> Well, I AM actually stubborn!! But if the metrics had shown that BATCH was worse, I would absolutely be the first to change my mind.
He's self-critical. I also think he's only right about being stubborn in its original meaning (untameable) rather than the new colour the word seems to have (unwilling to change despite evidence).
What happened here was an NHL player joined a team thinking it was another major league team, but it wasn't even college ice. That's fine, but his mistake was not just leaving for a different team. If you come into a team thats slightly beneath you you can raise it up to your level and change peoples careers / lives for the better, but getting too far off just doesn't work. You're way too ahead of them and you're new so they don't trust you or want to listen to you. Just move on to a more pro project.
At the end of the day, if you do want to provide technical leadership, the skills to understand the team and how to interact with them effectively are at least as important as the technical skills.
Well, he sucked in that team. It's good to know the kind of person you are. I've learned, somewhat the hard way, that I become a bit of a nightmare in situations where I can't make a difference quickly. This tends to lead me away from very large, very process-driven, very political organisations, because I simply don't have the temperament for it, and towards smaller, scrappier companies, where it's possible to make forward progress quickly.
One day, after all, I will die. I don't want to have spent too much time between now and then having to deal with torrents of organisational bullshit. The fact that I don't know how much time I have left only adds impetus to cut through the nonsense.
Whereas some people can survive, and indeed thrive, in that kind of environment. They have the patience to see it through, and gain their satisfaction in other ways than merely seeing the product taking shape quickly.