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by ordu 2062 days ago
When you are voicing a disagreement it is hard to avoid choosing a party responsible for the disagreement. As an example of an extreme case one might say "you are wrong", placing all the responsibility on the other. It is hard to avoid placing responsibility, but it is easy to accept responsibility, so no pecking order is threatened, everyone is happy.

I'm not sure that I could give an example correctly, because English is not my native language, so I could fail to communicate subtle shades of meaning, but I try nevertheless.

"I see that you've chosen X as a decision, and I'm not sure why. I think, you've chosen X over Y, because of A, B and C, am I right?"

And I'd start small. Explicitly not challenging decisions of superiors. Asking questions afterwards, when it is certainly late to change decision (so no one tempted to think, that I'm trying to make it my way). Making sure that a person asked would see me as a newbie seeking wisdom: "I'm eager to agree with you, but I need to understand first". Choosing time when people asked do not need to stop doing some very important stuff to answer my questions. And so on. I'd poke the situation cautiously and watch what would happen. Hopefully I'd find people who are nice enough to allow me to ask them countless questions, to discuss decisions, and hopefully I'd find ways to ask questions which work without undesired social side-effects.