I don't think it requires perfectly spherical humans in a frictionless office, but it does require everyone to have the same incentives in place.
When I wrote this, I worked on a pretty well aligned team with a very short power distance. If you're in a truly adversarial position, you probably need to take a different tact, or find a new role.
then whatever management style would likely have worked; where I work I've the ultimate word on who works with me and I only allow hires that are well motivated and aligned and just set them in the direction of the goal and they barely need anything but some technical guidance every now and then. the downside is that we have a interview failure rate of about 98%, we're short of people and I'm under immense pressure from above to grow my team with whatever fit the job advert keyword.
> you probably need to take a different tact, or find a new role.
that is great personal advice, but to management, the golden egg is how to make dishomogeneous people work, even in face of adversarial behavior.
they managed to do it on the factory floor, and there's good money for whomever manages to bring some of the line working hell to creative workers, money which is currently being scooped up by scrum masters and the like, so the bar isn't even that high