Nailed it. There are some very good points made in the article. Atlassian is a smart org and I suspect they're doing it well, but the article doesn't go into enough depth to let us look at it with a critical eye. There is a real danger that these policies will treat symptoms rather than causes.
I think that people often take an extremely puerile view as to how exclusion and bullying manifest. I once saw an HN commenter suggest that the solution was to ban profanity. Now, obviously you shouldn't be screaming "fuck you" at your colleagues, but removing certain means won't fundamentally change behaviour if the ends remain the same. It's important to think about the incentives you've set up for your workforce. Are they playing a zero sum game? Does an assist count for as many points as a goal?
> I’ve seen excellent managers get dinged in such a System because a few poor performers just mark the manager as difficult to work with to cover for their own underperformance.
Which raises another question - why are these discussions always centred around "brilliant jerks" and not just, you know, "jerks" ? Is there any actual evidence that being a jerk correlates with being a good engineer? Or that brilliant jerks are harder to fire than incompetent jerks?