His point is that there isn't much correlation between good ideas and assertive personalities, so if you incentivize the latter you won't necessarily get the former. I'm inclined to agree with that.
A man of culture!
I think we can call in the Pareto Principle here. After a certain point, assertiveness / aggressiveness becomes zero-sum (or worse). But getting to the point where everyone worth listening to has had a chance to speak gives you a lot of bang for your buck. You can either have an environment which enables this (everyone gets the talking stick) or train everyone to have a baseline of assertiveness skills.
The baseline shouldn't just be "excuse me, I have a question" scenarios though. The baseline has to be sufficient to handle stuff like "I think my boss is screwing up big time".
You are probably right.
I don't have a good argument for getting your good idea recognized by others, if you are not an assertive type, other than learning to fight harder for it be heard, or finding someone to fight hard for you.
There may not be a correlation between good ideas and assertive personalities, but if you aren't at least somewhat assertive, I just won't hear your idea.
It's like playing a song in your basement and wondering why no one is praising your musical talent. Get yourself out in the real world and play in front of people, loudly enough for them to hear you!
This is an idealized version of the system and a million things can go wrong, but it seems like the only way that makes any sense.
Having worked at IBM Austin in the '90s, I'd tend to agree. The management style was very much "the loudest person in the room makes the decision." It did not end well.
I actually personally think its useful to say that in order to shut up overly opinionated people without publicly pointing them out and putting them immediately on the defensive. Opinionated people are also incredibly opinionated on their opinions, of course, and it's more efficient to sidestep that altogether.
I'm engaging in the conversation by bringing my points to the table. I see it as an idealistic proposal that doesn't match my understanding of reality. It is very plausible that I am wrong - please explain to me how you disagree, I'm happy to listen. Seriously.
Just because someone has an idea doesn't mean I have to immediately agree with it or like it. Feel free to disagree with me on this, as it would prove my point. It's your right after all.
It is not that you gave contra arguments, you just ignored.
Which is exactly issue with most confident win system.
You may regard an alternative as "idealistic", and it may be, but the alternative is how many existing environments are supposed to work, if you press those involved hard enough, and is frequently pretty bad at sorting ideas.
Exactly. I am very happy to be proven wrong, given the arguments against my position are good. A lot of people shy away from criticizing ideas, thinking that a person will take it as a personal attack (gotta admit, I am guilty of this too, if I don't know the person well enough to assume they take criticism well).
When it is the fight for the best idea or solution, I don't care how wrong I am, I care about finding the "truth" aka the best solution given the situation. As long as the criticism is directed towards the idea and not the person, I am just as happy, regardless of whether my idea won or not (as long as the idea that won had better arguments for it).
I prefer environments that teach you how to advocate for your ideas. Build you up as a good self-advocate.
Environments that say "Hey everybody! It's Timmy's turn to speak. Pass him the talking stick" are patronizing and disgust me at the onset.
Better to have someone by your side saying, "Timmy, speak up! You have a great idea. Tell everyone"