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This is exactly the opposite of what the article says. Please don't try to hijack it with pro-military stumping. Excerpt: As the researchers studied the group

by abalone 11y ago

This is exactly the opposite of what the article says. Please don't try to hijack it with pro-military stumping. Excerpt: As the researchers studied the groups, however, they noticed two behaviors that all the good teams generally shared. First, on the good teams, members spoke in roughly the same proportion, a phenomenon the researchers referred to as "equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking." On some teams, everyone spoke during each task; on others, leadership shifted among teammates from assignment to assignment. But in each case, by the end of the day, everyone had spoken roughly the same amount. "As long as everyone got a chance to talk, the team did well," Woolley said. "But if only one person or a small group spoke all the time, the collective intelligence declined." Second, the good teams all had high "average social sensitivity" — a fancy way of saying they were skilled at intuiting how others felt... That is way more fluid in terms of authority and touchy-feely than rigid military hierarchies. Which makes sense given that roles are much more fluid in creative enterprises and there's no life-or-death quick decisionmaking that favors decisiveness over debate. Not to say that there's no creative thinking in the military, but role and responsibilities can be more clearly defined at the outset.

AndrewKemendo 11y ago
This doesn't contradict it at all and you are confusing line-infantry with SOF, which is specifically what I am referring to. CONOPS (Concept of operations) planning goes exactly like described with equality of input throughout the process. In fact it goes beyond that with team members continuously providing input throughout the run-up and execution of whatever operation is in play. In many cases during whatever operation is happening, any team member, regardless of rank, can call "knock it off" if something is not going well and the team will respond to that. That is way more fluid in terms of authority and touchy-feely than rigid military hierarchies Again, this rigidity of hierarchy is a myth within high performing SOF teams (CAG (Delta), DEVGRU, 75th Ranger Regiment etc...) there's no life-or-death quick decisionmaking that favors decisiveness over debate. Again, this misrepresents how battlefield decisions get made and overplays how democratic decisions are within [insert startup]. There is advantage to "violence of action" - meaning making a decision can be made and emphatically executed quickly - but it's not the case that it needs to be approved by TOP (the leader). One of the key benefits of SOF is that everyone has the ability to make a decision that might veer from the plan without it being insubordination or some other offense.
bobwaycott 11y ago
I think it's pretty unfair to categorize the prior comment as "pro-military stumping". It read to me like the commenter was providing some possibly alternative information from a different field that might provide interesting insights others could use. There was no strong pro-military tone that I can see after a couple re-readings. Moreover, the items the commenter laid out weren't inherently the opposite of what you provided as an excerpt. The original comment doesn't say anything about equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking, or intuiting how others felt. I mean, item #2 is advocating the benefit of constant communication among the team ... so it actually sounds like it could complement the article's findings.
- abalone 11y ago
  I'll quote further then.. people may speak over one another, go on tangents and socialize instead of remaining focused on the agenda. The team may seem inefficient to a casual observer. But all the team members speak as much as they need to. They are sensitive to one another’s moods and share personal stories and emotions. Overwhelmingly the key point of the article is "In the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs." It focuses heavily on emotional and psychological needs, not "clear authority" or "clearly defined, proven effective and specialized roles," which is what the comment was trying to hijack this to emphasize (that stuff is nowhere in the article). It's true the previous comment did include a line on "candid and constant communication," but that is quite overbroad and omits the key distinction of the nature of that communication. The key point of the article is that it is of a tangential and/or personal nature, not just candid operational feedback. This is why I think it's fair to criticize the comment as missing the whole point of the article.
  - bobwaycott 11y ago
    Except you did not criticize the commenter for missing the point of the article (as you see it), you combatively accused them of hijacking the discussion with "pro-military stumping".
    - abalone 11y ago

by abalone 11y ago

AndrewKemendo 11y ago

This doesn't contradict it at all and you are confusing line-infantry with SOF, which is specifically what I am referring to. CONOPS (Concept of operations) planning goes exactly like described with equality of input throughout the process. In fact it goes beyond that with team members continuously providing input throughout the run-up and execution of whatever operation is in play. In many cases during whatever operation is happening, any team member, regardless of rank, can call "knock it off" if something is not going well and the team will respond to that. That is way more fluid in terms of authority and touchy-feely than rigid military hierarchies Again, this rigidity of hierarchy is a myth within high performing SOF teams (CAG (Delta), DEVGRU, 75th Ranger Regiment etc...) there's no life-or-death quick decisionmaking that favors decisiveness over debate. Again, this misrepresents how battlefield decisions get made and overplays how democratic decisions are within [insert startup]. There is advantage to "violence of action" - meaning making a decision can be made and emphatically executed quickly - but it's not the case that it needs to be approved by TOP (the leader). One of the key benefits of SOF is that everyone has the ability to make a decision that might veer from the plan without it being insubordination or some other offense.

bobwaycott 11y ago

I think it's pretty unfair to categorize the prior comment as "pro-military stumping". It read to me like the commenter was providing some possibly alternative information from a different field that might provide interesting insights others could use. There was no strong pro-military tone that I can see after a couple re-readings. Moreover, the items the commenter laid out weren't inherently the opposite of what you provided as an excerpt. The original comment doesn't say anything about equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking, or intuiting how others felt. I mean, item #2 is advocating the benefit of constant communication among the team ... so it actually sounds like it could complement the article's findings.

abalone 11y ago
I'll quote further then.. people may speak over one another, go on tangents and socialize instead of remaining focused on the agenda. The team may seem inefficient to a casual observer. But all the team members speak as much as they need to. They are sensitive to one another’s moods and share personal stories and emotions. Overwhelmingly the key point of the article is "In the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs." It focuses heavily on emotional and psychological needs, not "clear authority" or "clearly defined, proven effective and specialized roles," which is what the comment was trying to hijack this to emphasize (that stuff is nowhere in the article). It's true the previous comment did include a line on "candid and constant communication," but that is quite overbroad and omits the key distinction of the nature of that communication. The key point of the article is that it is of a tangential and/or personal nature, not just candid operational feedback. This is why I think it's fair to criticize the comment as missing the whole point of the article.
- bobwaycott 11y ago
  Except you did not criticize the commenter for missing the point of the article (as you see it), you combatively accused them of hijacking the discussion with "pro-military stumping".
  - abalone 11y ago