when a problem is festering and everyone seems to be looking the other way or when people are sitting around waiting to be told what to do, the crew gets antsy. It’s not that they don’t like the director—they usually do. It’s that they lose confidence in the director’s ability to bring the movie home. Which is part of why, to me, they are the most

The result of this misdirected civility is deep mediocrity. Serious improvement is highly unlikely, and any kind of complete restart or rewrite is just about impossible. No one is ever going to say, “Let’s trash this code and rethink the whole front end,” even when it’s the best thing to do.

Equally difficult is managing them effectively once they come on board. Senior people pose several important challenges: They come with their own culture. They will bring the habits, the communication style, and values from the company they grew up in. It’s very unlikely these will match your environment exactly. They will know how to work the syst

lacked a willingness to engage in the complexity of the issues he hoped the company might solve.