Some of the best decisions and designs at 37signals have emerged from intensely contested debates. Not just between Jason and me, but from anyone in the company. When sparks fly, some truly great ideas come to light.
The catch is that the heat must arise around the decision itself. Debates go off track when personal biases or old grudges come into play. So long as each party sticks to the merits, adding some fire will only unearth new angles and concerns.
This energy is so important to how 37signals operates that I consider it every time we make a hire. Is this person willing to fight for what they believe in? Will they stand up to me, Jason, or anyone else in the company if they think we’re wrong?
Detecting this rebel streak requires looking at a person’s full persona: online debates, choice of technology, writing or work samples, often just the ability to debate or question the interviewer in person.
Sometimes it’s easier just to detect a negative. Someone who’s unlikely to ever question you or your ways. A “yes man” who has only wonderfully great things to say about everything we’ve ever done. That’s a red flag.
Regardless of how you do it, find people with enough spark to care, fight, and campaign for what they believe in. What pushes you and makes you question your beliefs will make your company that much better.
Martin Cortez
on 26 Jan 12And the research shows that debate improves creative problem solving, as I learned from reading this New Yorker article last night:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?pagewanted=all
-marty
Ruben Berenguel
on 26 Jan 12Just beware of hiring either a naysayer or someone who just loves to argue. Too much wasted time arguing can ruin a relationship (work or otherwise).
Ruben
Martin Cortez
on 26 Jan 12sorry for the sloppy googling, here’s the correct article (abstract):
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer
Joey
on 26 Jan 12I remember the first time I stood up to the partners where I work. Being the beginner in the room meant I was the “yes man” for quite a while. At some point, my skills and abilities caught up, and I was able to fight my point. I can truly attest that the greater idea comes out of the debate. There were times I was wrong and there were times I was right, but either way the best option shone through.
Nate W.
on 26 Jan 12This is similar to the Orange Juice Test described here.
Exclaiming that everything is wrong is just as bad as saying that everything is right.
Steve C
on 26 Jan 12If you encourage this type of behavior at certain times (during a idea session or something along those lines) do you find it difficult for your team to turn off (the debating mentality)? Or does it not really matter?
I’d imagine there are times you’d just prefer a team member to do ‘this’ without much arguments, being the boss and all.
DHH
on 26 Jan 12Steve, I think we’ve developed a good culture of intensely debating things and then getting back to work. It’s very rare that we can’t arrive at either a test of an idea or an implementation we can eventually all get behind. Concluding with “because I say so” is thankfully an infrequent state of failure.
Conni Biesalski
on 26 Jan 12I wish more companies and recruiters would think like that.. At my current job (which I am leaving in a couple days) questioning was always discouraged. They sometimes ask for our opinions, but reject our answers.. It’s pretty frustrating. Thanks for showing how to do it differently.
P.S. I just read Rework in like half a day and loved it.
Laurence McCahill
on 26 Jan 12Indeed. Many a creative spark has been lit in the midst of a heated debate.
My co-founder and I regularly have stand up fist fights where I beat the living daylights out of him. Then he reminds me that he’s a double black belt in kung fu.
It sure relieves the tension. But doesn’t always help us to decide where to place that search bar.
Oh well…
Daryl Yeo
on 26 Jan 12Sounds like how congress should work.
Kris Gösser
on 26 Jan 12At HarQen, we have this phrase “where there is friction there is flame.” Your ‘sparks fly’ thought is spot on.
Steve Woods
on 26 Jan 12Compromise and working together as a team is also one of the secrets of a successful marriage. The key is making a decision, going forward with it and getting results (even if they’re wrong) rather than dragging things out and waiting to see what happens. You can work with results from a failure, but you can’t work with no results at all.
Anonymous Coward
on 26 Jan 12@DHH
This makes me believe there was a flight today that promoted this blog post.
Any chance we could see the screenshots that caused the fight on this blog?
Marcos A.
on 26 Jan 12I had the privilege, many years ago, to attend to a lecture given by some sort of job-seeking advisor. He said, several times, that – the best way to get a job is not to want to get the job –. He talked about things like not trying to please your interviewers, about defending your ideas, and about learning the power of saying “yes” and specially, “no”.
Over the years, I’ve learned the power of saying “no”, specially to the influence everybody has over us (which is natural), because we’re being constantly bombarded by other’s opinions and ideas. “No”, or just not saying “yes”, it’s a very powerful attitude, and it doesn’t mean a naysayer, it’s more like Bernard Shaw said – The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man –.
Although this article is really nice pointing all this out (kinda), there’s something I don’t really agree with, and it’s that online discussions and writing (blogs I suppose) does not usually define a person that is good at debates or defending personal ideas, because I think that people when write this way to the “outside world” are trying to demonstrate others what they think, whereas a person with very strong ideas just don’t care about what others think and are more likely to talk to themselves (meditating or having notes or a diary).
I agree, though, that the choice of technology is important, both what they choose as well as what they don’t choose. I remember, in early 2000s, a company called me to make an appointment for an interview: – them: Hey, we would like to interview you. – me: great!.... one question… – them: yes… – me: What tech do you use? for daily work and stuff – them: ASP – me: Wow!! that sucks! – them: Does that mean you’re not interested? – me: Yes… Sorry… hehehe, my parents almost killed me…
Chris Patton
on 26 Jan 12Seems that in the hiring process finding someone who has that spark is the easy part (or at least easier.) The hard part is finding the person who can not only push back, but get over it when things ‘don’t go their way.’ A harder thing to test for until it’s actually real.
AstonJ
on 26 Jan 12Furthermore, you show a huge sign of strength when you are able to concede or (genuinely) take on another person’s viewpoint – a quality I often look for in a person. As is being ambivalent – it shows you are open-minded and not willing to simply rush into a (perhaps polaristic) decision or stance without giving the matter full due.
RJI
on 26 Jan 12“I never learned from a man who agreed with me.”
Robert A. HeinleinDavid O.
on 26 Jan 12“If you want to hire great people and have them stay working for you, you have to let them make a lot of decisions, and you have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy,” Jobs said. “The best ideas have to win, otherwise good people don’t stay.”
That’s what Steve Jobs said regarding debates at Apple, his ideas does not always, win, only the best.
So yeah, great companies don’t want to hire a “Yes Man”
Alex Hillman
on 26 Jan 12I’d been meaning to write more about how alignment helps people transcend their own ideas to find better ones. Thanks for the prompt!
http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2012/01/the-sweet-spot-between-business-partners/
Dan
on 26 Jan 12I think the attitude displayed in this post is indicative of poor leadership. There is a large percentage of the population that does not like conflict (google introvert conflict). The most common way of dealing with it is passivity or avoidance. That is more common among introverts. If a leader refuses to work with non-confrontational people because he don’t know of a good way to interact with them, he will be missing out on some great talent.
Roland
on 26 Jan 12@Dan I get your point, but I think the thought here is about how to deal with debates/sparks which are often regarded as a threat to authority.
A leader that is willing to take debate is a better leader, however there is a caveat here. There is a book titled “what got you here won’t get you there”, where the author talks about the difference between being a lower ranking employee in debates and being an executive/higher-up. When a higher-up engages in debates, to others the arguments are more like commands, and the toadies line up behind the executive, so his/her ideas appear to be better by ‘popular vote’. So recognizing a good idea is not easy anyways, and debates do not guarantee much if there are plenty of ‘yes men’ around. Debates are positive if the fight is fair and that is very tricky.
Mario Caropreso
on 26 Jan 12This remember me a quote from P. Drucker: “One does not make a decision unless there is disagreement”.
Productive disagreement ensures that 1) one understands what the decision is all about by thinking about all alternatives and 2) disagreement is needed to stimulate the imagination.
Bob
on 26 Jan 12I’ve gotten let go from two companies because I didn’t agree with people in multiple development discussions. Companies around here are run by non-technical people or managers who only want to promise the world to their superiors and work the developers like a Chinese sweat shop.
While I’m passionate about my work I fear I have succumbed to the powers that be. While what you write sounds like Nirvana to me I will never inherit that heaven.
I find most IT managers don’t wish to debate but rather want to know when its done, not how/why its done. We end up with some pretty crap code no matter what the language.
Stefan
on 27 Jan 12@Bob: You’ve got some balls, and at least you know you left for a good reason.
I’ve found that a good number of business people, developers, etc. just can’t handle other ideas, and are unwilling to defend their own. “This is how it is because this is how it is.”
People who dither with “I think” or “in my opinion” drive me nuts, too. Defend your point or just stop talking.
Miles Thompson
on 27 Jan 12I disagree.
I think the best work often happens in a culture of yes – not “yes” as in “say yes to the boss” and don’t disagree but “yes” as in “yes I can work with your idea, and I think I can expand upon it in this way”. When done in a creative non-hierachical way it can lead to phenomenal results.
curtis
on 30 Jan 12I used to work at a place where some staff could have a pretty good debate, but once the debate was over nothing would change and we’d just continue doing whatever it was we were doing that sparked the debate. Nothing would change b/c management was just not into letting anything new happen.
This discussion is closed.