> "I told him that if he did not go my way, I’d stop doing the programming work. He said if I did not go his way, he’d stop the staff from working."<p>This quote struck me because it's a surefire sign that a project is probably going to fail. Every time I've seen people holding a project hostage by threatening to withhold their skills, those projects have either ended in failure, or even when successful, the people on the projects had very low morale.<p>In my experience, it's very important to create a culture where people do <i>not</i> use unique skills to hold a company hostage. For instance, a designer should be willing to implement a design that is (to her) sub-optimal from a design perspective, e.g. when A/B tests indicate that this design generates more money.