Ideas, events, people - these things are intrinsically linked. The success of one depends on another.
The success of an idea depends on the people developing it and driving it to the next step.
If those people aren't working together well, the idea is at risk - and simply ignoring failing relationships in the hope that everyone will just get over it is not a winning strategy.
The last couple of years have seen many headlines about clashes among elected members in local government. There's been plenty of talk about people and events.
We've seen lots of it here in the Bay of Plenty - more than our fair share, I reckon.
Tauranga is the outstanding example.
The in-fighting got so bad that two members quit, then the minister handed out pink slips to the rest, passing over some slightly gentler intervention options.
It would be a brave person that would argue no intervention was needed in the situation, but it is fair to question whether such a bold move by the minister was the right one - it's not clear how it will influence future voting ballots, for one, when we get back to democratically electing a council.
Either way, the experiment is under way and time will tell.
The Western Bay of Plenty District Council also saw an elected member quit. Christina Humphreys cited a number of reasons, describing her time as a councillor as a "humiliating and depressing experience".
She had at one time also faced a potential Code of Conduct complaint that she held a predetermined view on the return of Panepane Pt on Matakana Island to local Māori.
Rotorua's council hasn't escaped elected member skirmishes either, including one this month when, in a council committee meeting, mayor Steve Chadwick demanded an apology from a councillor over a social media post.
But the councillor in question, Reynold Macpherson, said he was just expressing his opinion, while others were expressing theirs.
Even the local residents' and ratepayers association, which Macpherson leads, had seen members quit recently, including two who are also councillors.
The Bay of Plenty Regional Council, an organisation that seems to me to prefer to be perceived as reasonably boring and staid, also had a councillor walk out of a meeting this week.
Wellington City Council, Invercargill City Council and Waikato Regional Council are just a few of the others that have also seen conflict among elected members hit the headlines.
Perhaps seeing how quickly things unravelled in Tauranga, Invercargill even adopted controversial new media protocols that ask elected members to agree to "focus on issues and activities when speaking to the media, rather than the actions or decisions of other elected members".
I find this bizarre.
As a ratepayer, I want to see elected officials find non-disruptive ways to work through their issues as much as anyone, but trying to suppress or keep damaging clashes out of the public realm through heavy-handed rules is not the way to get there.
These clashes are, in my opinion, damaging to the public's perception of these organisations, but that is no reason to hide them.
Voters need to know how their elected members are working together and handling interpersonal issues, lest internal battles derail them from the jobs they are elected and paid to do.
And there's nothing small-minded about that.
