I really do like people who can both disagree and share their reasoning on that disagreement. They are priceless. Many, if not all, of my best conversations have started with "Chuck I think {that/you/we/this} is wrong and this is why ..." I've often felt that half a dozen smart people with this trait can go out and build anything you want. That is because they will cross check each other and in the end they will get more right than they get wrong.
They'd also have to be the type of folks who can take disagreement or having their mistakes pointed out without taking it personally.
Perhaps I'm just turning into an old "get off my lawn, damn kids" curmudgeon but anecdotally I've noticed a bit of a cultural shift over my lifetime of people being increasingly unable to have mistakes pointed out to them without them going on the defensive and making it into some sort of personal attack that was never intended.
I think anyone can get defensive. Some folks have that way about them, I have worked with people in previous jobs who could just start talking and it would get folks agitated.
That happens to me sometimes too, it annoys me that my emotions react before my brain can sometimes, but I try very hard to avoid that.
And of course we can only control our own reactions, not that of others, so we can model a good way to deal with disagreement, but if we piss someone off by disagreeing with them we have to work within those constraints. If there are people everyone is tip-toeing around then that is a problem your organization should fix.
The passive aggressive stuff, the agreement at the meeting and later dissenting in private with others, the unwillingness to even engage in a discussion. That stuff is poison and you really need to fix it if you can. Not always possible to fix, but always a source of problems.
Is it possible that the sample you're observing is changing? As people accumulate experience and begin to regard themselves as competent, then expert in a field, they have a greater stake in defending that status.
It's my observation that in the aggregate smart young people are more amenable to criticism than smart older people: i.e. there is a bias toward defensiveness that, if not actively defended against, becomes increasingly evident as people age. Maybe you're noticing the behaviour of older people now.
A well written post and a lot of good lessons. I really liked your 2 tips for spotting expensive middle men in particular. Seems obvious when you think about it, but well worth being conscious of.
No, he pointed out how a normally positive gesture (saying "i'll find out") can be an indicator of a more subtle problem (intermediaries).
I think its very easy to forget those signs of a more subtle issue and just be glad each question is being answered in a "timely enough" manner when you ask it.
Not a big fan of references to be honest. Everyone must have a few people willing to exaggerate for them. A referral from someone you already know and trust is different, but a reference from someone you arent that familiar with is fairly meaningless I think.
I really do like people who can both disagree and share their reasoning on that disagreement. They are priceless. Many, if not all, of my best conversations have started with "Chuck I think {that/you/we/this} is wrong and this is why ..." I've often felt that half a dozen smart people with this trait can go out and build anything you want. That is because they will cross check each other and in the end they will get more right than they get wrong.