One counter to this over 20 years in this game is there are plenty of people who confuse "having heated discussions" with being high functioning.
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.
> 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.
The problem is not that incontrovertible proof cannot be provided real time. Yielding evidence from complex, esoteric systems is always difficult and time-consuming.
The problem is the well-spoken people in the above example are not well-listening. Hearing a poorly-worded argument whose conceptual outlines might be worth considering is an important skill. Ignoring an argument because it is not eloquently delivered is hubris.
Because such people do not listen well, they cannot claim to have “Strong opinions, loosely held”. Requiring hard-to-yield evidence before changing one’s mind is “Strong opinions, tightly held”.
In the end, heated arguments are usually an indicator of dysfunction, even in high functioning teams. Teams are usually better off having honest, dispassionate debate.
> Prima donna developers who publicly call managers/teammates stupid in meetings ... (snip) ... telling newer team members to get a new job if they don't like how things are done.
I think the author covers that point to some extent:
> The focus stays on the problem: “This approach might not scale” instead of “Your idea sucks.”
As soon as you deviate from that focus, the discussion becomes toxic.
I ran a pretty high-functioning team of experienced C++ image processing pipeline programmers, for 25 years. We were part of a much larger, international (and interdisciplinary) team. We worked for one of the most renowned imaging companies in the world.
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.
25 years is a long time, I'm intrigued. Looking back, can you single out any specific rules, workflows or cultural reasons which made this possible? Also, how much fluctuation in team members did you experience?
I'm currently managing multiple teams, some of which are experiencing challenges with clashes between top talent. I'm sure there is no magical bullet, but still very interested in anecdotal data on this.
I think this article confuses an absence of "heated arguments" with a lack of constructive, critical discussions. I've found that in mature teams with high trust, people don't have heated arguments precisely because they are not afraid that their voices will be ignored. There is no need to become heated because you trust that the other people on the team will hear you out and consider your viewpoint.
>code that nobody questions usually crashes in production
> …in mature teams with high trust, people don’t have heated arguments…
This dynamic flourishes when the stakes and/or uncertainty are low enough.
High stakes and high uncertainty means everyone’s pushing their intuition and their reasoning as far as they can. They’re at their limit of what can be communicated efficiently. This results in an uneven distribution of communication bandwidth across the edges in the team network. Accountability induces leadership and competing views are ascendant and in decline.
I think it’s reasonable to wonder that, if the temperature never rises about room temperature, the team might not be fully challenging itself.
Edit: I noticed this comment was rather controversial and reread the article. The author is actually saying most people misunderstand psychological safety to be an environment where people don’t disagree. Their understanding of psychological safety however is correct. Not sure why the framing flipped my understanding in the first read.
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.
> Ideas get challenged based on what they are, not who said them
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 ?
--
The previous piece discussed here [1] was definitely more interesting and bringing more to the table as a thought piece.
> 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 ?
You'd think it's basic. But then you can read up on the history of checklists and how lives were saved by empowering nurses to point out that surgeons forgot some step.
Or Toyota empowering any worker to stop the production line if they suspect a defect.
Or any number of "we should treat other teams and people as worth listening to instead of dismissing them" which in IT seems like a really common problem between dev and test.
> But then, will they even listen to this author ?
People causing the issue will not. But their teams may learn that this is not normal and start enacting change themselves. Or at least do things differently in the future in their own projects.
> Who's raising their fist shouting that respectful disagreement with different perspectives has no place in their team ?
Nobody says this directly. (Just like almost nobody says "I discriminate against ...") But listen to how people internally refer to other teams, and ask yourself if they would consider/accept the outside perspective without a needless fight. Have you already met people who will in conversations say "those idiots in (other team)"?
Its useful to identify what sort of team you are on. I've definitely been on teams that valued what I'd call "silent consensus" which really meant a small group had already met and made whatever self serving decision and when they met with the whole team to have a "first discussion" they expected zero extra inputs.
Sometimes the fastest way to win is to completely disengage. If these people are actually wrong all of the time, they will spiral even faster without your intervention.
Alternatively, use your opponent's momentum against them. Reorient your thinking and accelerate the destruction of their bad ideas by encouraging them.
Keep your head down or bail. Being right doesn't matter if you aren't calling the shots; you can't cash in those I-told-you-so points for anything.
Sometimes a project gets funded by someone who wants the team to look and act a certain way and actual productivity doesn't even factor in. You're not 'right' if you've fundamentally misunderstood what you're doing there in the first place. Either take their money and play along or leave. That's the call you can make.
Well, if everyone you are encountering on the street is driving in the wrong direction, the probability that you are the wrong-way driver might be slightly increased. ;)
Once I was in a team that had built for themselves a bubble of happiness, because the CTO / second founder of the company was a toxic scumbag. At the time I thought it was the best team ever but the bubble was cracked in a very ugly way, revealing the horrific situation.
The truth on this is even simpler: the absence of a clear decision making hierarchy in big A "Agile" processes dooms every non operational task to at best mediocre outcomes. *
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.
I know, feel the same about codes of conduct. People who need those kinds of rules are the least likely to follow and most likely to weaponize them.
But I think we can agree it's a good thing to feel assured that having different opinions and occasionally being wrong is not going to be a problem, that this is something that could potentially affect the team in positive ways?
steveBK123|10 months ago
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.
mistersquid|10 months ago
> 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.
The problem is not that incontrovertible proof cannot be provided real time. Yielding evidence from complex, esoteric systems is always difficult and time-consuming.
The problem is the well-spoken people in the above example are not well-listening. Hearing a poorly-worded argument whose conceptual outlines might be worth considering is an important skill. Ignoring an argument because it is not eloquently delivered is hubris.
Because such people do not listen well, they cannot claim to have “Strong opinions, loosely held”. Requiring hard-to-yield evidence before changing one’s mind is “Strong opinions, tightly held”.
In the end, heated arguments are usually an indicator of dysfunction, even in high functioning teams. Teams are usually better off having honest, dispassionate debate.
kijin|10 months ago
I think the author covers that point to some extent:
> The focus stays on the problem: “This approach might not scale” instead of “Your idea sucks.”
As soon as you deviate from that focus, the discussion becomes toxic.
ChrisMarshallNY|10 months ago
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.
sally_glance|10 months ago
I'm currently managing multiple teams, some of which are experiencing challenges with clashes between top talent. I'm sure there is no magical bullet, but still very interested in anecdotal data on this.
ashoeafoot|10 months ago
InsideOutSanta|10 months ago
>code that nobody questions usually crashes in production
I don't understand what that means.
ArinaS|10 months ago
Probably "code that nobody critiques will fail in production". That's not always true I guess.
blueboo|10 months ago
This dynamic flourishes when the stakes and/or uncertainty are low enough.
High stakes and high uncertainty means everyone’s pushing their intuition and their reasoning as far as they can. They’re at their limit of what can be communicated efficiently. This results in an uneven distribution of communication bandwidth across the edges in the team network. Accountability induces leadership and competing views are ascendant and in decline.
I think it’s reasonable to wonder that, if the temperature never rises about room temperature, the team might not be fully challenging itself.
ArinaS|10 months ago
Doesn't the article refute exactly this point of view? In "The hidden cost of “nice” teams" section:
"Those teams weren’t actually harmonious—they were conflict-avoidant. The disagreements still existed; they just went underground."
voidspark|10 months ago
Shit code or architecture that other devs didn't call out.
roxolotl|10 months ago
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.
steveBK123|10 months ago
makeitdouble|10 months ago
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 ?
--
The previous piece discussed here [1] was definitely more interesting and bringing more to the table as a thought piece.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43652024
viraptor|10 months ago
You'd think it's basic. But then you can read up on the history of checklists and how lives were saved by empowering nurses to point out that surgeons forgot some step.
Or Toyota empowering any worker to stop the production line if they suspect a defect.
Or any number of "we should treat other teams and people as worth listening to instead of dismissing them" which in IT seems like a really common problem between dev and test.
> But then, will they even listen to this author ?
People causing the issue will not. But their teams may learn that this is not normal and start enacting change themselves. Or at least do things differently in the future in their own projects.
> Who's raising their fist shouting that respectful disagreement with different perspectives has no place in their team ?
Nobody says this directly. (Just like almost nobody says "I discriminate against ...") But listen to how people internally refer to other teams, and ask yourself if they would consider/accept the outside perspective without a needless fight. Have you already met people who will in conversations say "those idiots in (other team)"?
franktankbank|10 months ago
sorokod|10 months ago
willjp|10 months ago
unknown|10 months ago
[deleted]
wood_spirit|10 months ago
bob1029|10 months ago
Alternatively, use your opponent's momentum against them. Reorient your thinking and accelerate the destruction of their bad ideas by encouraging them.
throwawee|10 months ago
Sometimes a project gets funded by someone who wants the team to look and act a certain way and actual productivity doesn't even factor in. You're not 'right' if you've fundamentally misunderstood what you're doing there in the first place. Either take their money and play along or leave. That's the call you can make.
generic92034|10 months ago
darthrupert|10 months ago
fidotron|10 months ago
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.
unknown|10 months ago
[deleted]
mocmoc|10 months ago
narag|10 months ago
coffeefirst|10 months ago
This is a good idea.
Unfortunately, using therapist jargon in other contexts sounds very strange, shibolethy and throws people off.
codr7|10 months ago
But I think we can agree it's a good thing to feel assured that having different opinions and occasionally being wrong is not going to be a problem, that this is something that could potentially affect the team in positive ways?
bravetraveler|10 months ago
I'm just here to do good stuff and not starve, man. Y'all doing too much.