For those who are not into rock music or music in general necessarily, this article is still worth reading and thinking about. A couple of lines stand out for me, especially:
"...every group has a threshold for tension that represents its optimal level of conflict. Uncontrolled conflict can destroy the group, but without conflict, boredom and apathy set in."
This is consistent with my own experience, both in bands and in companies, and perhaps in personal relationships also. A certain amount of friction is actually optimal in terms of output of the band / company / couple.
I'm not sure, there's definitely people (I mean, there must be others than myself ;)), mostly introverted, that shine best when they know that the relationship is based on pure facts and no unforeseeable tension may arise from hurt egos.
That being said, maybe we're such a minority that virtually no human group would be comprised of only that kind of mind (even in couples).
I cannot imagine a non-trivial environment where everything is deterministic and there's no room for argumentation. For example, when deciding on the color of a new logo, or what to do for a company trip, there's no obvious canonically true solution. Therefore, opinions and personal preferences come into play, which is a source of conflict.
> For example, when deciding on the color of a new logo, or what to do for a company trip, there's no obvious canonically true solution. Therefore, opinions and personal preferences come into play, which is a source of conflict.
Ha, those are great examples where I will absolutely refuse to give my opinion :)
"What's your idea on the new logo color?", "I don't care, I'll be ok with whatever you choose", "No really, tell me", "No really, I don't want to think about it", "I don't get it", "I know you don't". Quit harsh, I conceed :)
I was in a band for a while, and there can be tension without it needing to derive from egos. I would say all of us were ego-free and I can't remember us ever having any interpersonal conflicts. But we did have different musical inspirations. The lead singer/songwriter/rhythm guitarist loved folk rock, like Bob Dylan. I was more into metal and electronic music. The drummer was a devout punk. Our bassist swore by classic rock.
In addition, I've always been of a very analytical mind, whereas our songwriter has always had a very artistic temperament. We philosophically disagreed about whether music was primarily art or science. But he had the spark of artistic inspiration to write the songs, and I had the music theory backing to write the accompaniment, so that philosophical tension actually made the whole thing work. Then we split to pursue our respective goals and neither of us have done much musically since then.
This is consistent with my own experience, both in bands and in companies, and perhaps in personal relationships also. A certain amount of friction is actually optimal in terms of output of the band / company / couple.