The weekly meetings are relatively routine and noncombative. Smith gives his executives autonomy as long as it doesn't conflict with the overall company strategy. The goal is neither consensus nor debate - it's adherence to plan. We are decentralized, so we expect the different functional groups to make decisions. At many of the leading networking companies, the business plan can take on biblical proportions.
Every move is measured against that plan.
At switch vendor Redback Networks, executives hash out and adjust the plan at quarterly off-site meetings. At these meetings, executives are divided into five working groups of two people each and charged with envisioning what the company will look like in three years. Each group presents its view, after which the common elements of the five reports are kept and everything else is discarded. The common elements are crystallized into a strategy. It's completely democratic.