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Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

47 points by picks_at_nits 12y ago

dukerutledge 12y ago
There are two nice bullet points in the actionable part of this article. I wish they had been mentioned earlier because I feel many will not make it all the way through.
kstenerud 12y ago
This is precisely why I no longer argue with people I don't trust to seek the truth over their own ego.
throwawayf2o 12y ago
The explicit separation of hypothesis generation and argumentation / evaluation of alternatives is good advice. It's also helpful to take an iterated "2 pass approach" the argumentation/evaluation phase: first have everyone state their arguments, then isolate the important criteria upon which the proposed alternatives truly differ (e.g., team familiarity, fitness to application area) and try to establish how these are related and make sure these criteria are related to the end goal (e.g., quality product delivered on time and at cost). Then throw out any arguments that aren't related to the most salient criteria and iterate. This is a useful decision making process even when you're arguing with yourself. However, divorcing advocate from advocacy is not always a good idea because it assumes everyone in the room has the same set of experiences. This is never the case; people often suggest a particular solution precisely because they understand that solution (or a proposed alternative) well enough to have an experience-backed opinion; others in the room might not have the same experience, and so are unlikely to make the same arguments for/against a solution as other team members. In general, the problem isn't argumentation. Argumentation, broadly defined, will hopefully always happen whenever two mutually exclusive options are on the table. It is unavoidable unless you're willing to engineer by coin flip. The problem is ego and lack of respect and empathy. When team members respect and have empathy for one another, argumentation won't lead to these problems. Similarly, a lack of respect and empathy or an inflated ego cannot be solved by mediation of particular arguments; it's a larger issue that should be dealt with on its own terms.
grandalf 12y ago
If I am arguing with someone and I change my mind as a result of the argument, I consider myself to have "won" because I gained knowledge. If we accept all beliefs as provisional and only look to the argument as a method of hypothesis testing, it can be part of a group's rational process. However in my opinion the best way to approach group decision making is to acknowledge that all decisions have tradeoffs and then evaluate various ideas based on their relative tradeoffs. Teams with a bullying culture find the tradeoff matrix annoying because it deflates the intimidation tactics that some members use to get their way and shut other people down. For an example just bring up Mongodb.
- anaximander 12y ago
  This is an excellent perspective. Those tradeoffs are often the root of these arguments anyway: Alice comes up with a solution that has some advantage x. Bob comes up with a solution that has some advantage y. They'll argue endlessly because neither one of them will say "Oh you're right, I didn't consider x" or "I like your solution, but I don't know what's more important: x or y. Let's focus on determining that instead."
  - grandalf 12y ago
    > "I like your solution, but I don't know what's more important: x or y. Let's focus on determining that instead." Yes exactly. If only people were more rational, solution oriented, and humble. Engineering is about design within tradeoffs.
serve_yay 12y ago
A good writeup. But who decides who is being aggressive? How do we avoid the same short-circuiting that happens with "You seem really frustrated", repackaged as "You're being really aggressive"? Are participants allowed to accuse one another of aggression, or must that be done by an observer or outside party? If a participant is a member of a group that is stereotyped as "aggressive", and that individual is accused of aggression, is this accusation automatically an invocation of the stereotype -- and therefore an unfair attack? If not, how do we separate such an accusation from one that truly rests only on the individual's behavior?
- walshemj 12y ago
  And is showing passion in an argument a bad thing I remember at a conference on the last day some one stood up to speak on a motion "affiliate to the Anti Nazi league" This motion was always going to pass unopposed But Alan stood up and did a passionate 4 minute tour deforce speech that is the only time I have seen a real standing ovation
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  I'm not sure that you need to do so. I agree that 'you seem really upset' can easily turn into a meta-argument, subtly disqualifying other participants by shifting the focus of discussion to their emotional states and thereby discounting their substantive contributions. In politics this has become practically institutionalized. I'm a huge fan of Deborah Tannen, not least because I grew up in a household with a lot of verbal and physical aggression so I am painfully aware of how awful arguments can get and why arguing is soften a one-way street for the participants. and after studying her work I found some techniques that seem to work well during face-to-face disputes to de-escalate things without going passive-aggressive. the downside is that t's time-consuming and hard work. If someone is yelling at me and it's something more than some momentary misunderstanding that can be established and then set aside, then I just let them yell. After a while the lack of reply leads them to run out of steam, at which point I ask, politely, whether they're finished. Maybe they are, or maybe this unleashes another tirade. So far nobody has offered a third one :-) Once they say they are finished, now I have some time to talk - because they said so themselves. And instead of arguing with them or expressing my own view, or characterizing their emotional state (even positively), I try to summarize their complaint as fairly as possible, eg 'So you're saying that after I went into the kitchen to cook dinner, I set your hose on fire and burned it to the ground - is that correct?'* I try to articulate the person's basic complaint in full, while ignoring any ancillary stuff (eg remarks about why I'm a bad person or that my mother wears army boots or that the person doesn't care for the horse I rode in on either). The point of this is to build agreement with the other person about what they said. Although I may go on to dispute it, this shows the other person that I did actually listen to them, and that I paid sufficient attention to what they were saying that I can be trusted to accurately report their own claims back to them. Sometimes it turns out that I've failed to understand something important - either how much they cared about something or some actual fact that I got wrong, so I might have to concede the argument at this point, or concede some part of it. That's OK; the point of this is not to win, but to bring an end to the conflict, and if that end disadvantages me that's my problem. If I am going to disagree, there's two different ways that could happen. If it's about some factual issue, then I try to go back with the other person to before the dispute arose, and establish the last thing prior that we do agree about, in the same way that I secured their agreement about the basic content of their argument. This allows us (not me) to identifying the point where our experiences diverge. Maybe it's a simple misunderstanding which could then be cleared up, or maybe it stems from some difference of opinion; in the latter case I outline as briefly as possible what I thought that was different from what they thought. If they attack me for that I accept it, but reiterate that that was the opinion I held at the time, right or wrong, and show how it informed my subsequent actions/beliefs/whatever. That part usually goes smoothly because most people are familiar with the way large consequences can flow from small differences. The aim then is to identify the smallest difference that existed, before the consequences became significant, and work with the other person to understand how it arose. Making the point of disagreement as small as possible usually allows the conflict to be made smaller as well, to the point that it can be resolved without the 'losing' side having to feel humiliated. Even if I was right and the other person was wrong, I try to pass over that as quickly as possible and ask what I could do differently in future to ensure the situation does not recur. The other sort of disagreement is one of conflicting aims rather than conflicting narratives; we're in conflict because we want different things, or both want an exclusive right o the same thing, or because of some fundamentally different belief. In this istuation I try a similar approach - get the opponent's agreement about my attempt to fairly summarize their premises, then articulate my own premises. Even if my opponent rejects them utterly I just accept that, but state gently that my premises are as firmly held as theirs, and try to articulate (and seek agreement for) what the contours of the resulting disagreement will be, ie that we may not be able to resolve the dispute, but we can minimize its scope, rather than attempting to win by throwing in other irrelevant stuff, up to and including the kitchen sink (a phrase which I feel sure originates in the accusation that not only is one party in a marriage having an affair or doing something equally bad, s/he also does a terrible job of washing dishes). This is of course even more time-consuming, because the conflict hasn't been resolved, but by gradually (and mutually) whittling it down to a minimum number of irreconcilable differences, and if possible, quantifying the value assigned to victory or loss (eg 'So you are saying that you will only feel satisfied if you are allowed to burn my house to the ground in turn, yes?'), it allows for letting the emotions out slowly in the same way as you'd let the air out of an over-inflated balloon, rather than having it pop (resulting in irreparable damage) or go whizzing randomly all over the room (with unforeseeable consequences, eg things getting knocked over). Although you're still in conflict, it's now a cooler conflict than it was before, and importantly, your opponent acknowledges, however grudgingly, the fact of your agency and your right occupy a conflicting position. At this point you can start negotiating approaches to resolution (eg going to court) or containment (eg agreeing to kick the can down the road, something countries often do over disputed territories where neither side wants to give up a claim but they don't actually want to go to war over it, so they agree to disagree). I think that one of the primary difficulties for us as a species is our capacity to become addicted to particular hormonal experiences; our capacity for narrative in many ways serves the purpose of generating the release of hormones in predictable patterns, and it could be argued that ritualized activities or formulaic stories are a way of domesticating and channeling that. The best way to deal with someone else trying to make you into the villain of their personal story is to become familiar enough with their story that you can tell it back to them in a manner that they recognize. By identifying the driving factors between different actors and distilling the basis of the ensuring conflict to the most fundamental identifiable form, the basis for resolution (or at worst, mitigation) often becomes clear. * I would like to point out that I have never set anyone's house on fire and you could totally trust me to cook dinner. This example is fortunately drawn from imagination rather than experience.
proveanegative 12y ago
>Second, men are conditioned to be more competitive towards women than men. In studies on boys and girls in gym class, boys try harder in competitive foot races against girls versus their male peers [ 10 ]. The study this observation is derived from only talks about competitions of physical ability.
- gress 12y ago
  Given this study, do you think it is more reasonable a) to think this competition extends to other spheres, or b) to think that it does not. If your answer is b), what evidence do you have to support this?
  - dikaiosune 12y ago
    If your answer is a), what evidence do you have to support this? A claim requires evidence, skepticism is just asking for evidence to support a claim. B is just skepticism when you paraphrase it fairly.
    - gress 12y ago
      Sorry, B is not skepticism. B is another claim. It is the claim that men do not compete more strongly with women than with men in domains outside of physical activity. Unless you have evidence to support this claim, we should be skeptical of it, especially in light of A.
      - dikaiosune 12y ago
        It's a claim only in the sense that any skepticism is a claim (which, sure, is true in a narrow semantic sense). Skepticism is disbelieving an assertion due to lack of evidence. All B is saying is that there's no evidence provided that trends in physical competition can be used to extrapolate intellectual or political competition. Extrapolation from one set of evidence requires more than just gut feeling -- it requires supplementary evidence to show that the two situations are more than coincidentally related. Of course, I would expect men to be more competitive with women in a number of areas (not just grade school PE races) based on my limited experience and the cited study, but where's the evidence? edit: speeling
quanticle 12y ago
I keep seeing references to the IDEO brainstorming process, but do we have any actual evidence that the "shared safe space" for ideas actually produces good ideas? The actual studies I've looked at (such as http://psp.sagepub.com/content/19/1/78.short http://psp.sagepub.com/content/19/1/78.short) show that the most productive brainstorming method is to have each person think of ideas on their own, and then have everyone comes together to defend their ideas in an adversarial setting. This is precisely the opposite of what Kate Heddleston is arguing.
- 21echoes 12y ago
  Given that IDEO is still seen as the pinnacle of design consultancy shops, and most other successful design consultancy shops have similar processes... that seems like a pretty good evidence (yes, I know that is not a particularly rigorous experiment). I'd love to hear from someone who's been at IDEO or frog or wherever chime in with any experiments they've done in alternative practices.
asgard1024 12y ago
Frankly, that's a terrible article, full of sexist stereotypes. She is reading too much into it. Just briefly: Sometimes people argue because they genuinely think their favorite tool is superior, and want to help others be more efficient. Sometimes people speak loudly because they are genuinely excited about something. I doubt there is any authority or respect to win by good arguing about technology (especially on online forums). Furthermore, any authority to be likely won by arguing only exists if people respect it; if one stops caring about people "gaining authority" by arguing, then there will not be any authority to be gained by that. [Edit: She also underestimates curiosity - sometimes I argue and play devil's advocate just because I am curious why the other smart person has a different opinion, how good is their argument?] The only valid complaint in the article is that people judge assertive women more negatively than assertive men, which is true and unfortunate. It's also amusing that she blames engineer's arguing for the competitive atmosphere, while being from the US, which has this hyper-competitive capitalist culture, which I rather despise and I am not the only engineer who does. (Another fun fact - I am native Czech speaker, and we have two different words for "argument" - "debata" and "hadka", the former implying a civil one, the other one meaning one where people are angry at each other. I am not really sure which meaning the article uses, and I pretty firmly against the latter - being a sensitive male, but I greatly enjoy the former.) The article is very clever in one thing, though. Now anyone who argues with it can be labelled as aggressive (or terrorist?). Humans and their mindgames, so funny.
- dikaiosune 12y ago
  > Another fun fact - I am native Czech speaker, and we have two different words for "argument" - "debata" and "hadka", the former implying a civil one, the other one meaning one where people are angry at each other. I am not really sure which meaning the article uses The problem is that it's the author's responsibility to disambiguate between the possible meanings, and the author of this article makes no such attempt. In fact, it seems like she's conflating the two and implying that they are one and the same -- i.e. that if you competitively evaluate ideas by (calmly or not) debating them, you are automatically engaging in a fight.
  - mfisher87 12y ago
mrxd 12y ago
> Creating an environment that encourages aggression gives men an edge This is true. Lots of men feel humiliated and experience a loss of status when they're defeated by a woman, which effectively means women can't engage with men in that way. That's because the company culture or the men they work with have sexist beliefs. One workaround is banning arguments. But if you have the power to change the culture that way, why not just ban sexism? That seems like it would do more good.
- mrits 12y ago
  As a male that has been defeated my women at a wide range of activities my whole life I have a hard time understanding it. Even as a varsity basketball player I would often get beat my a girl in a game of horse. The intellectual playing field seems to be even so there is no reason for a man to get upset losing an argument to a women anymore than another man. I think the problem is that people just suck in general and a lot of people are seeing it as man vs women.
Negitivefrags 12y ago
Here is what I do to diffuse arguments between me and my co-founder when we have reached the point where all the information has been presented and it's starting to get repetitious. Agree that both options are off the table now and that a third solution must be found. Normally if there is an argument both parties do have actual legitimate concerns that need to be addressed. The problem is that often once you get into argument mode, your ability to be creative and modify your solution to fit the other persons concerns can go out the window. By removing both options you can go back into creative mode. A lot of the time when doing this we actually have arrived at a much better idea than either of the two presented before that makes us both happy. Often you end up settling on an idea that is 95% the same as what one of the people suggested in the first place, only now it also addresses the concerns of the other person too and they will now feel on board with it, which is a much better situation than if one person had "won" the argument leaving the other bitter.
ryanobjc 12y ago
but as a guy, its biologically fun to be aggressive. Now what? :-(
- throwawayf2o 12y ago
  Play sports before/after work and get it out of your system on the field. Or be aggressive about your product winning in the marketplace.
  - mucker 12y ago
    Winning is badz according to this. I'm not sure you even read the article.
BurningFrog 12y ago
The ability to leave your ego out of technical discussions is one of the most important engineering skills there are. "Winning" on an engineering team needs to be "we built a great product quickly", not "I made the team do things my way". This is hard, and your first task is to be a person who thinks and acts that way. If you never had to change how you approach and think about things, you're probably not doing that. When you are angry/frustrated, you can't think clearly. So if someone has reached that point, it's very hard to have a productive discussion.
anaximander 12y ago
I feel like this article starts off on the wrong foot: "An argument is the use of aggressive opposition to weed out weak logic, keeping the strongest ideas possible. The philosophy behind using arguments for problem-solving is that attacking the weak parts of an idea will leave the best solutions." I'm with you so far. Being able to distinguish good from bad is the basis of critical thought. "The metaphor for argument in our culture is war. We think of people we argue with as opponents ..." I know a lot of people who do this, but I certainly don't, and I consider it a sign of maturity when somebody is able to separate ideas from egos. Remember, we started off by talking about the good and bad parts of ideas; not good and bad people. It's not a fight, it's a collaboration to share perspectives and discover new insight. "... we attack their position and defend our own, we can gain or lose ground, and ultimately we can win or lose arguments—just like battles" Whether you're focusing on the idea, or the person who generated it, there's really no use in considering them an opponent, and even less use in framing things in terms of winning or losing. Ideas don't "compete" with each other, any more than 1 and 2 compete to see which is the bigger number. There's only truth. If you're winning or losing, you've already missed the point and you're focusing on the wrong thing. I think "aggression" is unfortunately not the real problem here, the real problem is that people often aren't mature enough to admit they're wrong, or to consider another person's perspective, or to say "I don't know". I don't want to focus on this aspect of the article, but I find it really discouraging to continually see these articles which try to spin things in terms of gender. Developing this "men vs women" perspective is exactly the kind of "adversarial mind" the author denounces in the introduction.
- 21echoes 12y ago
  Yes, it is possible to have absolutely, completely emotion-less arguments. No, it is not easy, or particularly common. If you truly feel like you & your work environment do have such pure-truth-seeking arguments: great. However, please take some time to really critically evaluate & test that assertion -- the people who are most at home in such an environment are the people least likely to notice its negative effects on other team members & potential hires. I'm speaking from experience here: I love arguing (or "debating" as I prefer to think of it), and have been on plenty of teams where it was a common interaction. It was only with some time, helpful feedback from my direct reports, and critical examination that I was really able to see the subtle ways in which it was hurting our org. Re: gender -- I hope you see why gender was brought up in the article. No, it was not some "spin" or needless us vs. them. Women are, as the article states, the canary in the coal mine of toxic & aggressive interpersonal dynamics. Not because of any weaknesses of women, but rather because men have been shown over and over again to reject the arguments of assertive women no matter their merits, and to accept the same arguments from equally assertive men instead (cited in the article). In other words: an argumentative environment is one which punishes women by putting them in a position where their peers judge them in a gendered way.
ableal 12y ago
> There's an online meme that goes, "Arguing with an engineer is a lot like wrestling with a pig in the mud; after a couple of hours, you realize the pig likes it." I'm an engineer. I've been online for over 30 years, including Usenet days, and I never even once saw such a "meme". This is slander, and I object to it.
- mucker 12y ago
  I know right? She calls names at the start of the article and then attempts to strike a superior pose. This is one of the worst articles I've read in a long while. It is emotionalism writ large. The mere fact that she poisons the well at the very beginning shows she is ignorant of argument.
  - 12thr0wit 12y ago
    you guys should email her, and tell her she's wrong.
pnathan 12y ago
So..... this article is making a good point, but it's not following from the presented arguments. It's almost a tautology that unregulated aggression is a bad idea and should be dealt with. but - If you have an idea, how do you know it's a bad idea? That requires critical engagement, taking it apart, putting it back together and performing analysis on it. Doing this well will involve some fairly in-depth reasoning and questioning. If someone is losing their temper in that process, then (1) they are too sensitive/protective and/or (2) someone's being a jerk to the offended party and it's time to knock it off. Egofree programming is an old ideal, but not a bad one. I also retain the mildly heretical notion that a really and truly aggressive environment about code, design, and the quality thereof is probably a more enjoyable place to work than one that focuses on relationships and keeping them smooth. Wrong stuff is wrong, and should be called out and removed. IMO. :) I don't have any comments about gender here, because any gender comment will draw down 'unregulated aggression', and I'm tired of reading such.
wvh 12y ago
I work for a company that is very much like the bullet points described in the post, and nothing gets done. Sure there are lots of endless meetings and brainstorming sessions, but nobody bangs on the table and nobody steps up. Nobody's negative in public, but returns silently resentful and sometimes even demotivated to their own office. Sometimes the negativity comes out in a back-handed manner, as gossip, or passive aggression. What fighting and discussion gets replaced with is often at least as ugly and detrimental. The previous company I worked for was the exact opposite, probably a good example for the sort of aggressive and argumentative company the article talks about. Things got done, but the atmosphere was not very good. It helped to be dominant and make a lot of noise. The writer tries to push for the environment she'd like as the best possible way of achieving whatever that needs achieving, but having worked for several companies on either end of that spectrum, I don't think it's all that clear cut. You might like a non-confrontational style, only positivity and no competing, but I don't think that's a company where everyone wants to work or that would do well in every market. Finally, I don't want to argue ;) -- but the word aggression is very ambiguous and some of the examples refer rather to violence (war, physical aggression) rather than with fighting spirit (like an athlete).
- moomin 12y ago
  One strategy is to say "You seem frustrated." Another is "You're reading too much into this." There's so much wrong with a culture of aggressive arguing it's hard to know where to start but consider this: we've got plenty of research that tells us that women are disproportionately disliked if they act in an aggressive manner. Men, on the other hand, are often seen as being "winners" or "leaders" with _the same behaviour_. So you're de facto running a misogynistic culture by promoting this behaviour. And if there's much better ways for your firm to win than be more aggressive than your competitors. There's serving your customers for a start.
trhway 12y ago
>An argument is the use of aggressive opposition to weed out weak logic, keeping the strongest ideas possible. The philosophy behind using arguments for problem-solving is that attacking the weak parts of an idea will leave the best solutions. The metaphor for argument in our culture is war. We think of people we argue with as opponents, we attack their position and defend our own, we can gain or lose ground, and ultimately we can win or lose arguments—just like battles [1]. the author probably has no idea about some wrestling and in general war strategies. In many cases you don't need to aggressively attack the opponent. Just let him fall using his own impulse and under his own weight... you can even help him by adding to his impulse (like in many cases in judo :) In corporate environment - just let the opponent develop his great idea in details, ask helpful questions about inter- and intra- component integration, performance, suggest the opponent do quick POC demonstrating all these great characteristics of their idea ...
andyl 12y ago
I really hope my competitors take this advice to heart, and put limits on the aggressive personalities within their company.
Htsthbjig 12y ago
As entrepreneur, with experience as manager and engineer I could tell you that arguments and discussion are probably the most useful thing for any company. More than two interesting people, with different backgrounds and beliefs should always argue. It is a great thing for any institution. Arguments discard weak ideas before the market does. If the market does you have already spent enormous amount of money. This should not be confused with keeping it civilized. My main job as a manager was keeping a great environment for discussion. Good quality debate and discussion should be teached in schools, like in ancient Greece, when they were trained to defend their position, and then to defend the opposite. This forces you to understand the other side. Like in marriage, a great marriage does not mean no arguments, because if there are no arguments it means simply that one party is surrendering to the other. You can love and respect the other person and disagree, listen to the other party, understand what they tell you and take a shared decision. No arguments in a company means design by committee. Everybody's opinion is equal an usually this means disaster, unless the people in the Round table are already preselected like King Arthur's. Brainstorming is something that you do before arguing. First you are not critical, you expose all ideas that you have, you are creative, not rational, but at the end end of the process you start trimming, cutting for getting to decisions(witch etymologically means to cut branches) based on rational decisions that make some ideas stand and the others perish.
- Htsthbjig 12y ago
  PD: Some people will find the story of the atom fascinating because the atom knowledge comes from "Argument culture": http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1fix14_bbc-atom-1-the-clash-of-the-titans_tv http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1fix14_bbc-atom-1-the-clas... People like Edison getting mad with a young genius that was ALSO right. All of those physicist fighting each other using arguments.
mrwarn 12y ago
I am Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile! “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.” Issac Asimov
return0 12y ago
Science and engineering are a lot more effective to reach truth than politics or law. Code (or hardware,buildings,devices,drugs,engines etc etc.) speaks louder than any words. The entire premise of this article is false.

47 points by picks_at_nits 12y ago

There are two nice bullet points in the actionable part of this article. I wish they had been mentioned earlier because I feel many will not make it all the way through.

kstenerud 12y ago

This is precisely why I no longer argue with people I don't trust to seek the truth over their own ego.

throwawayf2o 12y ago

The explicit separation of hypothesis generation and argumentation / evaluation of alternatives is good advice. It's also helpful to take an iterated "2 pass approach" the argumentation/evaluation phase: first have everyone state their arguments, then isolate the important criteria upon which the proposed alternatives truly differ (e.g., team familiarity, fitness to application area) and try to establish how these are related and make sure these criteria are related to the end goal (e.g., quality product delivered on time and at cost). Then throw out any arguments that aren't related to the most salient criteria and iterate. This is a useful decision making process even when you're arguing with yourself. However, divorcing advocate from advocacy is not always a good idea because it assumes everyone in the room has the same set of experiences. This is never the case; people often suggest a particular solution precisely because they understand that solution (or a proposed alternative) well enough to have an experience-backed opinion; others in the room might not have the same experience, and so are unlikely to make the same arguments for/against a solution as other team members. In general, the problem isn't argumentation. Argumentation, broadly defined, will hopefully always happen whenever two mutually exclusive options are on the table. It is unavoidable unless you're willing to engineer by coin flip. The problem is ego and lack of respect and empathy. When team members respect and have empathy for one another, argumentation won't lead to these problems. Similarly, a lack of respect and empathy or an inflated ego cannot be solved by mediation of particular arguments; it's a larger issue that should be dealt with on its own terms.

grandalf 12y ago

If I am arguing with someone and I change my mind as a result of the argument, I consider myself to have "won" because I gained knowledge. If we accept all beliefs as provisional and only look to the argument as a method of hypothesis testing, it can be part of a group's rational process. However in my opinion the best way to approach group decision making is to acknowledge that all decisions have tradeoffs and then evaluate various ideas based on their relative tradeoffs. Teams with a bullying culture find the tradeoff matrix annoying because it deflates the intimidation tactics that some members use to get their way and shut other people down. For an example just bring up Mongodb.

anaximander 12y ago
This is an excellent perspective. Those tradeoffs are often the root of these arguments anyway: Alice comes up with a solution that has some advantage x. Bob comes up with a solution that has some advantage y. They'll argue endlessly because neither one of them will say "Oh you're right, I didn't consider x" or "I like your solution, but I don't know what's more important: x or y. Let's focus on determining that instead."
- grandalf 12y ago
  > "I like your solution, but I don't know what's more important: x or y. Let's focus on determining that instead." Yes exactly. If only people were more rational, solution oriented, and humble. Engineering is about design within tradeoffs.

serve_yay 12y ago

A good writeup. But who decides who is being aggressive? How do we avoid the same short-circuiting that happens with "You seem really frustrated", repackaged as "You're being really aggressive"? Are participants allowed to accuse one another of aggression, or must that be done by an observer or outside party? If a participant is a member of a group that is stereotyped as "aggressive", and that individual is accused of aggression, is this accusation automatically an invocation of the stereotype -- and therefore an unfair attack? If not, how do we separate such an accusation from one that truly rests only on the individual's behavior?

walshemj 12y ago
And is showing passion in an argument a bad thing I remember at a conference on the last day some one stood up to speak on a motion "affiliate to the Anti Nazi league" This motion was always going to pass unopposed But Alan stood up and did a passionate 4 minute tour deforce speech that is the only time I have seen a real standing ovation
anigbrowl 12y ago
I'm not sure that you need to do so. I agree that 'you seem really upset' can easily turn into a meta-argument, subtly disqualifying other participants by shifting the focus of discussion to their emotional states and thereby discounting their substantive contributions. In politics this has become practically institutionalized. I'm a huge fan of Deborah Tannen, not least because I grew up in a household with a lot of verbal and physical aggression so I am painfully aware of how awful arguments can get and why arguing is soften a one-way street for the participants. and after studying her work I found some techniques that seem to work well during face-to-face disputes to de-escalate things without going passive-aggressive. the downside is that t's time-consuming and hard work. If someone is yelling at me and it's something more than some momentary misunderstanding that can be established and then set aside, then I just let them yell. After a while the lack of reply leads them to run out of steam, at which point I ask, politely, whether they're finished. Maybe they are, or maybe this unleashes another tirade. So far nobody has offered a third one :-) Once they say they are finished, now I have some time to talk - because they said so themselves. And instead of arguing with them or expressing my own view, or characterizing their emotional state (even positively), I try to summarize their complaint as fairly as possible, eg 'So you're saying that after I went into the kitchen to cook dinner, I set your hose on fire and burned it to the ground - is that correct?'* I try to articulate the person's basic complaint in full, while ignoring any ancillary stuff (eg remarks about why I'm a bad person or that my mother wears army boots or that the person doesn't care for the horse I rode in on either). The point of this is to build agreement with the other person about what they said. Although I may go on to dispute it, this shows the other person that I did actually listen to them, and that I paid sufficient attention to what they were saying that I can be trusted to accurately report their own claims back to them. Sometimes it turns out that I've failed to understand something important - either how much they cared about something or some actual fact that I got wrong, so I might have to concede the argument at this point, or concede some part of it. That's OK; the point of this is not to win, but to bring an end to the conflict, and if that end disadvantages me that's my problem. If I am going to disagree, there's two different ways that could happen. If it's about some factual issue, then I try to go back with the other person to before the dispute arose, and establish the last thing prior that we do agree about, in the same way that I secured their agreement about the basic content of their argument. This allows us (not me) to identifying the point where our experiences diverge. Maybe it's a simple misunderstanding which could then be cleared up, or maybe it stems from some difference of opinion; in the latter case I outline as briefly as possible what I thought that was different from what they thought. If they attack me for that I accept it, but reiterate that that was the opinion I held at the time, right or wrong, and show how it informed my subsequent actions/beliefs/whatever. That part usually goes smoothly because most people are familiar with the way large consequences can flow from small differences. The aim then is to identify the smallest difference that existed, before the consequences became significant, and work with the other person to understand how it arose. Making the point of disagreement as small as possible usually allows the conflict to be made smaller as well, to the point that it can be resolved without the 'losing' side having to feel humiliated. Even if I was right and the other person was wrong, I try to pass over that as quickly as possible and ask what I could do differently in future to ensure the situation does not recur. The other sort of disagreement is one of conflicting aims rather than conflicting narratives; we're in conflict because we want different things, or both want an exclusive right o the same thing, or because of some fundamentally different belief. In this istuation I try a similar approach - get the opponent's agreement about my attempt to fairly summarize their premises, then articulate my own premises. Even if my opponent rejects them utterly I just accept that, but state gently that my premises are as firmly held as theirs, and try to articulate (and seek agreement for) what the contours of the resulting disagreement will be, ie that we may not be able to resolve the dispute, but we can minimize its scope, rather than attempting to win by throwing in other irrelevant stuff, up to and including the kitchen sink (a phrase which I feel sure originates in the accusation that not only is one party in a marriage having an affair or doing something equally bad, s/he also does a terrible job of washing dishes). This is of course even more time-consuming, because the conflict hasn't been resolved, but by gradually (and mutually) whittling it down to a minimum number of irreconcilable differences, and if possible, quantifying the value assigned to victory or loss (eg 'So you are saying that you will only feel satisfied if you are allowed to burn my house to the ground in turn, yes?'), it allows for letting the emotions out slowly in the same way as you'd let the air out of an over-inflated balloon, rather than having it pop (resulting in irreparable damage) or go whizzing randomly all over the room (with unforeseeable consequences, eg things getting knocked over). Although you're still in conflict, it's now a cooler conflict than it was before, and importantly, your opponent acknowledges, however grudgingly, the fact of your agency and your right occupy a conflicting position. At this point you can start negotiating approaches to resolution (eg going to court) or containment (eg agreeing to kick the can down the road, something countries often do over disputed territories where neither side wants to give up a claim but they don't actually want to go to war over it, so they agree to disagree). I think that one of the primary difficulties for us as a species is our capacity to become addicted to particular hormonal experiences; our capacity for narrative in many ways serves the purpose of generating the release of hormones in predictable patterns, and it could be argued that ritualized activities or formulaic stories are a way of domesticating and channeling that. The best way to deal with someone else trying to make you into the villain of their personal story is to become familiar enough with their story that you can tell it back to them in a manner that they recognize. By identifying the driving factors between different actors and distilling the basis of the ensuring conflict to the most fundamental identifiable form, the basis for resolution (or at worst, mitigation) often becomes clear. * I would like to point out that I have never set anyone's house on fire and you could totally trust me to cook dinner. This example is fortunately drawn from imagination rather than experience.

proveanegative 12y ago

>Second, men are conditioned to be more competitive towards women than men. In studies on boys and girls in gym class, boys try harder in competitive foot races against girls versus their male peers [ 10 ]. The study this observation is derived from only talks about competitions of physical ability.

gress 12y ago
Given this study, do you think it is more reasonable a) to think this competition extends to other spheres, or b) to think that it does not. If your answer is b), what evidence do you have to support this?
- dikaiosune 12y ago
  If your answer is a), what evidence do you have to support this? A claim requires evidence, skepticism is just asking for evidence to support a claim. B is just skepticism when you paraphrase it fairly.
  - gress 12y ago
    Sorry, B is not skepticism. B is another claim. It is the claim that men do not compete more strongly with women than with men in domains outside of physical activity. Unless you have evidence to support this claim, we should be skeptical of it, especially in light of A.
    - dikaiosune 12y ago
      It's a claim only in the sense that any skepticism is a claim (which, sure, is true in a narrow semantic sense). Skepticism is disbelieving an assertion due to lack of evidence. All B is saying is that there's no evidence provided that trends in physical competition can be used to extrapolate intellectual or political competition. Extrapolation from one set of evidence requires more than just gut feeling -- it requires supplementary evidence to show that the two situations are more than coincidentally related. Of course, I would expect men to be more competitive with women in a number of areas (not just grade school PE races) based on my limited experience and the cited study, but where's the evidence? edit: speeling

quanticle 12y ago

I keep seeing references to the IDEO brainstorming process, but do we have any actual evidence that the "shared safe space" for ideas actually produces good ideas? The actual studies I've looked at (such as http://psp.sagepub.com/content/19/1/78.short http://psp.sagepub.com/content/19/1/78.short) show that the most productive brainstorming method is to have each person think of ideas on their own, and then have everyone comes together to defend their ideas in an adversarial setting. This is precisely the opposite of what Kate Heddleston is arguing.

21echoes 12y ago
Given that IDEO is still seen as the pinnacle of design consultancy shops, and most other successful design consultancy shops have similar processes... that seems like a pretty good evidence (yes, I know that is not a particularly rigorous experiment). I'd love to hear from someone who's been at IDEO or frog or wherever chime in with any experiments they've done in alternative practices.

asgard1024 12y ago

Frankly, that's a terrible article, full of sexist stereotypes. She is reading too much into it. Just briefly: Sometimes people argue because they genuinely think their favorite tool is superior, and want to help others be more efficient. Sometimes people speak loudly because they are genuinely excited about something. I doubt there is any authority or respect to win by good arguing about technology (especially on online forums). Furthermore, any authority to be likely won by arguing only exists if people respect it; if one stops caring about people "gaining authority" by arguing, then there will not be any authority to be gained by that. [Edit: She also underestimates curiosity - sometimes I argue and play devil's advocate just because I am curious why the other smart person has a different opinion, how good is their argument?] The only valid complaint in the article is that people judge assertive women more negatively than assertive men, which is true and unfortunate. It's also amusing that she blames engineer's arguing for the competitive atmosphere, while being from the US, which has this hyper-competitive capitalist culture, which I rather despise and I am not the only engineer who does. (Another fun fact - I am native Czech speaker, and we have two different words for "argument" - "debata" and "hadka", the former implying a civil one, the other one meaning one where people are angry at each other. I am not really sure which meaning the article uses, and I pretty firmly against the latter - being a sensitive male, but I greatly enjoy the former.) The article is very clever in one thing, though. Now anyone who argues with it can be labelled as aggressive (or terrorist?). Humans and their mindgames, so funny.

dikaiosune 12y ago
> Another fun fact - I am native Czech speaker, and we have two different words for "argument" - "debata" and "hadka", the former implying a civil one, the other one meaning one where people are angry at each other. I am not really sure which meaning the article uses The problem is that it's the author's responsibility to disambiguate between the possible meanings, and the author of this article makes no such attempt. In fact, it seems like she's conflating the two and implying that they are one and the same -- i.e. that if you competitively evaluate ideas by (calmly or not) debating them, you are automatically engaging in a fight.
- mfisher87 12y ago

mrxd 12y ago

> Creating an environment that encourages aggression gives men an edge This is true. Lots of men feel humiliated and experience a loss of status when they're defeated by a woman, which effectively means women can't engage with men in that way. That's because the company culture or the men they work with have sexist beliefs. One workaround is banning arguments. But if you have the power to change the culture that way, why not just ban sexism? That seems like it would do more good.

mrits 12y ago
As a male that has been defeated my women at a wide range of activities my whole life I have a hard time understanding it. Even as a varsity basketball player I would often get beat my a girl in a game of horse. The intellectual playing field seems to be even so there is no reason for a man to get upset losing an argument to a women anymore than another man. I think the problem is that people just suck in general and a lot of people are seeing it as man vs women.

Negitivefrags 12y ago

Here is what I do to diffuse arguments between me and my co-founder when we have reached the point where all the information has been presented and it's starting to get repetitious. Agree that both options are off the table now and that a third solution must be found. Normally if there is an argument both parties do have actual legitimate concerns that need to be addressed. The problem is that often once you get into argument mode, your ability to be creative and modify your solution to fit the other persons concerns can go out the window. By removing both options you can go back into creative mode. A lot of the time when doing this we actually have arrived at a much better idea than either of the two presented before that makes us both happy. Often you end up settling on an idea that is 95% the same as what one of the people suggested in the first place, only now it also addresses the concerns of the other person too and they will now feel on board with it, which is a much better situation than if one person had "won" the argument leaving the other bitter.

ryanobjc 12y ago

but as a guy, its biologically fun to be aggressive. Now what? :-(

throwawayf2o 12y ago
Play sports before/after work and get it out of your system on the field. Or be aggressive about your product winning in the marketplace.
- mucker 12y ago
  Winning is badz according to this. I'm not sure you even read the article.

BurningFrog 12y ago

The ability to leave your ego out of technical discussions is one of the most important engineering skills there are. "Winning" on an engineering team needs to be "we built a great product quickly", not "I made the team do things my way". This is hard, and your first task is to be a person who thinks and acts that way. If you never had to change how you approach and think about things, you're probably not doing that. When you are angry/frustrated, you can't think clearly. So if someone has reached that point, it's very hard to have a productive discussion.

anaximander 12y ago

I feel like this article starts off on the wrong foot: "An argument is the use of aggressive opposition to weed out weak logic, keeping the strongest ideas possible. The philosophy behind using arguments for problem-solving is that attacking the weak parts of an idea will leave the best solutions." I'm with you so far. Being able to distinguish good from bad is the basis of critical thought. "The metaphor for argument in our culture is war. We think of people we argue with as opponents ..." I know a lot of people who do this, but I certainly don't, and I consider it a sign of maturity when somebody is able to separate ideas from egos. Remember, we started off by talking about the good and bad parts of ideas; not good and bad people. It's not a fight, it's a collaboration to share perspectives and discover new insight. "... we attack their position and defend our own, we can gain or lose ground, and ultimately we can win or lose arguments—just like battles" Whether you're focusing on the idea, or the person who generated it, there's really no use in considering them an opponent, and even less use in framing things in terms of winning or losing. Ideas don't "compete" with each other, any more than 1 and 2 compete to see which is the bigger number. There's only truth. If you're winning or losing, you've already missed the point and you're focusing on the wrong thing. I think "aggression" is unfortunately not the real problem here, the real problem is that people often aren't mature enough to admit they're wrong, or to consider another person's perspective, or to say "I don't know". I don't want to focus on this aspect of the article, but I find it really discouraging to continually see these articles which try to spin things in terms of gender. Developing this "men vs women" perspective is exactly the kind of "adversarial mind" the author denounces in the introduction.

21echoes 12y ago
Yes, it is possible to have absolutely, completely emotion-less arguments. No, it is not easy, or particularly common. If you truly feel like you & your work environment do have such pure-truth-seeking arguments: great. However, please take some time to really critically evaluate & test that assertion -- the people who are most at home in such an environment are the people least likely to notice its negative effects on other team members & potential hires. I'm speaking from experience here: I love arguing (or "debating" as I prefer to think of it), and have been on plenty of teams where it was a common interaction. It was only with some time, helpful feedback from my direct reports, and critical examination that I was really able to see the subtle ways in which it was hurting our org. Re: gender -- I hope you see why gender was brought up in the article. No, it was not some "spin" or needless us vs. them. Women are, as the article states, the canary in the coal mine of toxic & aggressive interpersonal dynamics. Not because of any weaknesses of women, but rather because men have been shown over and over again to reject the arguments of assertive women no matter their merits, and to accept the same arguments from equally assertive men instead (cited in the article). In other words: an argumentative environment is one which punishes women by putting them in a position where their peers judge them in a gendered way.

ableal 12y ago

> There's an online meme that goes, "Arguing with an engineer is a lot like wrestling with a pig in the mud; after a couple of hours, you realize the pig likes it." I'm an engineer. I've been online for over 30 years, including Usenet days, and I never even once saw such a "meme". This is slander, and I object to it.

mucker 12y ago
I know right? She calls names at the start of the article and then attempts to strike a superior pose. This is one of the worst articles I've read in a long while. It is emotionalism writ large. The mere fact that she poisons the well at the very beginning shows she is ignorant of argument.
- 12thr0wit 12y ago
  you guys should email her, and tell her she's wrong.

pnathan 12y ago

So..... this article is making a good point, but it's not following from the presented arguments. It's almost a tautology that unregulated aggression is a bad idea and should be dealt with. but - If you have an idea, how do you know it's a bad idea? That requires critical engagement, taking it apart, putting it back together and performing analysis on it. Doing this well will involve some fairly in-depth reasoning and questioning. If someone is losing their temper in that process, then (1) they are too sensitive/protective and/or (2) someone's being a jerk to the offended party and it's time to knock it off. Egofree programming is an old ideal, but not a bad one. I also retain the mildly heretical notion that a really and truly aggressive environment about code, design, and the quality thereof is probably a more enjoyable place to work than one that focuses on relationships and keeping them smooth. Wrong stuff is wrong, and should be called out and removed. IMO. :) I don't have any comments about gender here, because any gender comment will draw down 'unregulated aggression', and I'm tired of reading such.

wvh 12y ago

I work for a company that is very much like the bullet points described in the post, and nothing gets done. Sure there are lots of endless meetings and brainstorming sessions, but nobody bangs on the table and nobody steps up. Nobody's negative in public, but returns silently resentful and sometimes even demotivated to their own office. Sometimes the negativity comes out in a back-handed manner, as gossip, or passive aggression. What fighting and discussion gets replaced with is often at least as ugly and detrimental. The previous company I worked for was the exact opposite, probably a good example for the sort of aggressive and argumentative company the article talks about. Things got done, but the atmosphere was not very good. It helped to be dominant and make a lot of noise. The writer tries to push for the environment she'd like as the best possible way of achieving whatever that needs achieving, but having worked for several companies on either end of that spectrum, I don't think it's all that clear cut. You might like a non-confrontational style, only positivity and no competing, but I don't think that's a company where everyone wants to work or that would do well in every market. Finally, I don't want to argue ;) -- but the word aggression is very ambiguous and some of the examples refer rather to violence (war, physical aggression) rather than with fighting spirit (like an athlete).

moomin 12y ago
One strategy is to say "You seem frustrated." Another is "You're reading too much into this." There's so much wrong with a culture of aggressive arguing it's hard to know where to start but consider this: we've got plenty of research that tells us that women are disproportionately disliked if they act in an aggressive manner. Men, on the other hand, are often seen as being "winners" or "leaders" with _the same behaviour_. So you're de facto running a misogynistic culture by promoting this behaviour. And if there's much better ways for your firm to win than be more aggressive than your competitors. There's serving your customers for a start.

trhway 12y ago

>An argument is the use of aggressive opposition to weed out weak logic, keeping the strongest ideas possible. The philosophy behind using arguments for problem-solving is that attacking the weak parts of an idea will leave the best solutions. The metaphor for argument in our culture is war. We think of people we argue with as opponents, we attack their position and defend our own, we can gain or lose ground, and ultimately we can win or lose arguments—just like battles [1]. the author probably has no idea about some wrestling and in general war strategies. In many cases you don't need to aggressively attack the opponent. Just let him fall using his own impulse and under his own weight... you can even help him by adding to his impulse (like in many cases in judo :) In corporate environment - just let the opponent develop his great idea in details, ask helpful questions about inter- and intra- component integration, performance, suggest the opponent do quick POC demonstrating all these great characteristics of their idea ...

andyl 12y ago

I really hope my competitors take this advice to heart, and put limits on the aggressive personalities within their company.

Htsthbjig 12y ago

As entrepreneur, with experience as manager and engineer I could tell you that arguments and discussion are probably the most useful thing for any company. More than two interesting people, with different backgrounds and beliefs should always argue. It is a great thing for any institution. Arguments discard weak ideas before the market does. If the market does you have already spent enormous amount of money. This should not be confused with keeping it civilized. My main job as a manager was keeping a great environment for discussion. Good quality debate and discussion should be teached in schools, like in ancient Greece, when they were trained to defend their position, and then to defend the opposite. This forces you to understand the other side. Like in marriage, a great marriage does not mean no arguments, because if there are no arguments it means simply that one party is surrendering to the other. You can love and respect the other person and disagree, listen to the other party, understand what they tell you and take a shared decision. No arguments in a company means design by committee. Everybody's opinion is equal an usually this means disaster, unless the people in the Round table are already preselected like King Arthur's. Brainstorming is something that you do before arguing. First you are not critical, you expose all ideas that you have, you are creative, not rational, but at the end end of the process you start trimming, cutting for getting to decisions(witch etymologically means to cut branches) based on rational decisions that make some ideas stand and the others perish.

Htsthbjig 12y ago
PD: Some people will find the story of the atom fascinating because the atom knowledge comes from "Argument culture": http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1fix14_bbc-atom-1-the-clash-of-the-titans_tv http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1fix14_bbc-atom-1-the-clas... People like Edison getting mad with a young genius that was ALSO right. All of those physicist fighting each other using arguments.

mrwarn 12y ago

I am Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile! “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.” Issac Asimov

return0 12y ago

Science and engineering are a lot more effective to reach truth than politics or law. Code (or hardware,buildings,devices,drugs,engines etc etc.) speaks louder than any words. The entire premise of this article is false.