Just about perfect. After 35 years in technical fields (military, engineering, and finally IT), I've seen highly effective and highly INeffective organizations. Been tasked with turning the latter into the former. Seen the former turned INTO the latter by the wrong leadership. As I mentor the managers in my organization, I've passed on some of my own observations.

1. Any competent technical organization respects competence before anything else. I've heard "grudging respect" many times -- "S/he's an SOB, but at least s/he's a competent SOB." So while being competent to do the job hired for is ideally not the sole desirable trait, it's the first decider. Nobody likes deadweight.

2. I don't need super-nice people who agree all the time. I value civilized disagreement, the more options presented, the wider the choices. Having disparate points of view is great.

3. When managing people, I can and do manage to behavioral standards as well as technical competence. I have noticed that some highly-motivated and highly-intelligent people are SOBs. So I make clear to them my expectations and subsequently rate based on "what" and "how." The how is not what they feel, or if they socialize with other team members after work. It's how they contribute to a productive, peaceful and professional workplace. That's the only "culture" I care about when doing my job.

Oh, and arguing politics and religion -- for reasons evidenced in this forum itself -- are off limits during duty hours. If they want to socialize after work, or during lunch, away from the office, and fight (or bobblehead -- when everyone agrees with everyone else) at the local watering hole, more power to them. But when they are on the job, they are required to get along. And the intelligent among them know that the easiest way to do that is to set any contentious, non-work opinions aside and concentrate on what you're getting paid to do.

And if they don't, theyll soon find out they're not the only one who can be an SOB. 😛