Brilliant engineer/visionary offends coworkers with (perhaps deserved) criticism in an insensitive manner and the company flounders.
IMO the criticism was deserved; but your argument is basically that if the company flounders, it doesn't matter whether the criticism was deserved or not, since the bottom line is what happens to the company. I agree with that in principle, but only if the coworkers in question would have been capable of recognizing the deservedness of the criticism if it had been delivered more tactfully. I'm not sure that was true in the ArsDigita case, because it doesn't seem like the coworkers in question--"coworkers" is a weird term here since we're talking about a Board member talking to other Board members--understood the business they were in in the first place.
(Btw, the fact that it was a Board member talking to other Board members also gives the point about tactfulness less force, IMO. People who can't separate valid criticism from the way in which it's delivered, IMO should not be Board members in the first place.)
It's only when said engineer/visionary learns to act more tactfully that the company flourishes.
It looks like that never happened in the ArsDigita case. Can you give some examples where it has happened?
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Brilliant engineer/visionary offends coworkers with (perhaps deserved) criticism in an insensitive manner and the company flounders.
IMO the criticism was deserved; but your argument is basically that if the company flounders, it doesn't matter whether the criticism was deserved or not, since the bottom line is what happens to the company. I agree with that in principle, but only if the coworkers in question would have been capable of recognizing the deservedness of the criticism if it had been delivered more tactfully. I'm not sure that was true in the ArsDigita case, because it doesn't seem like the coworkers in question--"coworkers" is a weird term here since we're talking about a Board member talking to other Board members--understood the business they were in in the first place.
(Btw, the fact that it was a Board member talking to other Board members also gives the point about tactfulness less force, IMO. People who can't separate valid criticism from the way in which it's delivered, IMO should not be Board members in the first place.)
It's only when said engineer/visionary learns to act more tactfully that the company flourishes.
It looks like that never happened in the ArsDigita case. Can you give some examples where it has happened?