by dotmanish on 4/12/25, 6:05 AM with 64 comments
by steveBK123 on 4/12/25, 1:28 PM
That is - I've been on lots of low functioning teams riven with conflict. Prima donna developers who publicly call managers/teammates stupid in meetings. Managers giving negative feedback in public instead of in private. Stubborn veteran team members telling newer team members to get a new job if they don't like how things are done.
One pattern I've seen in lower functioning teams with lots of conflict is some members being very well spoken, typically more classically trained like a philosophy background, probably a past debate club type kid. "Strong opinions, loosely held" type behavior where bad ideas were passionately argued by the more eloquent & aggressive team member until everyone else was exhausted and just let it run.
The kind of guys that would steamroll the rest of the team as a bunch of idiots for not agreeing with him, but flip to a charismatic "ah good point" when incontrovertible proof of their idea not being correct was presented. The problem is you can't provide incontrovertible proof in real time in most cases, and lots of managers confuse their passion/certitude for correctness.
So high functioning teams can have heated arguments & difficult people, but heated arguments do not in themselves lead to high functioning teams.
by ChrisMarshallNY on 4/12/25, 10:11 AM
Some of the folks we dealt with, were the top people in their field, and not everyone was especially good at getting along with others.
Everyone thought they had The Answer, and everyone was totally passionate about doing their best work.
Needless to say, we often had heated discussions.
For the most part, we did excellent work (not always, but team infighting was not the reason for issues).
My personal experience, is that creative, passionate, high-talent teams can be pretty messy, and managing them, is tricky.
by InsideOutSanta on 4/12/25, 8:46 AM
>code that nobody questions usually crashes in production
I don't understand what that means.
by roxolotl on 4/12/25, 11:25 AM
This article completely misunderstand psychological safety even after including the definition. “Nice” teams are not psychologically safe. If everyone is nodding along they do not feel safe.
Conflict and safety are not at odds with each other. The whole point of psychological safety is that everyone feels safe enough to get into productive conflict.
Not all conflict or agreement is productive. The point of the work around psychological safety is to build a team where people agree and disagree willingly because they feel safe to do so.
by makeitdouble on 4/12/25, 10:19 AM
Is anyone here deeply moved by how this argument is insightful and bring an angle to team building that wouldn't have been obvious otherwise ?
It's not just that single quote, the whole article felt like a Don Quixote battling the windmills that keep silencing the wise engineers bearing their valid criticism as a spear. Or perhaps it was aimed at dictator types of figures who reign fear on their troups ? But then, will they even listen to this author ?
> My best engineering teams were never the quiet ones—they were the ones where technical debates got spirited, where different perspectives were welcomed, and where we could disagree while still respecting each other.
Who's raising their fist shouting that respectful disagreement with different perspectives has no place in their team ?
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The previous piece discussed here [1] was definitely more interesting and bringing more to the table as a thought piece.
by sorokod on 4/12/25, 9:19 AM
by willjp on 4/12/25, 12:28 PM
by wood_spirit on 4/12/25, 10:33 AM
by darthrupert on 4/12/25, 10:42 AM
by fidotron on 4/12/25, 12:24 PM
One of the key benefits of hierarchical decision making is that people have the opportunity to privately challenge opinions, which can lead to radical levelling up of everyone involved. Since the introduction of infantile nonsense like "sprint planning poker" everything descends to being an argument, facepalming defeatism, or fake niceness while everyone hopes everyone else does the bare minimum to keep things going while we all smile about it.
* My more managerial friends and colleagues claim this is a feature, not a bug, in that they prefer predictable mediocrity over unpredictable success.
by mocmoc on 4/12/25, 9:08 AM
by narag on 4/12/25, 10:18 AM