Hmm. Naming things is hard. I agree you can have collaboration in combat culture. It feels like a different kind of collaboration though.
Double hmm.
Before continuing, noticing an assumption I was making: in Ben Pace’s comment elsethread, he frames “nurture” culture as involving lots of “yes-and”, which roughly matched my stereotype. Correspondingly, combat culture felt like it involved lots of “no-but”. Each person is responsible for coming up with their ideas and shoring them up, and it’s basically other people’s responsibility to notice where those ideas are flawed. And this seemed like the main distinction. (I’m not sure how much this matches what you mean by it.)
What’s sort of funny (in a “names continue to be hard” way), is that I instinctively want to call “each person is responsible for their ideas” culture “Group Collaboration” (as in “group selection”). It’s collaborative on the meta level, since over time the best ideas rise to the top, and people shore up the weaknesses of their own ideas.
Whereas… I’d call the “yes and” thing that Ben describes as.… (drumroll) “Group Collaboration” (as in “group project.”). Which is yes obviously a terrible naming schema. :P
Comparing this to corporations building products: between corporations, and maybe between teams within a single corporation, is group selection. There is competition, which hopefully incentivizes each team to build a good product.
Within a team, you still need to be able to point out when people are mistaken and argue for good ideas. But you’re fundamentally trying to build the same thing together. It doesn’t do you nearly as much good to point out that a coworker’s idea is bad, as to figure out how to fix it and see if their underlying idea is still relevant. If you don’t trust your coworker to be generally capable of coming up with decent ideas that are at least pointed in the right direction, your team is pretty doomed anyhow.
Within a team, you still need to be able to point out when people are mistaken and argue for good ideas. But you’re fundamentally trying to build the same thing together. It doesn’t do you nearly as much good to point out that a coworker’s idea is bad, as to figure out how to fix it and see if their underlying idea is still relevant.
I don’t see these as contradictory, or even opposed. How can you fix something, unless you can first notice that it needs to be fixed? Isn’t this just a policy of “don’t explicitly point out that an idea is flawed, because it would hurt the originator’s feelings; only imply it (by suggesting fixes)”? (And what do you do with unsalvageable ideas?)
If you don’t trust your coworker to be generally capable of coming up with decent ideas that are at least pointed in the right direction, your team is pretty doomed anyhow.
Sure, “generally”, maybe, but it’s the exceptions that count, here. I don’t necessarily trust myself to reliably come up with good ideas (which is the whole point of testing ideas against criticism, etc., and likewise is the whole point of brainstorming and so on), so it seems odd to ask if I trust other people to do so!
More generally, though… if it’s the distinction between “yes, and…” and “no, but…” which makes the difference between someone being able to work in a team or being unable to do so, then… to be quite honest, were I in a position to make decisions for the team, I would question whether that person has the mental resilience, and independence of mind, to be useful.
But you can have collaborative truthseeking with “Combat Culture”—which is precisely what the example in the OP (the Ellsberg quote) illustrates.
Hmm. Naming things is hard. I agree you can have collaboration in combat culture. It feels like a different kind of collaboration though.
Double hmm.
Before continuing, noticing an assumption I was making: in Ben Pace’s comment elsethread, he frames “nurture” culture as involving lots of “yes-and”, which roughly matched my stereotype. Correspondingly, combat culture felt like it involved lots of “no-but”. Each person is responsible for coming up with their ideas and shoring them up, and it’s basically other people’s responsibility to notice where those ideas are flawed. And this seemed like the main distinction. (I’m not sure how much this matches what you mean by it.)
What’s sort of funny (in a “names continue to be hard” way), is that I instinctively want to call “each person is responsible for their ideas” culture “Group Collaboration” (as in “group selection”). It’s collaborative on the meta level, since over time the best ideas rise to the top, and people shore up the weaknesses of their own ideas.
Whereas… I’d call the “yes and” thing that Ben describes as.… (drumroll) “Group Collaboration” (as in “group project.”). Which is yes obviously a terrible naming schema. :P
Comparing this to corporations building products: between corporations, and maybe between teams within a single corporation, is group selection. There is competition, which hopefully incentivizes each team to build a good product.
Within a team, you still need to be able to point out when people are mistaken and argue for good ideas. But you’re fundamentally trying to build the same thing together. It doesn’t do you nearly as much good to point out that a coworker’s idea is bad, as to figure out how to fix it and see if their underlying idea is still relevant. If you don’t trust your coworker to be generally capable of coming up with decent ideas that are at least pointed in the right direction, your team is pretty doomed anyhow.
I don’t see these as contradictory, or even opposed. How can you fix something, unless you can first notice that it needs to be fixed? Isn’t this just a policy of “don’t explicitly point out that an idea is flawed, because it would hurt the originator’s feelings; only imply it (by suggesting fixes)”? (And what do you do with unsalvageable ideas?)
Sure, “generally”, maybe, but it’s the exceptions that count, here. I don’t necessarily trust myself to reliably come up with good ideas (which is the whole point of testing ideas against criticism, etc., and likewise is the whole point of brainstorming and so on), so it seems odd to ask if I trust other people to do so!
More generally, though… if it’s the distinction between “yes, and…” and “no, but…” which makes the difference between someone being able to work in a team or being unable to do so, then… to be quite honest, were I in a position to make decisions for the team, I would question whether that person has the mental resilience, and independence of mind, to be useful.