Harnessing Conflict in the Workplace (video)

Nigel Dessau has written a book titled Become a 21st Century Executive: Breaking Away from the Pack. One thing he mentions both in his book and in conversation is that you should harness conflict in the workplace rather than try to stop it. And the first name that came to mind was Linus Torvalds, and how kernel developer Sarah Sharp recently quit the kernel development team loudly and publicly because of Linus's 'Brutal' Communications Style. And now the Washington Post has put out an article under the headline, Net of Insecurity: The Kernel of the Argument, which is about Linus's management style and his recent conflicts with almost every Internet security maven within reach of his online writing. Meanwhile, at ZDNet, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols calls the Post article "re-bundled old FUD about Linux and the internet's security."

Nigel likes Linus (as do most people who've met him in person) and points out that Linus can get away with being somewhat prickly because he's a genius. The same could be said about the late Steve Jobs and a number of other interesting leaders in the computer business. And Nigel's book and this interview also talk about something that may be more important in the long run than this year's small spate of Linux publicity, namely mentoring and how it can help millennials become productive workers in knowledge fields -- which a whole bunch of them need to start doing PDQ because all the baby boomers everybody loves to hate are either retired already or will be retired before long.

Comments

How about

[chispito]

How about you go work for someone that is "harnessing conflict in the workplace" and I'll work for someone that acknowledges basic human dignity.

Re:How about

[Tough Love]

No, no, conflict is always bad. The precious snowflakes are all unique, so there shouldn't be any conflict because we're all special. Of course, those of us who have grown up know that conflict exists, can't be suppressed effectively, and that "conflict" and "assholishness" are two very, very different things.

Let me guess. You're short, you're the one everybody picked on and now you're an overweight middle manager and somebody's going to be getting some payback.