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But my co-workers might have strong emotional attachments to answers that I know are wrong. I might have a co-worker who promotes their favorite technology as t

But my co-workers might have strong emotional attachments to answers that I know are wrong. I might have a co-worker who promotes their favorite technology as the answer to all problems. I might already know, from previous battles, that particular people are going to distort the conversation in particular ways. If I'm going to go into a situation without trying to push a particular agenda, I'd have to be willing to let the wrong choice be made.

euroclydon 8y ago
Robert Moses would never have let any of that happen. There’s a lot of hierarchy in companies, naturally. The team constructs are artificially induced.
- ricardobeat 8y ago
  Is that the guy who inspired generations of architects and engineers to build inhumane car-centric cities, and wanted a six-lane highway crossing through Manhattan? A good example of determined management, yes, but what about the outcomes?
- tacostakohashi 8y ago
  Maybe we work in different kinds of companies. In my experience with large corporates, sure we have hierarchy in the form of an org chart, managers and job titles / levels, but management very rarely enforce outcomes or resolve day-to-day disputes. When it comes to getting coworkers or other teams on board with a new workflow or tool, it's really completely up to powers of persuasion, providing good examples, documenting, and letting people move at their own pace. It can be frustrating to work through, but it's probably for the best, in the sense that it probably is genuinely the best tool or workflow that will win out over time, instead of the favorite of some senior person that doesn't know all the details.
ozim 8y ago
Yes and the biggest possible win you can make is to let go off your own "good solution". Beeing humble and dealing with problems later in lieu of beeing always right is correct choice. You have to prevent only catastrophic decisions. If you are working on CRUD web platform most decisions will not be catastrophic. Maybe inconvenient, maybe eat more budget but probably company will not go under because of some technical decision.
- darkerside 8y ago
  Catastrophic decisions are rarely as bad as they sound. You lose time and resources resolving them, maybe lose some customers, and possibly even data. Yes, this sucks. You also learn a valuable lesson. This makes your team stronger. Much worse is a series of mediocre decisions that you can live with, but compound over time to slow you down. You never really learn what's going wrong, your team doesn't improve. Give me the former, painful though it may be in the moment.
- lkrubner 8y ago
  Your answer is idealistic in a very limited way. You are suggesting that their is moral value in being humble and accepting the input of other people. I'll point out that it is even more moral to fight for what you know is right, and it is not moral to retreat from the fight simply because it is exhausting or tedious or repetitive or badly managed or the odds are lopsided. Over the last 20 years I've run into people with your attitude many times. I believe I understand your argument -- that sometimes we have to accept outcomes that we disagree with. However, what my life has taught me is that their is no valor in being passive while bad decisions are made. When I'm hired, I've been hired as an experienced professional whose advice is valuable, therefore I have an ethical obligation to fight as hard as I possibly can to be sure what I've learned over the years ends up benefiting the company. That is what I'm paid for. Passive acceptance of bad outcomes is neither ethical nor moral. We each have an obligation to fight as much as we can for what we know to be right. In the professional context, that is what we are being paid for. As a practical matter, "be humble and accept the input of others" quickly shades over into "be lazy and allow stupid people to dominate the meeting, because letting them dominate the meeting is easier than fighting them." I agree it is easier, but it is unethical to accept money while allowing bad decisions to be made.
  - turingcompeteme 8y ago
    You seem to be focusing on a situation where there is a proposed solution with an obvious bad outcome, and somehow you are the only one smart enough to realize it will lead to a bad outcome. In my experience this is very rarely the actual case. Usually there are multiple viewpoints, multiple solutions, and while some may be slightly better than others, the effort of having the debate is much more time and resource-intensive than just accepting one of the solutions.

euroclydon 8y ago

Robert Moses would never have let any of that happen. There’s a lot of hierarchy in companies, naturally. The team constructs are artificially induced.

ricardobeat 8y ago
Is that the guy who inspired generations of architects and engineers to build inhumane car-centric cities, and wanted a six-lane highway crossing through Manhattan? A good example of determined management, yes, but what about the outcomes?
tacostakohashi 8y ago
Maybe we work in different kinds of companies. In my experience with large corporates, sure we have hierarchy in the form of an org chart, managers and job titles / levels, but management very rarely enforce outcomes or resolve day-to-day disputes. When it comes to getting coworkers or other teams on board with a new workflow or tool, it's really completely up to powers of persuasion, providing good examples, documenting, and letting people move at their own pace. It can be frustrating to work through, but it's probably for the best, in the sense that it probably is genuinely the best tool or workflow that will win out over time, instead of the favorite of some senior person that doesn't know all the details.

ozim 8y ago

Yes and the biggest possible win you can make is to let go off your own "good solution". Beeing humble and dealing with problems later in lieu of beeing always right is correct choice. You have to prevent only catastrophic decisions. If you are working on CRUD web platform most decisions will not be catastrophic. Maybe inconvenient, maybe eat more budget but probably company will not go under because of some technical decision.

darkerside 8y ago
Catastrophic decisions are rarely as bad as they sound. You lose time and resources resolving them, maybe lose some customers, and possibly even data. Yes, this sucks. You also learn a valuable lesson. This makes your team stronger. Much worse is a series of mediocre decisions that you can live with, but compound over time to slow you down. You never really learn what's going wrong, your team doesn't improve. Give me the former, painful though it may be in the moment.
lkrubner 8y ago
Your answer is idealistic in a very limited way. You are suggesting that their is moral value in being humble and accepting the input of other people. I'll point out that it is even more moral to fight for what you know is right, and it is not moral to retreat from the fight simply because it is exhausting or tedious or repetitive or badly managed or the odds are lopsided. Over the last 20 years I've run into people with your attitude many times. I believe I understand your argument -- that sometimes we have to accept outcomes that we disagree with. However, what my life has taught me is that their is no valor in being passive while bad decisions are made. When I'm hired, I've been hired as an experienced professional whose advice is valuable, therefore I have an ethical obligation to fight as hard as I possibly can to be sure what I've learned over the years ends up benefiting the company. That is what I'm paid for. Passive acceptance of bad outcomes is neither ethical nor moral. We each have an obligation to fight as much as we can for what we know to be right. In the professional context, that is what we are being paid for. As a practical matter, "be humble and accept the input of others" quickly shades over into "be lazy and allow stupid people to dominate the meeting, because letting them dominate the meeting is easier than fighting them." I agree it is easier, but it is unethical to accept money while allowing bad decisions to be made.
- turingcompeteme 8y ago
  You seem to be focusing on a situation where there is a proposed solution with an obvious bad outcome, and somehow you are the only one smart enough to realize it will lead to a bad outcome. In my experience this is very rarely the actual case. Usually there are multiple viewpoints, multiple solutions, and while some may be slightly better than others, the effort of having the debate is much more time and resource-intensive than just accepting one of the solutions.