Behavior Matters More Than Intent

Disagreement is essential to better decisions—but most of us either avoid it or handle it poorly. Julia Minson is a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and she's spent years studying disagreement and what we get wrong. She explains why intent matters less than behavior, how leaders can model “receptiveness,” and why the goal of a good disagreement isn’t to win—but to keep the conversation going. Minson is the coauthor of the HBR article "A Smarter Way to Disagree" and author of the book How to Disagree Better.