3 ms·

I've noticed in my experience that the Big Endian approach has been less successful for me in work environments. Another wrench in the system is that when you w

I've noticed in my experience that the Big Endian approach has been less successful for me in work environments. Another wrench in the system is that when you want to get things done, especially at a leadership level, you will come to realize that the whole system in this article goes out the window if people aren't honest when they don't understand something. I'm often thinking ahead in conversations and in a company hierarchy where people some don't want to admit not knowing or not understanding, I noticed people would nod or agree, but no actions would be taken. I though about this for a while and came to the conclusion that people simply need an explanation, but don't want to admit not understanding. SO what looked like agreement was facade to hide the confusion. It took me a bit, but I learned to move away from making a statement and waiting for questions, to leading into a conclusion so that everyone has more context with which to ask questions, or feel more comfortable asking a question because "hey, I understood most of that, but he/she lost me at that point"

A1phab3t 7y ago
Well said. In a business context it often feels like a risk to admit that you don't know something. Because it's a competitive situation and the Prod M Lead isn't about to display ignorance to the Dev Lead who is nodding sagely like they understood all the malarkey that the Chief Architect just spewed out. And since those two doofuses are pretending they already have a clue, the QA Lead feels even more like THEY should already have one and so on and so forth. Switch that to a context where you're the Prod M Lead, and you're talking about the roadmap to the Sales team who are all nodding their heads like they totally get it even when they're not and you have a high potential for an unproductive or counterproductive situation. To me, being willing to admit you don't understand, or even to ask questions as if you don't understand when you do, is a sign of leadership-- it signals that you really care about having everyone on the team clued in and able to apply themselves to the situation at hand. Heck, it might even be useful to have a "designated doofus" in your meetings who is there specifically to watch for this behavior and ask "stupid" questions to ensure understanding by as many people as possible in that room.

A1phab3t 7y ago

Well said. In a business context it often feels like a risk to admit that you don't know something. Because it's a competitive situation and the Prod M Lead isn't about to display ignorance to the Dev Lead who is nodding sagely like they understood all the malarkey that the Chief Architect just spewed out. And since those two doofuses are pretending they already have a clue, the QA Lead feels even more like THEY should already have one and so on and so forth. Switch that to a context where you're the Prod M Lead, and you're talking about the roadmap to the Sales team who are all nodding their heads like they totally get it even when they're not and you have a high potential for an unproductive or counterproductive situation. To me, being willing to admit you don't understand, or even to ask questions as if you don't understand when you do, is a sign of leadership-- it signals that you really care about having everyone on the team clued in and able to apply themselves to the situation at hand. Heck, it might even be useful to have a "designated doofus" in your meetings who is there specifically to watch for this behavior and ask "stupid" questions to ensure understanding by as many people as possible in that room.