Teamwork Archives - Page 9 of 32

Time to Develop Disagreement

Peter Drucker told a story about Alfred P. Sloan Jr. of General Motors. At a meeting of a top committee, Sloan said: “Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here.” Everyone around the table nodded.

Sloan went on: “I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting, to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain understanding of what the decision is all about.”

Drucker stated the lesson as a rule: “one does not make decision unless there is disagreement.”

Freedom of Speech

In 1942 the town of Arlington, Vermont, held a town meeting on plans for a new school. Jim Edgerton was the lone dissenter. He stood and stated his objections. Norman Rockwell lived nearby. He watched the others listen to Edgerton with respect.

Rockwell painted the scene as Freedom of Speech. It appeared in The Saturday Evening Post on February 20, 1943. In the painting a young workman stands to speak. Rockwell’s neighbor Carl Hess posed for him.

From the Commander to the Newest Private

The rules for after-action reviews at the Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center say the review is “not a critique.” It is “a professional discussion that requires the active participation of all attendees.” Army guidance asks leaders to “encourage people to give honest opinions.” A key rule is that “everyone gets a chance to enrich the discussion, from the company commander to the newest private.”

A 2007 report by the Army Research Institute found a limit. When senior leaders spoke first, it was “very difficult for junior personnel to think of anything new.” Starting with the lowest-ranking soldier “appears to elicit more responses.”

Lincoln–Douglas Debate

Lincoln–Douglas debate is a form of competitive debate between two students. It is practiced mainly in American high schools. It is named for the 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. The format places heavy weight on logic, ethical values and philosophy.

In cross-examination each side questions the other. The negative side questions the affirmative “to expose logical flaws” in its argument. Within a tournament, each debater argues each side about equally often. The topics set by the National Speech & Debate Association change every two months.

The Red Cell

Around midnight on September 12, 2001, CIA director George Tenet called in two of his senior people. The next morning the CIA formed its Red Cell. Tenet’s instruction to it was: “Tell me things others don’t and make [senior officials] feel uncomfortable.”

A Red Cell memo from 2010 carries a note. It says the cell has been charged with taking an approach that will “provoke thought and offer an alternative viewpoint.”

Constructive Confrontation

Andy Grove was president of Intel from 1979 and its chief executive from 1987 to 1998. He shouted at employees, often in front of others. He called this tactic “constructive confrontation.”

Grove’s stated aim was to “attack the problem not the individual.” The writer Betsy Corcoran was not a fan. She wrote that “too frequently the ‘confrontation’ could overwhelm the, ah, ‘constructive’ parts.”

The Braintrust

Pixar calls its review group the Braintrust. It meets every few months to assess each film in production. Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar, called it the studio’s “primary delivery system for straight talk.”

The Braintrust had no authority, Catmull said. “They could not tell the director what to do,” he said in a 2014 talk published by Stanford’s eCorner. He said Pixar needs “a lot of candor about what works and what doesn’t work.”

The Dissent Channel

The State Department has an official Dissent Channel. It began in 1971, during disputes about policy in the Vietnam War. Through it, American diplomats can disagree with policy openly. Those who use it are protected from reprisals and disciplinary action.

In January 2017 press reports said that more than 1,000 foreign service officers and civil service employees had signed a dissent against President Trump’s immigration order. The State Department did not confirm the number. The second-largest dissent in the channel’s history had 51 names.

The Great Dissent

In 1896 the Supreme Court approved the principle of “separate but equal” in Plessy v. Ferguson. The vote was 7 to 1. Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote the lone dissent: “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.”

Thurgood Marshall later cited Harlan’s dissent in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that overturned Plessy.

Charles Evans Hughes, chief justice from 1930 to 1941, called a dissent “an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day.”

I Dissent

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ended her dissent in Bush v. Gore with two words: “I dissent.” The sentence before them reads: “Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States.”

In 2012 Ginsburg received a “dissent collar,” a necklace of fake jewels from Banana Republic. She wore it on days when she disagreed with the majority. So in her later years on the bench, everyone knew as soon as she walked into the courtroom. In a 2014 interview with Katie Couric, she said: “It looks fitting for dissents.”

Justices sometimes read a dissent aloud from the bench. In 2007 Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times called this “an act of theater.” It shows that a justice thinks the majority is “profoundly wrong.” She wrote that it happens “just a handful of times a year.”