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.
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!