Debugging Teams

Chapter 4. Dealing with Poisonous People

As the opening quote of our book suggests, the hardest part of creative work is people.

Up until now, we’ve taken an introspective approach. We began with an examination of your own private behaviors and how to focus them on the principles of humility, respect, and trust (HRT). We then explored ways to build a communicative team culture around these concepts. In the preceding chapter, we explained how to mold yourself into an effective leader of such a team, should the need arise.

In the second half of this book we’re going to shift gears and start looking outward. How does your team interact with people outside your immediate group? There are almost always folks wishing to join or collaborate with your team. There are issues in dealing with the politics of your larger organization. And, of course, you need to have a plan for dealing with the most important outsiders of all: the users of your software!

In this chapter, we’ll discuss the importance of preventing destructive outsiders from trashing the cooperative culture your team has worked hard to build. Perhaps more importantly, we’ll also talk about how to deal with poisonous people already on your team.

Defining “Poisonous”

We’ve already reviewed the importance of building a solid, communicative team culture. We spent most of the time talking about what a good culture should include: things like consensus-based development, high-quality code, code reviews, and an environment where ...