Yeah, the violent agreement is usually a big tell. I've gotten much better at throwing the flag in meetings to have that conversation - "Hey, when you say X, do you mean <what I'm hearing>? Can you expand on that?". I think people are hesitant to do it out of fear of sounding stupid; I think I'm lucky enough to be far enough into my career that I don't really worry about that anymore.

The "reframe the conversation to the thing I want to talk about" - man, that one's frustrating. I don't have a polite way to stop that one yet. I think some of it is just that we all pick up traumas and trigger words, and you've gotta recognize when someone said "banana" that doesn't actually mean "the thing I slipped on five years ago."

> I don't have a polite way to stop that one yet.

Selective doses of being impolite can be extremely effective, especially when you're otherwise very polite.

"A gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude."

(One of several variants: <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/01/21/offense/>)

> The "reframe the conversation to the thing I want to talk about" - man, that one's frustrating.

The most effective method I've found is making that person responsible for resolving whatever the issue is. Not always possible, but especially when it happens in group settings, some verbal judo can work even if you can't "officially" task them.

(Make sure to memorialize that in an email afterwards, or it will probably retroactively never have happened.)

One of the best advices I got: "stop acting like you're the smartest person in the room, even if you are" so I started acting like the stupidest person in the room. Often times, by asking the dumbest question in the naivest way possible, you can expose a lot of bad ideas.

A thousand times, yes. They're not dumb questions, of course. They're pure, simple, and relevant. They're the strongest questions one can ask. The best.

The Columbo Method

Or the Feynman one.

Oh my god yes. It's also So Much more fun and interesting! You get to learn from people!

Well... it's more like by asking an extremely dumb question helps other people in the room know when they're being bullshitted.

"So, I see your business model is to make widgets. But ... uh... I don't really understand these ideas but that's called capital intensive, right? So, you're gonna have a factory, with a bunch of workers... in San Francisco? Won't that be really expensive, and ... uh, I guess that means your profit margin will be small? Could you put your factory in Kansas?"

(paraphrased but essentially accurate question I asked when being pitched by a hardware startup at a major VC that I advised)

I think we could benefit from more directness and bluntness of the right kind. To a large degree, what is considered "polite" is conditioned. I don't say absolutely conditioned (there are absolute limits), but cultural conditioning can either blunt perception to the impolite, or oversensitive us so that we interpret normal things as impolite. Gen Z in the US, for example, seems hypersensitive compared to prior generations, though it didn't begin with them. It is not unexpected that correcting someone's bad behavior, even in normal speech tone, will be seen as "yelling". This is very bad because an inability to receive feedback, let alone survive impropriety, essential to adulthood. Softness suffocates reason and weakens action, and it softens the person who wants to avoid perturbing the softness of another. Hemming and hawing and hedging, too, is an enemy of clear communication.

But more to the point, I find that asking for clarification is the best tactic in the aforementioned circumstances. That way, you avoid having to make accusations. It removes all pretext for getting defensive and focuses the discussion on the substance and merit rather than the character flaws and lack of speaking skills of the other. If the other person starts to get unjustifiably angry, this reflects poorly on them, not you, so there is no need to feel any guilt. Be honest and never lie. Do not pretend to understand someone just because you think asking for clarification will make you look less competent. Maybe you are less competent, in which case pretending to competence you don't actually have is dishonest and unjust. You also close off the doors to learning. And if you are competent, then there's nothing to worry about. Bullshitters feed off pretense, and honest people are dismayed by it.

It's an extremely valuable observational skill. It's also an extremely valuable skill to be able to get everyone in alignment, but much much harder to "git gud" at (so to speak).

A few suggestions for getting more value out of your observations:

* in the moment, particularly if it's heated, you won't make a ton of headway unless you really know the parties involved and know how to frame "i think you agree with each other" well enough to be heard over the argumentative mindset. Instead pointing it out to each party individually in a later/follow up discussion can help a lot!

* If you have a good "people person" mentor or manager, just pointing it out to them can often result in positive outcomes, because they can take it on themselves to have the discussions in the background or if you ask for it, mentor you in how to get that across in a well-received way.

* sometimes when people are arguing with each other in agreement, the issue is usually semantics and someone (or everyone) has a different take on some word/phrase/name whatever being used. A good tactic is to try and identify where that bit of disagreement is and play dumb (it works best when you're in a "junior" position but can work in any situation) and say something like - "wait, sorry to interrupt but I don't quite get the difference between foobar and barfoo can you help me understand?" and then when they explain to you, the neutral third party, they'll come to the realization that they are arguing in agreement after all.

I've been in your shoes before and the above advice helped me get going so I'm passing it along. For me the difficulty in relaying the info came from a couple places:

* I was afraid of speaking out of turn, or looking dumb. It turns out that the "dumb look" i was afraid of is often interpreted as "wow this guy is asking smart questions", and at worst it's interpreted as "this guy needed a bit of a different explanation to grok it".

* I didn't realize that people don't need to understand that I was seeing them argue in agreement or avoid the question. I just needed to ask my own clarifying questions until everyone got the info/agreement they needed. If they get that I was driving at "arguing in agreement" or if they think I resolved a conflict, it doesn't matter - the goal of "we're all on the same page" was successfully reached.

I've still got a lot to learn in this whole area, but even trying to address those things often helps smooth out the rough bits and is useful. HTH!

I like to call "not being afraid to look dumb" "weaponizing my own stupidity." I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but if you aren't worried about looking like a dope from time-to-time, you can help the actually smart people in the room agree on stuff.

Whole heatedly resonate with this. In my experience, people love questions (stupid questions, simple questions, doesn't matter), it gives them an opportunity to feel informed and impactful.

If you ask a question and someone is scornful ("you should know that already!"), First time it's on them, second time it's on you, third time update your resume.

I use dumb questions a lot as a manager - although my hiring intentions are to try and make me the actual dumbest person on the team anyway.

I don't use it so much for the teasing out agreement or highlighting problems angle though - one of my goals is setting the accepted threshold for dumb questions low enough that junior/newer or less confident team members aren't afraid to ask their own "dumb questions". Those questions are usually more important than mine, and teams that don't have that "no question is too dumb" culture are often dysfunctional or heading that way.