I first ran into the art and science of divergent views while working for Schlumberger and Elf, companies with French cultural roots. I loved the table pounding and the fist waving discussions, and the F word flying around (sounding very sophisticated in the French vernacular). There was a lot emotion in these disagreements, but at the end of it all, a decision was made and everyone was on board.
I saw this again on my first day at Intel, joining 50+ people for a meeting discussing how to implement a series of new factory requirements. What ensued didn’t have quite the same flair as the French, but there was an emotionally charged, open and straightforward debate. It was peppered with Intel speak like “rat hole” or “bin it”, and the occasional F word (in plain old English though). This being Silicon Valley everything was on the clock and the meeting arrived at the 5’ wrap up agenda item. No time to let everyone’s emotions play out. There was palpable tension in the air. Most people were on board a newly charted course, but there were some dissenters. Then I heard these words, “I disagree and commit”. The effect was immediate. The whole group rallied around the decision.
Disagree and commit is very powerful. It is a formal signal to the group, a validation of a different opinion, and a commitment to moving forward. And, most importantly, Things Get Done. Plans are implemented. Strategy is Executed.
So much of strategy stays in the PowerPoint presentation because little of it actually gets implemented. This sad fact is well documented. The problem isn’t analysis, or knowing what to do. As Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton point out in their book The Knowing-Doing Gap, many companies suffer from “some kind of brain vacuum” that seems to suck the action out of all their great plans. “People know what to do but don’t do it.” So what has this got to do with disagree and commit? High on the list of why things don’t get done is because the person responsible for implementation didn’t agree with it in the first place, but didn’t say so. Instead, there is “public acceptance of a decision but then nothing is done to implement the decision” and that’s always fatal.
It’s easier to bury an idea in this “pretend to agree” way in a big company. But don’t kid yourself into believing it doesn’t happen in small companies. It will happen if you don’t foster and constantly model the culture of disagree and commit. And you must do it from day one.
The Knowing-Doing Gap has many golden nuggets for young companies, but take this one most of all to heart: “Precedent substitutes for thought”. What this means is that doing something, even just one time, establishes a habit and that habit will too often override thinking. So make sure disagree and commit is the habit you make at your company.
A culture of disagree and commit (or table banging and fist shaking if you have the time) gets everything out on the table. It fosters honesty, and exposes reality. And good execution is all about confronting reality.
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I worked at Intel, and I think “disagree and commit” is more often a euphemism for “the boss chose a path so follow or leave”. Now, understand, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for somebody to have decisive authority, as long as that person listens to the pros and cons and makes an informed and intelligent decision. But that’s not “disagree and commit” as much as “the decision has been made, appeals are exhausted, sentence is passed.”
The best decision I saw like this was presenting two approaches to a technical leader. His verdict was, “I think you’re both right, both of these will work, and they’re about equal complexity; I choose *this* one only because I think I can picture it better.” I was one of the losers, and we went along because we felt we had gotten an honest competition. The worst decision was years earlier, when a bunch of young upstarts questioned a design and were told “Those problems have a very low chance of happening so they shouldn’t steer our thinking”.
In my experience, the managers who have to codify “disagree and commit” have made their decisions before the discussion and are just looking for rubber stamps. Hopefully open discussion leads to a synthesis of the best of all ideas. If the discussion falls to an either/or choice, then people should either be able to see the benefit of the one chosen or be able to see that they were so even that it’s a coin toss.