Typically, if both the equal-weighted average and the believability- weighted votes align, we consider the matter resolved and move on. If the two types of votes are at odds, we try again to resolve them and, if we can’t, we go with the believability-weighted vote. Depending on what type of decision it is, in some cases, a single “Responsible Party” (RP) can override a believability-weighted vote; in others, the believability-weighted vote supersedes the RP’s decision. But in all cases believability-weighted votes are taken seriously when there is disagreement. Even in cases in which the RPs can overrule the believability- weighted vote, the onus is on the RP to try to resolve the dispute before overruling it. In my forty years at Bridgewater, I never made a decision contrary to the believability-weighted decision because I felt that to do so was arrogant and counter to the spirit of the idea meritocracy, though I argued like hell for what I thought was best.

To give you an example of what this process looks like in action, during the spring of 2012 our research teams used believability- weighted decision making to resolve a disagreement about what would happen next as the European debt crisis was heating up. At that time, the borrowing and debt-service needs of the governments of Italy, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and especially Spain had reached levels that far exceeded their abilities to pay. We knew that the European Central Bank would either have to make unprecedented purchases of government bonds or allow the debt crisis to worsen to the point where defaults and the breakup of the Eurozone would probably occur. Germany was adamantly opposed to a bailout. It was clear that the fates of these countries’ economies, and of the Eurozone itself, depended on how well Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, orchestrated the ECB’s next move. But what would he do?
