Via The Knowledge Project Podcast
On encouraging disagreement: “First, you have to create an environment where [it’s okay for people] to disagree with you. You need to listen. You need to take what they say into consideration. You need to create that kind of atmosphere.
— The $2 Trillion Fund: AI, Risk & Market Bubbles | Nicolai Tangen, at 45:16
In the beginning, in my job, people didn’t disagree with me. They all agreed and that’s not very good. Now they disagree all the time. [You need to create] security for people to speak up. Is everybody telling me all the things they mean all the time? No, of course they don’t. But we are creating ways of doing it.
You know ice hockey. We have these [hockey] pucks [to] play with. We have them on the table. [Gestures as if pushing forward a puck.] It’s like, “Hey, here is a straight puck. I disagree with what you say. I think you’re wrong.” You put the disagreement into a physical object and you [separate it] from the person. So it’s not personal, and that’s really good. We now have a Straight Puck award. The people who [speak up], properly disagreeing with me, get a puck.”
When Nicolai Tangen first became CEO of Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (NBIM), everyone agreed with him. He found this alarming.
Over five years, he built rituals and mechanisms to normalize disagreement and reward productive dissent:
- Straight pucks on the meeting table: A physical object that staff can place on the table to signal disagreement, externalizing the conflict so it’s not personal.
- A “Straight Puck” award: Given to whoever disagrees most productively with leadership.
- Radical listening: Demonstrating that you’ll act on what people say, not just tolerate hearing it.
Without prescribed rituals, feedback conversations are easily derailed. Someone may disagree on substance, the other party may focus on the delivery, and suddenly, the content of the feedback is lost. The physical ritual short-circuits this dynamic.
Tangen also makes a habit of asking everyone, “What’s on your mind?” During his one-month visit to the New York office, he met individually with roughly a hundred employees to ask them this question. After half the conversations, a clear pattern of concerns emerged. He identified the top three issues and put together a leadership group to address them.
