In an unhealthy culture, each group believes that if their objectives trump the goals of the other groups, the company will be better off. In a healthy culture, all constituencies recognize
the importance of balancing competing desires - they want to be heard, but they don’t have
to win. Their interaction with one another - the push and pull that occurs naturally when talented people are given clear goals - yields the balance we seek. But that only happens if they understand that achieving balance is a central goal of the company.

It’s not always comfortable to interrupt others and manage the flow of conversation in this manner, but it sends a strong signal that you believe better outcomes come from hearing a diversity of perspectives.

The more you actively farm for dissent, and the more you encourage a culture of expressing disagreement openly, the better the decisions that will be made in your company. This is true for any company of any size in any industry.

When you can present your own ideas clearly, specifically, visually, and most important, contextually—in the context of a deep understanding of their paradigms and concerns—you significantly increase the credibility of your ideas. You’re not wrapped up in your “own thing,” delivering grandiose rhetoric from a soapbox. You really understand. What you’re presenting may even be different from what you had originally thought because in your effort to understand, you learned.

It’s easy to take comfort in the fact that other people agree with us. As legendary investor Warren Buffett pointed out, though, “The fact that other people agree or disagree with you makes you neither right nor wrong. You will be right if your facts and reasoning are correct.”

The people executing established practices say they want new ideas, but they don’t want the bad ones. And because they so want to avoid the bad ones, they never deviate enough to find good ones.