How can a team be invincible to "assholes" if a team is the sum of the result of the people who compose it, "asshole" included?
I think anyone can ruin teams that would previously jell well together. A team that can't be destroyed is one that is mature and independent enough to detect the issue and make sure the problem is taken care of, even if it involves moving the individual out. Usually, that's a responsibility that we attribute to Managers, but theoretically self-organizing teams could do that (never saw it in practice tho).
That being said, I agree with you that it's not healthy to think of people that way. "Focus on the issue and not on the person"; we want to work on the issues on the long run instead of labelling people as "assholes". That requires:
- A Manager that can detect the issue and/or that does not ignore the issue. Needs to be comfortable with difficult conversations and doesn't stall
- A team that provides meaningful feedback constantly and in time, not only at performance reviews.
- A chance for the person in question to develop and work on the feedback (and openness and willingness from the person in question)
And if none of the above work, moving the person out does not necessarily mean firing them. It could be a move to another team with more similar values, other projects, etc... People sometimes are just in the wrong place and are incompatible with the way the team works. Though sometimes they really are incompatible with the company and firing is required but that is not the only answer.
> How can a team be invincible to "assholes" if a team is the sum of the result of the people who compose it, "asshole" included?
I can think of lots of ways.
You can connect two pieces of wood together with a chain: If any one link in the chain fails, the connection fails. Or you can connect them together by banging lots of nails into them: If any one nail fails, the connection still holds.
The same is true for organizations: You can have organizations where one asshole can ruin it for everyone else, and you can have organizations where the result of one person being an asshole is simply that everyone else ends up avoiding and ignoring that person and business happily goes on without that individual.
For example: Imagine a flat law firm where each partner is highly autonomous, and one partner just happens to be an asshole. His clients will ask the firm for another partner to handle their account. His support staff will try to get reassigned to work with another partner. In the end you'll just have an asshole sitting in an office, not interacting with anyone.
Other example: Imagine you're in a strict military-style chain of command and the soldier next to you just happens to be an asshole. ...well, as long as it's not your commanding officer who is the asshole, you can basically just ignore that guy.
Now a counterexample: Imagine a matrixy, committee-cratic "cloud management" sort of tech company with maybe some 360-degree peer review systems thrown in just for fun: Well it's going to be very political, and any one politicking asshole will be able to ruin it for any given other person, so no one will ever be able to afford ignoring someone else, even if they're assholes.
I think anyone can ruin teams that would previously jell well together. A team that can't be destroyed is one that is mature and independent enough to detect the issue and make sure the problem is taken care of, even if it involves moving the individual out. Usually, that's a responsibility that we attribute to Managers, but theoretically self-organizing teams could do that (never saw it in practice tho).
That being said, I agree with you that it's not healthy to think of people that way. "Focus on the issue and not on the person"; we want to work on the issues on the long run instead of labelling people as "assholes". That requires: - A Manager that can detect the issue and/or that does not ignore the issue. Needs to be comfortable with difficult conversations and doesn't stall - A team that provides meaningful feedback constantly and in time, not only at performance reviews. - A chance for the person in question to develop and work on the feedback (and openness and willingness from the person in question)
And if none of the above work, moving the person out does not necessarily mean firing them. It could be a move to another team with more similar values, other projects, etc... People sometimes are just in the wrong place and are incompatible with the way the team works. Though sometimes they really are incompatible with the company and firing is required but that is not the only answer.