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Comment by armed10 | Hacker News Reader

People overvalue (democratic) teamwork. I'd like to argue that a good leader with a team of followers is more effective than a team where everyone is equal. For example: the pyramids, cannot be build by one man, but wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for central leadership.

Take Steve Jobs, it was his vision that made Apple successful.

Teams need skill, but they must also be undivided. Democracy in teams essentially divides the team, those opposed and forced to act according to the majority will not be cooperative. The best results are that of a single visionair with or without a team of followers.

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> For example: the pyramids, cannot be build by one man, but wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for central leadership.

Because they were valueless items to the thousands of people that it took to slave and die creating them? Yes, those things probably wouldn't have been erected if it were a democratic society at the time. I don't see how that's a bad thing.

The Pyramids are in fact a perfect example of the perils of the "strong leader" model of leadership. At the time, they were a fantastic waste of their society's resources.

Divisiveness will, in fact, kill a team. We're on the same page about that. However, teams throughout history and software development that have had "strong leaders" have plenty of track record of being internally divided. Focusing on "Steve Jobs" is a huge example of survivor bias. Nobody hears about the "strongly led" teams that don't make it big, or anywhere.

Democracy doesn't "divide" teams. It gives people a voice to work through their already present divisions. However, the key word there is work. Simply saying you're a democracy without having patience to go through the work won't get you anywhere. Neither will putting together a team filled with people with irreconcilable differences.

How about sending a man to the moon? That also seems like a waste of resources, we just aren't morally opposed to it because everyone got paid. However politically they both seem to be in the same class of great human endeavours with no practical value.

Neil deGrasse Tyson argues, and I agree, that the ability to send people, probes, satellites, etc. into space is of utmost importance on a grander scale. Imagine being a species capable of space-flight that is unable or unwilling to save itself from destruction when an asteroid comes too near. "We would be the laughing stock of the universe -- 'Oh haha, yea, look at those silly humans who could have saved themselves, but didn't.'". The space program is incredibly expensive, but what is the cost of Earth?

Slaves did not build the pyramids

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/377/how-were-the...

http://skeptoid.com/mobile/4191

One can come up with theories, but I'm not sure there is a clear difference in outcomes between more hierarchical or more horizontal management styles, at least large enough to overcome all the other ways companies differ as an explanatory factor. To take two neighboring countries with many similarities but very different management styles, Finland typically uses a hierarchical management style, while Sweden has a very consensus-oriented, horizontal style. That produces somewhat of a "natural experiment" (though imperfect, like natural experiments usually are) where if one management style was radically better than the other, we ought to see big differences in outcomes between Finnish and Swedish companies. For example if your hypothesis is correct, Finnish companies should be much more successful than Swedish companies. But there doesn't really seem to be a big effect there.

You have a point, although it is more likely that the success of a hierarchical management style is more closely related to the effectiveness of the person in charge. Given that the one in charge isn't being undermined by next-in-command. Note: followers.

In my hypothesis I was already assuming a somewhat perfect leader and followers, which is impractical at best and unrealistic.

I do think it's time that people start valuing the individual more than the team. In my experience a team is usually less effective then the sum of its parts.

A visionary leader does not mean people underneath them are in full agreement -- just that they are compelled to follow the vision, and act undivided, even thought there is likely quite a bit of divisiveness at a personal level.

A democractic decision does not mean that people who disagreed will fight against the group. If their voice was heard, they know they will be part of the majority for other decisions, there is little reason not to cooperate when actually working on the project.

The source of the decision has far less to do with how divided a team is than the actual makeup and morale of that team.

At the risk of falling in a No-True-Scotsman argument here, I'd say what passes for "democratic teamwork" nowadays is sheer chaotic social dynamics. Not every vote has equal weight, and to pretend otherwise is either naive or misleading.

Democracy requires good leadership, which is defined not by telling everyone what to do, but by helping everyone keep focused on the ultimate goals (including but not limited to forcibly shutting down anyone who engages in deliberate derailing of the team for personal gain) while allowing everyone to contribute according to their best judgment (which typically exceeds top-down control, by virtue of having intimate and immediate knowledge of the fact on the ground).

First, that assumes that the leadership role should be a fixed position, which isn't the case. Second, this statement assumes the only option for an egalitarian organisation is a form of consensus democracy. Neither of these things is true

You can have a flat organisation in which different people are responsible for taking the lead, and the others hold him/her accountable for not doing so. If I am in a small team with a few engineers, a few designers, and a few marketing experts, and each of them has their own specialty too, then obviously each of them can and should take the "lead" in their respective specialty. There is no need for a consensus on the majority of topics if we trust each other to know what we are doing.

Sure, for big-picture stuff a consensus is still required, and it might even be beneficial to have an inspiring leader whose vision we are realizing, but it's a pretty big leap from there to this:

> Democracy in teams essentially divides the team

Why would democracy do this more than a top-down view? People would still have opposing ideas, they would just not be heard.

> those opposed and forced to act according to the majority will not be cooperative

Again, do you have any reason to believe this is less likely to happen in an organisation where the direction is decided top-down? Because the only difference I see is whether or not the opposing views are visible - and having those opposing views hidden and unexplained actually sounds like a terrible situation to me.

The entire idea is based around a visionair which people can rally behind. Ideally, this would consist of a leader, creating his/her team by handpicking people who believe in his/her idea.

Democracy divides a team more because people usually agree with the loudest voice, not with the best idea. The leader might not have the best idea, but he's more likely to pick a good idea provided by the team if he's given the time to properly think them through.

You don't have to silence the opposition, anyone can do with some advice from time to time. If a choice is made, however, either accept it or leave. Don't hold grudges that will eventually grow into holding a team back.

> people usually agree with the loudest voice, not with the best idea

The problem with leaders is often, that they think they are the smartest and any idea not from them is automatically bad.

This is a problem. Often ideas are linked with people and not evaluated independently of that. We had success in our team with doing information gathering and idea generation as anonymous as possible. People can read and comment on ideas anonymously before it's discussed in person or decisions are made. That way people think of having a hand in the development of more ideas. This helps lessen the influence of large egos. Also it helps people who are shy to participate more easily.

> accept it or leave. Don't hold grudges

Also true. Grudges and constant complaining are not good for team spirit. However if people are often overruled and their reservations turn out to be true in the end, then your decision process sucks.

> Democracy divides a team more because people usually agree with the loudest voice, not with the best idea.

And this does not apply to people rallying behind leaders? I mean, I'm not saying having a leader to rally behind is bad, but if this is the argument in favour of it then the only difference is that we are shifting the level at which these flaws occur.

> You don't have to silence the opposition

And yet I get a downvote simply for having a dissenting opinion...

> If a choice is made, however, either accept it or leave. Don't hold grudges that will eventually grow into holding a team back.

So your implication is that this suddenly doesn't apply in a democratic situation? I mean, sure, if you are comparing one team where people respect each other's opinions to one where they don't and people don't hold grudges, of course the former team will perform better. But why would a democratic team hold more grudges?

I'd say that in very small teams (up to 6 people), it's better to not have a certain leader. Someone will become more dominant in the group anyways (usually a person whom everyone trusts and likes). In big teams, it's hard to get anything done without someone set to lead it.

I think you're right. In my personal experience I've found that in most small teams, there are few who want to lead. If you have mature members, this becomes less of a problem. However, I still find diffusion of responsibility a common theme in small teams, appointing a leader to absolve them from any personal responsibility.

Combining a "more dominant someone" with atomic responsibility is probably the best way to go with small teams.

taking an outlier as representative of a population si never a good ideaq

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