Welcome to Love Mondays, a weekly newsletter designed as a 3-minute hit to fire up the other 10,077 minutes of your week.

It's ok to disagree

Disagreement has a bit of a bad rap. It's often associated with egos, power struggles, pride, jealousy and all those toxic traits many of us don't enjoy being a part of.

But if conducted in the right way, disagreement can be enlightening, even enjoyable. A healthy disagreement, or debate, can help to promote growth, curiosity, learning and creative thinking for positive change.

How do you encourage or support healthy debate in your workplace? Write it down.

Consider: does your team feel like they can offer their opinions, even if they aren't the same as yours?

Practice: encouraging your team to share their differing opinions and actively listening.

Decide to: create a culture where team members can respectfully challenge each other.

Cognitive diversity for the win!
Cognitive diversity is the inclusion of people who have different styles of problem-solving and can offer unique perspectives because they think differently. It's exactly these unique perspectives that can help individuals and organisations to change, grow and innovate.

While disagreements can be uncomfortable, diverse thinking can help teams to solve problems faster. To ensure healthy and productive debate, decide on some rules for you and your team to follow, for example: Remember we are all on the same team. Actively listen to others. Embrace humility. Focus on the outcome. Don't make it personal.

Remember, we can agree to disagree without being disagreeable.

Bo Seo, two-time world debate champion and author of Good Arguments: How debate teaches us to listen and be heard, believes that "we must regain confidence and faith in what good arguments can be, realising that disagreement can be the basis of richer conversations, intimate connections, and more searching inquiries than mere agreement can ever hope to achieve".

This week, take note of the cognitive diversity in your team - is your workplace a safe environment where healthy debate thrives? 

Love your Mondays.