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My experience has been different than what is described here. I haven’t met that many developers who didn’t know why they were doing what they were doing. Inste

My experience has been different than what is described here. I haven’t met that many developers who didn’t know why they were doing what they were doing. Instead I’ve met lots of managers who used the _why_ as if it was some magic wand that made the impossible possible, that turned garbage into clean, working code, that magically reduced the number of bugs to none, that squeezed six hours of hacking into one etc. I’ve met people who repeat the same _why_ over and over again as if that turned developers into machines that spit out good software, fast and cheap. More often than not I found myself telling my manager “I don’t know”, “I’m not sure”, “I’ll think about it” or “that will take a while”, and got a response like “yeah, but we need this because of/in order to/etc.”

specialist 5y ago
> More often than not I found myself telling my manager “I don’t know”... In my experience, intellectual honesty has greatly limited my career. I physically can't outright lie. But over time I've gotten (minutely) better at diplomacy. - Rephrase negatives as positives. eg Instead of "Don't run!" ask "Please walk.' - To always sound encouraging, supportive. h/t Guy Kawaski's depiction of Gassée in The Macintosh Way. "Wow, what a great idea! You've clearly put a lot of effort into this." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Macintosh_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Macintosh_Way - Compliment sandwiches, surrounding criticisms with praise. Gene Wilder's letter to the costume designers for Willy Wonka is an oft cited example. - All that active listening and empathy stuff. eg Really, really listening to people, instead of just waiting for my turn to talk. eg #2, in meetings, hold back with my own feedback to see if any one else will make the same points first, thereby not sucking up all the oxygen. Etc. It's fucking exhausting. But like all skills, it does get easier over time. And my (probably wrong) perception is that I'm slightly less boorish and offensive. PS- I save up all my unsolicited feedback energy for HN. Haha.
- alexaholic 5y ago
  I appreciate your gracious response. It’s important that we discuss such matters openly and positively. You’re practical, as always, and I feel inspired to apply some of your suggestions in my own practice. There couldn’t be a better time to bring this up, in fact. Just this Tuesday marketing reported one of our customers thinks our monolithic architecture is too conservative and hurts their feelings. They suggested we switch to micro services as it aligns better with their beliefs. We did the math and found indeed micro services would not only make our customers happier but would also bring in more business. The CEO thinks it’s crucial we transition before our competition does to not hurt our business projections. I was thinking we could squeeze this into your next sprint and don’t waste any more time. I’m thankful to have you on the team as you’ve proved yourself tenacious and a key player. Your positivity is such an inspiration for the team! A can-do attitude is one of the best things one can do to themselves, their boss and their customers. In fact I feel it aligns very well with our “Yes, we can!” strategy to effective customer communications. Keep up the good work, our customers depend on you!
  - specialist 5y ago
    Nice. You'll be senior executive VP of advanced design actualization in no time! Fast track! More seriously, I discovered two weird unexpected side effects. First, even when you know it's all pro forma, praise still feels kinda awesome. Also, how you talk changes how you think. So eventually you'll come to actually believe it. Insidious!

specialist 5y ago

> More often than not I found myself telling my manager “I don’t know”... In my experience, intellectual honesty has greatly limited my career. I physically can't outright lie. But over time I've gotten (minutely) better at diplomacy. - Rephrase negatives as positives. eg Instead of "Don't run!" ask "Please walk.' - To always sound encouraging, supportive. h/t Guy Kawaski's depiction of Gassée in The Macintosh Way. "Wow, what a great idea! You've clearly put a lot of effort into this." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Macintosh_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Macintosh_Way - Compliment sandwiches, surrounding criticisms with praise. Gene Wilder's letter to the costume designers for Willy Wonka is an oft cited example. - All that active listening and empathy stuff. eg Really, really listening to people, instead of just waiting for my turn to talk. eg #2, in meetings, hold back with my own feedback to see if any one else will make the same points first, thereby not sucking up all the oxygen. Etc. It's fucking exhausting. But like all skills, it does get easier over time. And my (probably wrong) perception is that I'm slightly less boorish and offensive. PS- I save up all my unsolicited feedback energy for HN. Haha.

alexaholic 5y ago
I appreciate your gracious response. It’s important that we discuss such matters openly and positively. You’re practical, as always, and I feel inspired to apply some of your suggestions in my own practice. There couldn’t be a better time to bring this up, in fact. Just this Tuesday marketing reported one of our customers thinks our monolithic architecture is too conservative and hurts their feelings. They suggested we switch to micro services as it aligns better with their beliefs. We did the math and found indeed micro services would not only make our customers happier but would also bring in more business. The CEO thinks it’s crucial we transition before our competition does to not hurt our business projections. I was thinking we could squeeze this into your next sprint and don’t waste any more time. I’m thankful to have you on the team as you’ve proved yourself tenacious and a key player. Your positivity is such an inspiration for the team! A can-do attitude is one of the best things one can do to themselves, their boss and their customers. In fact I feel it aligns very well with our “Yes, we can!” strategy to effective customer communications. Keep up the good work, our customers depend on you!
- specialist 5y ago
  Nice. You'll be senior executive VP of advanced design actualization in no time! Fast track! More seriously, I discovered two weird unexpected side effects. First, even when you know it's all pro forma, praise still feels kinda awesome. Also, how you talk changes how you think. So eventually you'll come to actually believe it. Insidious!