Upvoting this because it's worthy of discussion, but in my mind a little off-base. Ever work in a big, dysfunctional environment? I have. My job is to help tea

Upvoting this because it's worthy of discussion, but in my mind a little off-base. Ever work in a big, dysfunctional environment? I have. My job is to help teams work better, so I get a chance to work in startups, BigCorps, government IT shops -- pretty much everything. As a rule, large dysfunctional environments are full of people who are extremely polite to each other. You have to be: when you've got a thousand people, you can't walk around ticking people off. People don't survive like that. But those are the worst places to work. Even worse than the out-of-control, balls-to-the-wall startups. Why? Because hidden apathy is rampant. People will smile, help out, be polite -- even applaud new ideas. But nothing changes. The organization has eliminated assholes to the point where no difficult conversations take place. Don't go there. Ever see a high-performing team? Got news for you. Sometimes people say things they shouldn't. They're incivil -- but not on purpose. It's just that they care deeply about what they're doing and you're not always able to express criticism in the most fluffy way possible. A better way is to go with fierce opinions, lightly held. People have difficult conversations, sometimes with invective and emotion, but from a standpoint of caring for each other and the work. Once they've made their case with as much vigor as they like, they're amenable to change. So it's not assholes. Everybody is an asshole. It's part of being human. It's manipulative people -- weasels -- whether they use bullying or "facilitation" to manipulate. People who don't have a clear and simple mission that everybody knows and agrees with are poison to any organization. One business self-help guy put it this way: intent counts more than technique. You can be a bit rough around the edges as long as you mean well and are flexible. What you can't do is use aggression to force people to your will. But there are plenty other tricks besides aggression to do this, and they're all bad.