacking it.

A Premier League club's recruitment department implemented this approach before finalising their transfer strategy. They divided into small groups, each tasked with identifying different failure modes: financial risks, performance integration issues, and cultural fit problems.

The exercise revealed that three of their top targets shared a concerning performance pattern under specific match conditions that would have clashed with their manager's system. They adjusted their scouting priorities and avoided what could have been an expensive mistake. As their sporting director told me: "Traditional meetings reward optimism & hope. Pre-mortems reward foresight."

The Counterintuitive Truth About Team Trust

In my experience, here's what most clubs & organisations get backwards: Productive disagreement doesn't damage trust. It builds it.

Teams don't trust each other because they're nice to each other. They trust each other because they tell the truth. Especially difficult, challenging truths.

The clearest sign of a dysfunctional culture isn't conflict. It's artificial harmony.

Over To You: The Disagreement Audit

Before your next important team meeting, try this:

1. Identify your last 1 or 2 major decisions.
2. For each, ask key team members privately: "What concerns did you have that weren't fully discussed?"
3. Note patterns in what went unspoken

Don't blame or judge. Just listen carefully. Be quiet and notice.

The gaps between what was said and what was thought reveal your team's dissent deficit.

Then choose one of the four approaches above to begin closing that gap.

Remember: The quality of your decisions rarely exceeds the quality of your disagreements.

The best teams don't argue less. They argue better.

P.S. This might be simple, but not necessarily easy. Which of these approaches would face the most resistance in your team, club or organisation?

Let's connect beyond here.....

Check out my YouTube channel: Paul Clarke - The Leaders Coach.

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Another Newsletter you might find useful....

Leadership Superpowers Gregor Purdy Join hundreds of leaders supercharging their careers. Each weekly issue of Leadership Superpowers will teach you battle tested leadership insights and tools to solve your toughest challenges. Earn more, deliver better and grow faster with Leadership Superpowers. Subscribe​

A Master's Voice....

Downward creep: the small, almost imperceptible changes that mean your trajectory is downward bound.

Despite your best efforts.

It pays to get less busy, observe more and listen carefully both to what you see and what your hear.

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Thank you for being part of the Leaders Coach community. The work on how to lead better is something you have to do alone. But you don't have to do it on your own. Onward and Upward, Paul Clarke

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Beechmount Vale, Navan, Meath C15
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