Kindness is Underrated (2014)
<i>&gt;, an atmosphere of blunt criticism hurts team cohesiveness and morale; there’s time and energy lost to hurt feelings, to damage control, to trust lost between team members - not to mention the fact that people are working in a fundamentally less humane environment. It may seem faster and easier to be direct, but as a strategy it’s penny wise and pound foolish.</i><p>This is one of those statements that I think we <i>want</i> to be true but we have <i>no evidence</i> that it&#x27;s true.  Many contradictory examples exist in the real world:<p>You can yell at your team and insult them and be successful.  (Famous examples are Steve Jobs and Bill Gates&#x27; <i>&quot;that&#x27;s the stupidest idea I&#x27;ve ever heard!&quot;</i>)<p>You can be soft-spoken and be successful.  (Warren Buffet would be an example.  He doesn&#x27;t yell at the people in his Omaha office or his presidents&#x2F;CEOs at Berkshire subsidiary companies.)<p>Likewise, you can be blunt &amp; harsh and fail.  You can also be diplomatic &amp; nice and fail.<p>Same in other endeavors.  You can yell at the football team and win the Super Bowl (Mike Ditka - Chicago Bears).  Or, you can be soft-spoken and win the championship (Tony Dungy - Indy Colts).  Likewise, you can do either style and still be the worst team in the league.<p>Doesn&#x27;t seem to be much correlation either way.<p>My conclusion based on life experiences is that companies can have both the blunt and the diplomatic approaches.  The blunt communication works well in upper management.  (E.g. one VP tells another VP that &quot;it&#x27;s a stupid idea.&quot;)   
 Everybody is a Type A personality and has a thick skin. 
 However, the reality is that many employees (especially lower-level positions) feel demeaned by direct language.  (As the endless debates about Linus&#x27; style attests.)  Therefore, they require <i>indirect</i> language and those VPs have to dynamically adjust the communication to that personality.<p>Personally, I don&#x27;t like the style of indirect communication the author uses in examples of Daniel, David, and Allen but I fully understand it&#x27;s necessary in the real world for certain people.