Two minds, one voice. Many minds, one direction
Have you ever wondered what makes some collaborations extraordinarily powerful while others fall flat? The fascinating partnership between Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky offers us many insights in the art of intellectual synergy.
These two psychologists, despite — or perhaps because of — their stark differences, created a partnership that would revolutionize our understanding of human behavior. Kahneman, perpetually doubting himself, and Tversky, always sure he was right, found a way to turn their contrasting personalities into their greatest strength.
But here’s the thing: their collaboration wasn’t about harmony. It was about challenging each other’s thinking, pushing boundaries, and creating something greater than the sum of their parts. It was about unlocking new understanding in the field for both of them. As Kahneman himself noted, their partnership “magnified their individual insights” in ways neither could achieve alone. Despite Tversky reassured confidence, he was willing to explore Kahneman’s viewpoints:
Instead of becoming antagonistic, the two psychologists chose to join forces and test whether the subconscious uses statistics to make judgments.
The shadow side of collaboration
Kahneman once said, “How do you understand memory? You don’t study memory. You study forgetting.”
To understand what makes collaboration work, we need to examine what breaks it.
In the almost 15 years of observing and participating in various collaborative environments building software across several countries, industries and technologies, I’ve noticed several patterns that can poison even the most promising collaboration and dynamics. Here are some of the most damaging:
The (not-so) subtle saboteurs
Gish Gallop — Ever been in a meeting where someone rapid-fires so many points that you can’t possibly address them all? Where can collaboration even enter in that fire?
Moving the goalposts — “That’s great, but what about…” I am sure it sounds familiar to a lot of you. When the finish line keeps moving, no one wins.
Sealioning — The art of drowning genuine discourse in an ocean of “just asking questions.” I am very familiar with this one, Wikipedia first paragraph puts it better than I ever could:
is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity (“I’m just trying to have a debate”), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter.
Dysfunction is not a default state
Groupthink — When everyone’s nodding, somebody’s probably not thinking. Everyone being silent should be taken in a similar vein.
Information hoarding — Knowledge isn’t power if it’s not shared. But asking for knowledge to be shared while failing to use it, read it or apply it while constantly sealioning leads to dysfunctional team patterns too.
The Devil’s advocate syndrome — There’s a difference between healthy skepticism and chronic contrarianism for the sake of it. Ever given a presentation?
The real work of collaboration
In software engineering, as in many other industries, collaboration isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s how we build systems that impact millions of lives. Modern large scale system’s complexity requires us to come together to create something that transcends our individual capabilities, often in the face of complex technical challenges and competing priorities.
Netflix’s has a decision making principle of actively farming for dissent. Being at the company for now 4 years I can say it is a grounding point highlighting that the best solutions often emerge from constructive friction. Without careful use, it can be used to fall into the devil’s advocate syndrome. The line to effective collaboration is very thin. When we have collectively made critical decisions, for example a critical architectural decision, the magic happens not in the moments of agreement, but in the spaces where we deliberately poke holes in the solution itself without pointing at each other. When we come with the collective determination to build the best we can possible create.
But let’s be real: this isn’t always comfortable. Cultural differences can mean that what feels like healthy debate to one person might feel like confrontation to another. Ego gets in the way — sometimes we’re so invested and attached to our solutions that we forget to listen. And emotions? They’re always there, whether we acknowledge them or not.
The bridge across these gaps isn’t built with processes or frameworks alone. It’s built through:
- Creating spaces where team members from different cultures feel safe expressing disagreement in their own way.
- Acknowledging that technical decisions often carry emotional weight.
- Acknowledging that we might not always agree in all decisions.
- Understanding that sometimes, “I don’t agree” might be expressed through silence rather than words.
- Encouraging healthy debate by understanding when to moderate to avoid dysfunctional patterns.
- Taking the time to build relationships that can withstand the strain of difficult conversations.
- Letting things go quickly: the fastest we let small disagreements and failures to properly debate go, the faster it is possible rebuild new patterns.
In the end, collaboration isn’t about achieving perfect harmony and it is not about making the best of friends — after all Kahneman said of Tversky at some point “I sort of divorced him.” It’s about creating something meaningful together, despite and sometimes because of our differences. Like Kahneman and Tversky showed us, the best partnerships don’t eliminate tension; they transform it into fuel for innovation.
