🚀 Stop trying to get everyone to agree

You know that feeling when you finish explaining your latest product idea and the room goes... quiet?

Not the good kind of quiet. The weird kind. The kind where people are suddenly very interested in their laptops, checking their phones, or staring at the conference table like it holds the secrets of the universe.

Someone finally breaks the silence with a lukewarm, "Yeah, that could work." Another person nods and says, "Sounds reasonable." You ask if there are any questions. Nobody has any.

You walk out thinking you've got alignment. Everyone's on board. Time to start building.

Plot twist: You just walked into a product disaster

How This Cost Me Months of Work

At ZipRecruiter, we had a four-day free trial for employers. My job was getting them to convert to paid subscriptions.

We'd blast employers with tons of applications on day one to prove our value, then let it taper off. I figured we could improve conversion by smoothing the curve - fewer applications on day one, but consistent delivery throughout. It would make our platform feel more reliable.

I presented to my team and leadership. Everyone nodded along. No one raised objections. I thought I had buy-in.

So I scheduled the kickoff meeting.

Five minutes into that meeting, a VP announced they weren't actually in favor of the plan.

It was one of those awkward moments that makes you wish you had an Invisibility Cloak. Meeting over. Project dead. Months of work down the drain.

Looking back, I should have seen it coming. No one was excited. No one was championing it. The lukewarm "sounds reasonable" responses were red flags, not green lights.

Lukewarm agreement is just polite disagreement in disguise.

The Uncomfortable Truth About "Alignment"

Here's what actually happened in that room: half the people might have had comments or concerns about your idea, but nobody wanted to say it.

The engineer knows your timeline is impossible, but doesn't want to kill the dream. The designer saw user research that contradicts your assumptions, but figures you already considered it. The marketing person thinks your positioning is off but assumes you have data they don't.

Meanwhile, you're interpreting their silence as agreement. They're not objecting. They're nodding along. They said it "sounds reasonable."

But "sounds reasonable" isn't the same as "I believe this will work."

The Difference Between Agreement and Commitment

Stop trying to get everyone to agree. Instead, get everyone to commit.

Agreement means "I think this is right." Commitment means "I'll make this work, even if I have concerns."

When you push for commitment, people share the messy, complicated information that actually matters. Because nobody wants to commit to something they know will fail.

Turns out product managers are the one group that can't have a fear of commitment. For those of you unable to put a ring on it, maybe it's time to consider a different career.

The Three-Step Fix That Changes Everything

Step 1: Recognize the red flags (immediately after presenting)

When you get lukewarm responses or silence, don't move to the next agenda item. Your alarm bells should be going off. "Sounds good" and polite nods are danger signs, not green lights.

Say something like: "I'm not hearing strong enthusiasm here. Before we move forward, I need to understand what everyone's really thinking."

Step 2: Create a safe space for dissent (spend 5-10 minutes on this) 

You don't actually know if people agree or disagree yet. Make it explicitly safe to share concerns:

"I want to hear what could go wrong with this approach. What am I missing? What would make this fail? What's your biggest concern?"

If people stay quiet, try: "The silence tells me people have thoughts they're not sharing. I'd rather hear objections now than in three months."

Step 3: Get explicit commitment from each person (don't skip this). 

Don't accept "sounds good" or "no objections." You need actual commitment.

For small groups: Go around the room and ask each person if they are aligned. Wait for a clear yes or no.

For bigger groups: "I'm assuming everyone here is committing to this plan. If you're not ready to commit, speak now or forever hold your peace. I need to see thumbs up from everyone who's committed."

What to do with the concerns: Don't try to solve everything in the moment. Write them down. Address the biggest ones that could kill the project. For smaller concerns, assign owners and timelines. The goal isn't perfect solutions - it's informed commitment.

What If People Won't Commit?

Sometimes people simply won't commit to a path forward. This is actually a great sign - it means they're engaged enough not to commit to something they think is wrong.

Here's how to move forward: establish clear success criteria and plan to revisit the decision later. This way, you can validate whether your approach is working and make adjustments. Better to move forward with explicit uncertainty than false confidence.

The Bottom Line

Your biggest product failures aren't coming from bad ideas. They're coming from good ideas that failed because critical information never made it into the room.

That information is there. The people in your meetings have it. But they're not sharing it because you're accepting silence as agreement.

The next time you present something and get polite nods, remember: every "sounds good" might be hiding the insight that makes or breaks your product.

Better decisions come from uncomfortable conversations, not comfortable agreements.

If I had pushed for real commitment at ZipRecruiter instead of accepting lukewarm nods, that VP's concerns would have surfaced in the presentation, not the kickoff meeting. The project might have succeeded with their input, or we could have killed it before wasting months of work.

Moral of the story: don't let politeness kill your product.

Hit reply and let me know if you found this helpful or if there is anything you’d like me to cover in a future post!

The Meme