| How can you make the claim "It doesn't work". By what metrics? Both Linus and Bill Gates were extremely successful. Are you claiming they could be more successful with a softer style? I have another conundrum. Assume both these individuals would have to to do some real amount of work to change their personal style. This translates to time spent not doing the other things they are perhaps excellent at. Wrapping your argument in nice words all the time is actually really hard. It takes time. Frankly it is not always necessary depending on the relationships between individuals. Let's say you and I start an open source project and we both find it really hard to say things nicely, but we have X hours a day to contribute and get stuff done. So I propose to you: "Hey, let's get in the habit of saying what we feel. We'll remember and accept that humans aren't always rational and we're going to hurt each others feelings sometimes. We'll remember that we all say and do dumb things all the time, so it's no big deal to call somebody out for it. But we think this will save us time in the long run, since we suck at sugar coating our words and feelings." What stops us from building a highly successful project of like-minded individuals? What do we lose when somebody comes along and says "hey, you have to be nice now!"? Should we refuse to work with such people? These are real questions and I don't think they have clear answers. |