Working oneself through disagreements can be time-consuming, so you can imagine how an idea meritocracy—where disagreement is not just tolerated but encouraged—could become dysfunctional if it’s not managed well. Imagine how inefficient it would be if a teacher ran a large class by asking each of the students individually what they thought, and then debated with all of them, instead of conveying their own views first and taking questions later.

People who want to disagree must keep this in mind and follow the tools and protocols for disagreeing well.

Know when to stop debating and move on to agreeing about what should be done. I have seen people who agree on the major issues waste hours arguing over details. It’s more important to do big things well than to do the small things perfectly. But when people disagree on the importance of debating something, it probably should be debated. Operating otherwise would essentially give someone (typically the boss) a de facto veto.

Use believability weighting as a tool rather than a substitute for decision making by Responsible Parties. Believability-weighted decision making is a way of supplementing and challenging the decisions of Responsible Parties, not overruling them. As Bridgewater’s system currently exists, everyone is allowed to give input, but their believability is weighted based on the evidence (their track records, test results, and other data). Responsible Parties can overrule believability-weighted voting but only at their peril. When a decision maker chooses to bet on his own opinion over the consensus of believable others, he is making a bold statement that will be proven right or wrong by the results.
