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Yeah, this ain't so good. First, "asshole" and "people who don't collaborate well" are not the same. "Assholes" are people who piss other people off. "People w

Yeah, this ain't so good. First, "asshole" and "people who don't collaborate well" are not the same. "Assholes" are people who piss other people off. "People who don't collaborate well" can be any number of things. Mostly shy folks, in my experience. Second, pissing people off isn't that bad of a trait -- as long as you are a friendly person and mean well. People will forgive a plethora of communication faults if you put their interests first and genuinely care about them. So what you're really wanting to avoid is "selfish assholes" Finally, there's a tremendous danger in avoiding conflict in companies. Healthy conflict is a good thing, and over time we tend to want to hire people that mostly agree with us and are always on our side. This is a terrible thing to have, because it limits your creative potential. Give me a mixed team of radically different personality types and political leanings, all willing to push and be gruff with each other, yet all in good sport. We call this "passionate opinions, lightly held" So no, the goal here isn't just to identify douchebags and keep them from the room. The goal is to maximize the mental diversity while maintaining civility and a family-like atmosphere. Much tougher.

michaelrwolfe1 13y ago
I agree with you. "Don't collaborate well" was poor writing on my part - I'm talking about a specific type of poor collaboration, including undermining and attacking co-workers. I clarified in the post. There are other kinds of poor collaboration skills that have nothing to do with assholeness. Pissing people off and conflict are fine in the course of honest and healthy debate to get to the right answers. Good companies encourage that. Assholes actively undermine healthy conflict by 1) cutting off debate so that their ideas win, and 2) resorting to personal attacks. This leads to an "unsafe" environment where people don't want to speak up. Unfortunately the boss is often the asshole, which creates an environment where people just keep their mouths shut since speaking up is not worth the trouble.

michaelrwolfe1 13y ago

I agree with you. "Don't collaborate well" was poor writing on my part - I'm talking about a specific type of poor collaboration, including undermining and attacking co-workers. I clarified in the post. There are other kinds of poor collaboration skills that have nothing to do with assholeness. Pissing people off and conflict are fine in the course of honest and healthy debate to get to the right answers. Good companies encourage that. Assholes actively undermine healthy conflict by 1) cutting off debate so that their ideas win, and 2) resorting to personal attacks. This leads to an "unsafe" environment where people don't want to speak up. Unfortunately the boss is often the asshole, which creates an environment where people just keep their mouths shut since speaking up is not worth the trouble.