Conflict over a code

As a "cat herder" of technical sysadmin and network types, I have found in general the default attitude from many of the highest skilled employees is simply one of a war on incompetence, and there is nothing wrong with that. Some folks take their work quite personally and thus any criticism of their contribution can suddenly be a personal matter. That becomes a real problem if their attempted contributions are lacking in substance and there is a pattern of little or no improvement over time. In the worst case some of those folks start making claims of victimization of various ism's by their detractors, further muddying up the workplace climate. Setting the focus on accomplishing the overall technical goals and fostering attitudes of helping (or schooling) each other to improve technical acumen can be a real challenge even with a set of behavioral ground rules. Many differences in communication styles can be forgiven by all parties involved when common technical goals are being met and great results are being produced and regularly acknowledged. For some, tearing each other down can be as fun of a hack as the regular hacking, but if it becomes the primary focus and continues despite reasonable objections then productivity can suffer (depending on one's definition of productivity).