What often happens is that there is a shared purpose, but people have different ways to get there. One person thinks moving fast will get there while another person thinks you need to move carefully and deliberately to get there.

We may not be able to agree on the same behaviour. That’s okay. It’s more important to be able to discuss what each person thinks are their toward moves so we become more aware of them. Over time you can keep discussing them to see if they are still moving toward the shared purpose.

Using the habit builder language of "toward or away from a shared purpose" makes it easier to bring things up. Take the example of a team member who keeps rolling their eyes during team meetings. As their manager, you decide to discuss it with them. You can highlight that there is shared purpose of the employee succeeding. It’s in everyone’s best interest, employer and employee, for the employee to do well.

Given that shared purpose, you’d like to discuss whether eye rolling during meetings is moving toward to away from that shared purpose. Ask it with genuine curiosity, not as a means to get the employee to agree with you. Really be curious and open to what the employee has to say.

It may sound like this: “So I’m asking with genuine curiosity because there may be lots of different-but-valid points of view. I’m curious if eye rolling in team meetings is a toward more or away move. What do you think?”