A few years back there was a great interview in the New York Times with Jessie Woolley-Wilson, C.E.O. of edtech startup DreamBox Learning, where she talked about a concept called “benevolent friction” at work.

The idea is a simple but powerful one – that in organizations where people are passionate, there will eventually be a difference of opinion, and that while creative friction can be a real positive force, it’s vital to be “hard on ideas but soft on people.”

“…If you don’t have pressure on the carbon, you never get to the diamond,” says Wooley-Wilson.

“You can still be very respectful, and assume everybody has a spark, but we have to subject our ideas to the toughest scrutiny because our work is important.”

I could not agree more. In every growth company I’ve ever worked at, achieving the breakthroughs that helped us win was never easy. Whether radically shifting product focus, expanding into new markets we weren’t entirely familiar with, or cutting product lines and focusing all our marketing efforts on one tightly focused area, those major changes that made the difference almost always sparked heated debates.

Frankly, if they hadn’t, I would have been very worried. And the better those teams were at working through issues like a functioning team of grown adults with passion, experience and great ideas without getting personal, without getting defensive, and without playing politics, the more successful they were.

All the Marbles

Admittedly, quoting Steve Jobs is a pretty well-tread business tactic, but a few years back, one of his “Lost Interviews” was released, and it had a short video interlude in it that I’ve always really loved.

The interview, with tech journalist and former Jobs employee Robert X. Cringely, was conducted in 1995 when Jobs was CEO of both NeXT Computer and Pixar - two years before he retook control of Apple. In this short video, Jobs talks about an old man in his neighborhood who collected rocks, and explains how what he learned from the man can be applied to team-building.

Check it out for yourself here:

I think the point both Jobs and Woolley-Wilson are making is pretty right on.

Creative friction, tension and debate is fine, and sometimes a very good thing. You spend most of your waking life (and in some cases plenty of your dreaming time) thinking about the work you do, and the life of your family, your friends, your employees and your colleagues is all impacted by the decisions you make and the results you achieve.

So it’s really important to get this stuff right. It’s also really, really important that you’re not an asshole in the process.

Whether you come out with polished marbles or not, be “hard on ideas and soft on people,” and acknowledge that games, companies, markets and humans change all the time. The only thing surer is death, taxes and more inspirational posts about Steve Jobs.

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