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For me the key work skill is a willingness to answer "I don't know". People that can't say that when they don't know the answer are inevitably pompous time-was
by blacksmythe 9y ago
For me the key work skill is a willingness to answer "I don't know".
People that can't say that when they don't know the answer are inevitably pompous time-wasters.
- tkahnoski 9y agoSimilarly "I need help" and "How can I help?" are powerful things.
- beobab 9y agoI still have trouble with "I need help". I can work out what I need to do, but I have trouble doling out work in a way which means that it gets done to the specification I have got in my head, so I am not sure how to accept the offers of help. I think I need help writing specifications for my fellow developers.
- tkahnoski 9y agoThat would be the trick in delegation. Giving others the authority to get things done. I don't know the specifics of what your dealing with but it might be defining a common starting place like an API contract with some architectural/non-functional requirements on the implementation or more recurring things like coding style guides or other documentation.
- arethuza 9y agoI learned that habit from the Professor (UK style) I used to work for whose speciality was non-linear control systems and was clearly rather bright. He was very quick to say "I don't understand" or "could you explain that in simpler terms" - I particularly remember him being utterly delighted by the Unix "fork" system call.