http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/business/27corner.html
NY Times article - The Corner Office: Richard D. Fain - Want Clarity: Learn to Play Devil's Advocate
"One of my mentors was Jay Pritzker [the Hyatt Hotels founder and a former director of Royal Caribbean Cruises]. Jay was an extraordinary man. In all the time I knew him, I don’t think he ever agreed with me on any subject, ever. When we would have an important decision at the board level, Jay would be my No. 1 antagonist, and he would argue vociferously against whatever I was proposing and question me in a highly skeptical tone. He was good at it, and he would ask the penetrating questions for exactly as long as it took for any other member of the board to agree with him. And the minute anybody else started to pick up the cudgel and continue along the same path that he had just been on, he would say, “You know, I think he’s crazy, but we’ve got to follow Richard on this.”
It was fascinating. He loved to play devil’s advocate. I love to play devil’s advocate, so we were on much the same wavelength. I always find that you learn more by arguing with someone than by just agreeing with them. And I also realized early on that having to explain something to someone is often the best way to make sure you understand it yourself.
And so part of my management style is to play devil’s advocate. There are people who think that I sometimes forget the second part of the term, but I do find that I learn by arguing with somebody. I learn more about whether somebody really believes their point of view and has thought it through, and it also helps me clarify in my own mind the direction I’m going."
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