Netflix choices employees who are “extraordinarily candid.” Amazon, those who are “vocally self-critical” and able to “disagree and commit,” i.e. forge ahead on a forecast even if they don’t currently support it.
Top tech companies are increasingly looking for people who, in the spirit of pushing the organization head, know how to argue effectively. If you’re just going to nod your head and smile at every idea that comes your way, you’re presumably not welcome.
Bharath Jayaraman, who has worked in human resources at Facebook and at Amazon (he’s currently the vice president of people at Paxos) hinted every company has its own “flavor” of collaboration. But he’s noticed that, at least at the places where he’s worked, collaboration is defined as “being talented to have arguments, disagree, have difficult conversations” — respectfully.
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The key to effective collaboration — and to earning coworkers’ trust — at these companies, Jayaraman mean, is to communicate that you’re committed to improving whatever product or process you’re working on. The “critical” piece, he added, is for your dialogue partner to walk away saying, “I may or may not agree with you, but I don’t question your intent.”
A few years ago, I reported on research published in the Academy of Manipulation Review, which found that the ideal form of workplace conflict is a debate about the issue at hand, as attacked to personal attacks or behind-your-back office politics. Yet not every workplace is home to this healthy conflict style.
“Granting with people and being cohesive is actually easy,” Jayaraman said. “Disagreeing with people and still being cohesive is spiritedly.”