It is essential to know where the ultimate decision-making authority lies—i.e., how far the power of the argument will carry relative to the power of the assigned authority. While arguing and especially after a decision is rendered, everyone in the idea meritocracy must remain calm and respectful of the process. It is never acceptable to get upset if the idea meritocracy doesn’t produce the decision that you personally wanted.

Surface areas of possible out-of-syncness. If you and others don’t raise your perspectives, there’s no way you will resolve your disputes. You can surface the areas of disagreement informally or put them on a list to go over. I personally like to do both, though I encourage people to list their disagreements in order of priority so I/we can more easily direct them to the right party at the right time.

The nubbiest questions (the ones that there is the greatest disagreement about) are the most important ones to thrash out, as they often concern differences in people’s values or their approaches to important decisions. It’s especially important to bring these issues to the surface and examine their premises thoroughly and unemotionally. If you don’t, they will fester and cause rot.

Distinguish between idle complaints and complaints meant to lead to improvement. Many complaints either fail to take into account the full picture or reflect a closed-minded point of view. They are what I call “chirping,” and are generally best ignored. But constructive complaints may lead to important discoveries.

Remember that every story has another side. Wisdom is the ability to see both sides and weigh them appropriately.

Be open-minded and assertive at the same time.

Being effective at thoughtful disagreement requires one to be open-minded (seeing things through the other’s eyes) and assertive (communicating clearly how things look through your eyes) and to flexibly process this information to create learning and adaptation.
