Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
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Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
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Re: Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
#2I 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
I don't understand what that means.
Re: Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
#3I 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 nobod…
> I don't understand what that means.
Probably "code that nobody critiques will fail in production". That's not always true I guess.
Re: Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
#4100%
Re: Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
#5I 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 nobod…
> this article confuses an absence of "heated arguments" with a lack of constructive, critical discussions.
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."
Re: Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
#6One learns more from friendly critics than from uncritical friends.
Re: Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
#7I 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 nobod…
> this article confuses an absence of "heated arguments" with a lack of constructive, critical discussions. 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. "
In my eyes a critical discussion does not mean that the disagreements went underground. If the team is doing its best to resolve the issue, what else are you going to do? I certainly do not believe that yelling at each other is helpful.
A toxic consensus culture usually does not even allow for a serious, critical discussion, but dissenters are just ignored or verbally patted on the head.
Re: Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
#8I 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 nobod…
> I don't understand what that means.
Shit code or architecture that other devs didn't call out.
Re: Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
> this article confuses an absence of "heated arguments" with a lack of constructive, critical discussions. 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. "
In my eyes a critical discussion does not mean that the disagreements went underground. If the team is doing its best to resolve the issue, what else are you going to do? I certainly do not believe that yelling at each other is helpful. A toxic consensus culture usually does not even allow for a serious, critical discussion, but dissenters are just ignored or verbally patted on the head.
[deleted]
Re: Why Your 'Harmonious' Team Is Failing
#10I 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.