A decision-making group in which those who don’t get what they want continue to fight rather than work for what the group has decided is destined to fail—you can see this happening all the time in companies, organizations, and even political systems and nations. I’m not saying that people should pretend they like the decision if they don’t, or that the matter in question can’t be revisited at a future date. What I am saying is that in order to be effective, all groups that work together have to operate with protocols that allow time for disagreements to be explored, but in which dissenting minority parties recognize that group cohesion supersedes their individual desires once they have been overruled.

The group is more important than the individual; don’t behave in a way that undermines the chosen path.

See things from the higher level. You are expected to go to the higher level and look down on yourself and others as part of a system. In other words, you must get out of your own head, consider your views as just some among many, and look down on the full array of points of view to assess them in an idea-meritocratic way rather than just in your own possessive way. Seeing things from the higher level isn’t just seeing other people’s point of view; it’s also being able to see every situation, yourself, and others in the situation as though you were looking down on them as an objective observer. If you can do this well, you will see the situation as “another one of those,” see it through everyone’s eyes, and have good mental maps or principles for deciding how to handle it.
