One should always feel free to ask questions, while remembering one’s obligation to remain open-minded in the discussions that follow. Record your argument so that if you can’t get in sync or make sense of things, you can send it out so others can decide. And of course, remember that you are operating in an idea-meritocracy, be mindful of your own believability.
Communications aimed at getting the best answer should involve the most relevant people. As a guide, the most relevant people to probe are your managers, direct reports, and/or agreed experts. They are the most impacted by and most informed about the issues under discussion, and so they are the most important parties to be in sync with. If you can’t get in sync, you should escalate the disagreement by raising it to the appropriate people.
Communication aimed at educating or boosting cohesion should involve a broader set of people than would be needed if the aim were just getting the best answer. Less experienced, less believable people may not be necessary to decide an issue, but if the issue involves them and you aren’t in sync with them, that lack of understanding will in the long run likely undermine morale and the organization’s efficiency. This is especially important in cases where you have people who are both not believable and highly opinionated (the worst combination). Unless you get in sync with them, you will drive their uninformed opinions underground. If, on the other hand, you are willing to be challenged, you will create an environment in which all criticisms are aired openly.
Recognize that you don’t need to make judgments about everything. Think about who is responsible for something (and their believability), how much you know about it, and your own believability. Don’t hold opinions about things you don’t know anything about.
Pay more attention to whether the decision-making system is fair than whether you get your way.
An organization is a community with a set of shared values and goals. Its morale and smooth functioning should always take precedence over your need to be right, and besides, you could be wrong. When the decision-making system is consistently well-managed and based on objective criteria, the idea-meritocracy is more important than the happiness of any one of its members, even if that member is you.
The most appropriate people are either the people you both report to (which we call the point of the pyramid in an organizational chart) or someone you mutually agree will be a good arbiter.
Recognize How to Get Beyond Disagreements
It is the rare dispute that is resolved to both parties’ equal satisfaction. Imagine you are having an argument with your neighbor about a tree of theirs that has fallen onto your property. Who is responsible for its removal? Who owns the firewood? Who pays for the damage? While you might not be able to resolve the disagreement yourselves, the legal system has procedures and guidelines that allow it to determine what’s true and what to do about it, and once it renders its judgment it’s done, even if one of you didn’t get what you wanted. That’s just the way life is.
At Bridgewater, our principles and policies work in essentially the same way, providing a path for settling disputes that’s not unlike what you’d find in the courts (though it’s less formal). Having such a system is essential in an idea-meritocracy, because you can’t just encourage people to think independently and fight for what they believe is true. You also have to provide them with a way to get past their disagreements and move forward.
Managing this well is especially important at Bridgewater because we have so much more thoughtful disagreement than other places. While in most cases people disagreeing can work things out on their own, it is still often the case that people can’t agree on what’s true and what to do about it. In those cases, we follow our procedures for believability-weighted voting and go with the verdict; or, in the cases where the responsible-parties wants to do it his/her way contrary to the vote and has the power to do so, we accept that and move on.