Dissenting views are valuable

On my site, https://writewaypro.weebly.com/favorite-quotes.html, I include a number of favorite quotes, including one attributed to George S. Patton:

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking."

We have this notion encoded in halacha. Whereas secular courts call for a jury to be unanimous, in a Jewish court involving 23 judges deciding on a capital crime, the requirement is that the are not all in agreement. Why is that? Likely because of the understanding consensus is not equal to truth and can actually be inimical to truth. If everyone is saying the same thing, they have not been challenged to think through possible objections to their assessment and are more likely to err.  

This comes up on p. 94 of the Heath brothers' book Decisive in tackling the problem of CEO hubris that keeps the leader surrounded by yes-men rather than people who challenge their thinking to foresee possible ramifications of their decisions that they are fail to note on their own or bring up better alternatives. Much of that section is based on work by Hayward and Humbrick that is accessible online under the title 

Is The Theory Of Chief Executive Officer Hubris An - Clute Journals

 It's actually very interesting and accounts for why so many of us have found it so unpleasant to deal with some CEOs (not the one I'm currently working with now). This is something I recently observed to my kid: many people who start their own companies are not necessarily smarter or more capable but simply too egotistical and uncooperative to work for anyone else. That fits perfectly with the findings of scholarly work on CEOs you can see in that journal article:

The study revealed that rational managers are also prone to overconfidence. Also, an overconfident CEO can be described as CEO with hubris, and the characteristics of such can be — arrogant, conceit, egotism, greed, and shameless. These magical thinkers have become to a belief that their decision towards any possible situation in business practices are precise and leads to a successful consequence.

That fits one CEO I grew to know too well to a T, as does this:

Narcissists have confidence in that they are better than other people and self-assured of their capabilities and skills. Also, they perceive themselves better than the average person on many different qualities and characteristics such as —intelligence, extraversion, and openness to experience (Campbell, Rudich, & Sedikides, 2002). Moreover, Judge, LePine, and Rich (2006) discovered that narcissists rate themselves very highly on leadership qualities and contextual performance. Furthermore, narcissists are likely to have a strong self-enhancement bias in self-evaluations of performance (John & Robins, 1994). More importantly, Kroll, Toombs, and Wright (2000) argue that the cause of CEO with hubris arise from narcissism. 

Although narcissists believe in self-admiration, they also need external reinforcement or ‘narcissistic supply’ (Kernberg, 1975). Narcissism by definition has a strong social component. Narcissists need people who will praise them through applause and cheer. Furthermore, their performance escalates during a crisis or when people are watching (Wallace & Baumeister, 2002). Lastly, Narcissists regularly engage in social comparison (Bogart, Benotsch, & Pavlovic, 2004), and pursue constant external self-affirmation (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). 

Most of successful CEOs have narcissism which drives and reinforce the characteristics of narcissism. Hiller & Hambrick (2005) described narcissism as self-love. Also, to survive in real life, secured self-esteem is required by CEOs. However, when it is not present, excessive self-love is attempted (de Vries, 1994). Also, Lubit (2002) stated that narcissism with pathological form has characteristics of: grandiose senses of arrogance, taking advantage of others or diminishing them, addiction towards compliments and lastly lack empathy. Moreover, narcissism portrays grandiose characteristics through self-enhancing, vindictive, and exploitative while interpersonal stress is nonsignificant (Dickinson & Pincus, 2003; Duchon & Drake, 2009; Aktas, Bodt, Bollaert & Roll, 2012. 

 But to get back to the book's presentation, it's an anecdote that was also shared by Peter  F. Drucker revealed in  Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices how GM’s  and is quoted online here: http://fortune.com/2015/12/07/alfred-p-sloan-decision-making/

Alfred P. Sloan who served as a longtime CEO and chairman of GM demonstrated what a true leader does to arrive a good decision. He'd tell his top committee members (all men, surprise, surprise) this: “’Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here."

As they all indicated his assent,  "Then," he said, "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.”

Sloan was talking in a business context, but the same would apply to a political leader. I couldn't help thinking about the example we see in NaCh of the bad kings who rounded up false prophets to merely support their point of view. Those were always available, and the few who offered a dissenting view were often silenced, sometimes through violence. This is something to remember when we make the mistake of thinking acharey rabim lehatot means even for what is patently false and antithetical to Torah truth.

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