Don’t get stuck in disagreement, escalate or vote! By practicing open-mindedness and assertiveness, you should be able to resolve most disagreements. If not, and if your dispute is one-on-one, you should escalate to a mutually agreed-upon believable other. All things being equal, that should be someone higher in your reporting chain, such as your boss. When a group can’t reach an agreement, the person responsible for the meeting should take a believability-weighted vote.
Once a decision is made, everyone should get behind it even though individuals may still disagree.
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.
Almost all people initially find it difficult to get beyond seeing things through just their own eyes, so I’ve developed policies and tools such as the Coach (which connects situations to principles) that help people do this. With practice many people can learn to develop this perspective, though others never do. You need to know which type of person you and the people around you are. If you can’t do this well on your own, seek the help of others. Recognize that many people cannot see things from the higher level and distinguish those who can from those who can’t, and either get rid of those who can’t or have good guardrails in place to protect yourself and the organization against this inability.
By the way, it is of course okay to continue to disagree on some things as long as you don’t keep fighting, thereby undermining the idea-meritocracy. If you continue to fight the idea-meritocracy, you must go.
Never allow the idea-meritocracy to slip into anarchy. In an idea-meritocracy, there is bound to be more disagreement than in a typical organization, but when it’s taken to an extreme, arguing and nitpicking can undermine the idea-meritocracy’s effectiveness. At Bridgewater, I have encountered some people, especially junior people, who mistakenly think they are entitled to argue about whatever they want and with whomever they please. I have even seen people band together to threaten the idea-meritocracy, claiming that their right to do so comes from the principles. They misunderstand my principles and the boundaries within the organization. They must abide by the rules of the system, which provide paths for resolving disagreements, and they mustn’t threaten the system.
Don’t allow lynch mobs or mob rule. Part of the purpose of having a believability-weighted system is to remove emotion from decision-making. Crowds get emotional and seek to grab control. That must be prevented. While all individuals have the right to have their own opinions, they do not have the right to render verdicts.
Remember that if the idea-meritocracy comes into conflict with the well-being of the organization, it will inevitably suffer.
That’s just a matter of practicality. As you know I believe that what’s good must work well, and that having the organization work well is of paramount importance.