S8E25 - Inspiring TED Talks - Dare to Disagree, with Margaret Heffernan

As part of our "Inspiring TED Talks" series, spotlighting can't-miss TED Talks and their key takeaways, Dr. Westover explores Margaret Heffernan's famous 2012 TED Talk, "Dare to Disagree." See the video and details here: https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree. "Most people instinctively avoid conflict, but as Margaret Heffernan shows us, good disagreement is central to progress. She illustrates (sometimes counterintuitively) how the best partners aren’t echo chambers -- and how great research teams, relationships and businesses allow people to deeply disagree." When it comes to forming your dream team, the last thing you should do is surround yourself with what Heffernan calls “echo chambers” who only tell you what they think you want to hear. Mastering the art of disagreement is essential to effective leadership. Leaders must also be willing to cope with others disagreeing with them. Only through disagreement are ideas challenged. Hefferman outlines a rubric for avoiding echo chambers and allowing ourselves to experience what she calls constructive conflict.  She says, “So what does that kind of constructive conflict require? Well, first of all, it requires that we find people who are very different from ourselves. That means we have to resist the neurobiological drive, which means that we really prefer people mostly like ourselves, and it means we have to seek out people with different backgrounds, different disciplines, different ways of thinking and different experience, and find ways to engage with them. That requires a lot of patience and a lot of energy.”  Margaret Heffernan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-heffernan-ab5205/) has run 5 different businesses in the U.S. and U.K. All but one have been media companies. She now writes, speaks and blogs about business leadership, management, innovation and creativity. She also teaches at several business schools in the US and UK and sit on the boards of three organizations. She has published five books: The Naked Truth: A Working Woman's Manifesto about Business and What Really Matters, How She Does It and Willful Blindness, which was a finalist for the FT Best Business Book award. In 2014, A Bigger Prize was published. Reviewing it, The New York Times called it "an important call to build more collaborative, trustworthy and enduring institutions." The most recent book is Beyond Measure, a book commissioned by TED for which she has done 2 talks, seen by millions of people. She speaks at conferences and organizations around the world, from Britain's National Health Service to the police to banks, charities, schools and governments. Ranked in the Top 15 Personal Development and Self-Improvement Podcasts: https://blog.feedspot.com/personal_development_podcasts/ ; Ranked in the Top 15 Leadership Podcasts: https://blog.feedspot.com/leadership_podcasts/ ; Ranked in the Top 15 HR Podcasts: https://blog.feedspot.com/hr_podcasts/ ; Ranked in the Top 15 Talent Management Podcasts: https://blog.feedspot.com/talent_management_podcasts/ ; Ranked in the Top 10 Performance Management Podcasts: https://blog.feedspot.com/performance_management_podcasts/ ; Ranked in the Top 10 Workplace Podcasts: https://blog.feedspot.com/workplace_podcasts/