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I agree with the content of this article, but disagree with the central metaphor. "Adults in the room" is used to indicate a responsible person who stops malfe

I agree with the content of this article, but disagree with the central metaphor. "Adults in the room" is used to indicate a responsible person who stops malfeasance right? I think it's just a matter of once you start work you realize it's not schoolwork, not only are the solutions never clear, the problems are never clear either.

deleted 7y ago
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mooreds 7y ago
I wouldn't even say "stop malfeasance". The idea (I am the author) is that the business world is full of people who don't know exactly what is going on. That is due to the fact that, compared to school, business in general is dynamic. And I think the technology business is more dynamic than most other sectors. When I was a new developer (the topic of that entire blog is advice to new developers) that was a surprise. > not only are the solutions never clear, the problems are never clear either. Love that description!
- fullshark 7y ago
  Yeah I agree with that and the post itself. Thanks for writing it, just the title made me think it was going to be about a different subject.
mgkimsal 7y ago
> not only are the solutions never clear, the problems are never clear either. I can see both sides of this. I've been in situations where, when multiple options are presented, the groupthink is "well... there's no easy answers". To the extent that there's no one 'perfect' option, yes, but there are definitely some demonstrably/qualitatively bad options. But without some agreement that some people in the room do have the experience to make some judgements, decisions are left to 'populate vote'. The other issue I've seen is that people just look for "solution X" and are unprepared to deal with the new questions/problems that arise from now having essentially a new business landscape. 20 years ago, I helped a company move from paper order forms (taking weeks to process) to electronic - a month's orders from hundreds of reps from around the country were entered, correctly, in 10 hours. Literally overnight, it changed their entire business, in terms of predictions, materials ordering, shipping/logistics - all of the previous processes were now up for rethinking and rebuilding. The shift happened so fast - this was, essentially a skunkworks projects - that it created a lot of internal political upheaval few were prepared for. The core I was getting at is even when problems are clear and solved, the solution will often bring about new 'problems'.
- munk-a 7y ago
  > decisions are left to 'populate vote'. Businesses cannot afford to be wishy washy, there are long term infrastructure and process investments that must be made - there are different ways they can be made but you need to grok the costs and benefits to appropriately make or reverse those decisions without exposing your business to ruin.
jerf 7y ago
Rather than seeing it as an actual claim about adults, see it is a representation of someone's mental model that there will always be people who are like adults are to a child. In fact, when you get a job, you are now an adult in the room, so you better act like it. It's one of the many ideas that when you bring it up to the conscious level it's drop-dead obvious, but the idea that there will be other responsible people can lurk in the lower parts of your mind for a long time, and it can take a lot of time to clear the idea out. Thinking about it consciously is unfortunately not a full solution to that problem, but it certainly can be a huge help. It's the same sort of thing as imposter syndrome; it's not that you're literally an imposter, in fact many sufferers of imposter syndrome may well be above average, it's a statement about internal perceptions.
- mooreds 7y ago
  Wish I could upvote this 10 times.
- celticmusic 7y ago
  When I first entered the workforce I remember someone pulling me to the side and used this exact metaphore. Told me there were adults and children and I needed to start treating certain people as adults rather than equals (more or less, I'm paraphrasing, but this was the meaning). I was blown away that anyone actually had that attitude toward others. I was probably 21 I think? I mean, I get it on one level with respect to politics, but screw that.
jayd16 7y ago
That mostly describes the popular use of the phrase "adults in the room" but the OP is using adult more as of an omniscient mentor.
- deleted 7y ago
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neilv 7y ago
Yes, I'd previously thought "no adults in the room" was an idiom with a couple particular meanings (one of them related to the idiom of "adult supervision"). This article is changing a familiar meaning, or speaking in a more limited way (though for a constructive and worthwhile message). It's true that people in organizations don't have all the answers, and you also shouldn't expect to have all your ducks lined up for you anymore. But the article could also encourage the naive idea that the organization doesn't know anything, and that everyone is totally fumbling along. We currently have dotcom employers who want cheap and impressionable labor, encouraging the idea that experience is useless (e.g., big dotcom CEO proclaiming they only want to hire 20yos), and the article doesn't help counteract that big-corporate messaging. In reality, unless you're at a startup of only 20yos, you'll have battle-scarred people who've seen some mistakes before, and who'll be able to recognize and avoid a lot of similar mistakes in the future. And hopefully they'll try to pass on some of that experience the easier way, to those listening, and through good practices. There is some poetic justice, though, to the cyclic nature: we go from being a new developer who overestimates themselves and underestimates everyone else, to being an experienced developer (who has finally grown to be half as smart as we initially assumed we were)... and we get ignored/dissed by the new-grad hires. :) Of course, the more-experienced people don't know near everything. They avoid some mistakes they've seen before, and are maybe more likely to recognize when they're staring at a potential new mistake... but, to some degree, they're winging it, like the article said.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mooreds 7y ago

I wouldn't even say "stop malfeasance". The idea (I am the author) is that the business world is full of people who don't know exactly what is going on. That is due to the fact that, compared to school, business in general is dynamic. And I think the technology business is more dynamic than most other sectors. When I was a new developer (the topic of that entire blog is advice to new developers) that was a surprise. > not only are the solutions never clear, the problems are never clear either. Love that description!

fullshark 7y ago
Yeah I agree with that and the post itself. Thanks for writing it, just the title made me think it was going to be about a different subject.

mgkimsal 7y ago

> not only are the solutions never clear, the problems are never clear either. I can see both sides of this. I've been in situations where, when multiple options are presented, the groupthink is "well... there's no easy answers". To the extent that there's no one 'perfect' option, yes, but there are definitely some demonstrably/qualitatively bad options. But without some agreement that some people in the room do have the experience to make some judgements, decisions are left to 'populate vote'. The other issue I've seen is that people just look for "solution X" and are unprepared to deal with the new questions/problems that arise from now having essentially a new business landscape. 20 years ago, I helped a company move from paper order forms (taking weeks to process) to electronic - a month's orders from hundreds of reps from around the country were entered, correctly, in 10 hours. Literally overnight, it changed their entire business, in terms of predictions, materials ordering, shipping/logistics - all of the previous processes were now up for rethinking and rebuilding. The shift happened so fast - this was, essentially a skunkworks projects - that it created a lot of internal political upheaval few were prepared for. The core I was getting at is even when problems are clear and solved, the solution will often bring about new 'problems'.

munk-a 7y ago
> decisions are left to 'populate vote'. Businesses cannot afford to be wishy washy, there are long term infrastructure and process investments that must be made - there are different ways they can be made but you need to grok the costs and benefits to appropriately make or reverse those decisions without exposing your business to ruin.

jerf 7y ago

Rather than seeing it as an actual claim about adults, see it is a representation of someone's mental model that there will always be people who are like adults are to a child. In fact, when you get a job, you are now an adult in the room, so you better act like it. It's one of the many ideas that when you bring it up to the conscious level it's drop-dead obvious, but the idea that there will be other responsible people can lurk in the lower parts of your mind for a long time, and it can take a lot of time to clear the idea out. Thinking about it consciously is unfortunately not a full solution to that problem, but it certainly can be a huge help. It's the same sort of thing as imposter syndrome; it's not that you're literally an imposter, in fact many sufferers of imposter syndrome may well be above average, it's a statement about internal perceptions.

mooreds 7y ago
Wish I could upvote this 10 times.
celticmusic 7y ago
When I first entered the workforce I remember someone pulling me to the side and used this exact metaphore. Told me there were adults and children and I needed to start treating certain people as adults rather than equals (more or less, I'm paraphrasing, but this was the meaning). I was blown away that anyone actually had that attitude toward others. I was probably 21 I think? I mean, I get it on one level with respect to politics, but screw that.

jayd16 7y ago

That mostly describes the popular use of the phrase "adults in the room" but the OP is using adult more as of an omniscient mentor.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

neilv 7y ago

Yes, I'd previously thought "no adults in the room" was an idiom with a couple particular meanings (one of them related to the idiom of "adult supervision"). This article is changing a familiar meaning, or speaking in a more limited way (though for a constructive and worthwhile message). It's true that people in organizations don't have all the answers, and you also shouldn't expect to have all your ducks lined up for you anymore. But the article could also encourage the naive idea that the organization doesn't know anything, and that everyone is totally fumbling along. We currently have dotcom employers who want cheap and impressionable labor, encouraging the idea that experience is useless (e.g., big dotcom CEO proclaiming they only want to hire 20yos), and the article doesn't help counteract that big-corporate messaging. In reality, unless you're at a startup of only 20yos, you'll have battle-scarred people who've seen some mistakes before, and who'll be able to recognize and avoid a lot of similar mistakes in the future. And hopefully they'll try to pass on some of that experience the easier way, to those listening, and through good practices. There is some poetic justice, though, to the cyclic nature: we go from being a new developer who overestimates themselves and underestimates everyone else, to being an experienced developer (who has finally grown to be half as smart as we initially assumed we were)... and we get ignored/dissed by the new-grad hires. :) Of course, the more-experienced people don't know near everything. They avoid some mistakes they've seen before, and are maybe more likely to recognize when they're staring at a potential new mistake... but, to some degree, they're winging it, like the article said.