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Comment by interactivecode | Hacker News Reader

While I agree holding your own views and opinions help with doing something novel and different. I do feel like articles like this are mostly used to cover up and excuse hostility, bad work environments and Jobs esque management styles.

You can have groundbreaking ideas without "disrupting" every single part of your work life. Assuming large groups of people can't think for themselves is both short sighted and insulting. Not everyone is in the position to push their views on their environment without repercussions.

I'm pretty sure a janitor or administrator can think for themselves really well. It's their bosses that limit their subordinates, not the employees limiting themselves.

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> Assuming large groups of people can't think for themselves is both short sighted and insulting.

But it is mostly true, at least in management positions. Independent-minded people by definition question authority so they are mostly relegated to low status positions. If you don't question authority then you aren't independent-minded. And no, questioning some authority figure just because some other authority figure told you to doesn't count.

Why would independed minded person necessary came to conclusion that loudly openly questioning authority is good idea, in situation in which it is predictable that it is going to lead to bad result?

Keeping quiet about things only helps so much. People can feel if you question them or not. I mean, there are two workers, A is always excited about everything his manager suggest and do while B mostly keeps his thoughts to himself. Who is more likely to get promoted?

I mean, your example literally assumed that independent minded person will be low status which implies low impact.

In any case, the dichotomy between A and B is beyond false dichotomy situation. The range of possible decisions and behaviors warry quite a lot.

But yes, having good relationship with manager definitely helps your career. It typically does not require being excited about absolutely everything.

Everyone starts out as low status, so that scenario is the most important to analyze.

> But yes, having good relationship with manager definitely helps your career. It typically does not require being excited about absolutely everything.

Do you think that questioning your manager doesn't make it harder to have a good relationship with him? As I said keeping quiet about it doesn't work, most people know when you aren't agreeing with them even without telling them.

My point about excitement is that a person will lose a lot of energy and excitement when they do things they feel are wrong. Others can feel that.

It's possible to be independent minded and not question management. You know internally that it's all BS (because of your independent mindedness) but don't vocalize it because you're employing a political strategy to which that would be harmful.

Lets say that your drive to be liked by your manager makes you express X more support for his ideas, or express X less arguments against them. Then the person with a more supportive base line will still appear more supportive even after this motivation adjustment.

You can work around this by just being better than your peers at manipulating feelings, but it is still a handicap.

> I do feel like articles like this are mostly used to cover up and excuse hostility, bad work environments and Jobs esque management styles.

I don't think so but I definitely dislike the mentioned points as well and probably this should be more unambiguous. At the same time, hostile and toxic work environments tend to encourage aggression towards regular employees with different opinions. Therefore I find the article quite encouraging.

Can you give examples of groundbreaking ideas that formed out of committees of people working "without disruption"?

If you care to think for yourself enough you will try to get out of situations where you can't think for yourself.

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