7 ms·

I believe the thing we often need to learn is the thing we're afraid of learning. We often (always?) have weaknesses that can/do jeopardize our strength and clo

I believe the thing we often need to learn is the thing we're afraid of learning. We often (always?) have weaknesses that can/do jeopardize our strength and closing those weaknesses is crucial. The famous Scott Galloway (whom I had as a b-school professor) made this point like this: if you are a great guy, great father, great boss, etc, but once in a while you get violently drunk and hurt people in your life - THAT thing offsets everything else. You won't become better by "doubling down" on what you're already good at, but by fixing this flaw. Another case - I used to manage a C++ developer. If you gave him a tight spec, he'd implement it perfectly. But the world we lived in required him to go talk to people to figure out what the real needs are, and he was bad at that. So his code always solved the wrong problem unless someone was helping him with this stuff. Every year, his own developmental goal was to go learn the next C++ standard. And that would have been useless because he was already a great C++ programmer. Going from 97th percentile to the 98th wouldn't matter. The much bigger bang for the buck would be figuring out how to go sit down with a sales rep and say "OK, what's our client actually trying to do here?" It sounds simple but I believe this held him back not just in work but in life. I happen to know that he didn't have great communication with his wife and kids either - solving this thing would make him so much better at all parts of his life. The thing is - we all have glaring things like this - obstacles in our own trajectory that if we fix, our existing strength would really shine.

borroka 5y ago
That is not a weakness that can be scored on a 0-10 scale (say, I am a 9 Python programmers and a 2 Java programmer, that's an either/or, a "threshold" weakness, or an attractor (of evil!).
premek 5y ago
> solving this thing would make him so much better at all parts of his life. How do you do that?
- xyzelement 5y ago
  > How do you do that? Great question. I assume you're asking from the point of view of the person having the challenge rather than someone observing/helping them. There's no easy or painless answer. The reason these deep flaws exist in us is precisely because we have been avoiding dealing with them for some deeply personal and painful reason. But I do think there's a general pattern that I can share from my own experience. The first step is to recognize that the problem exists and be "fed up" with it. To recognize that you're selling yourself short in some way, that you're failing yourself or your relationships. "I don't want to have my work and family life suffer anymore because I am afraid to talk to people." Or even "I don't want to be out of shape and struggle to walk a mile" kind of thing. You can't solve problems like this unless you're seeing them clearly and desperate to get out. They often say that you have to hit "rock bottom" as a requirement for curing yourself. I think this is what they mean. Once you hate the problem, it's good to get some external data. Ask your boss, colleagues, family about how you are (eg: tell me where my communication skills are weak, what am I doing that is so obviously wrong?) and then listen to what they say. They may surprise you? Eg is there a pattern, you are bad at it in some contexts and good in others? What is that about? From the above and other resources, come up with the list of behaviors that would be an improvement. For example: "I would be better at my job if before I dive into a project, I speak to 3 people who understand the problem space" is probably a non-controversial one. Then you ask yourself: why does that feel hard? Why am I just reluctant to get up and ask the sales person what the context of the client need is? What is it about "going up to someone I don't know super well and asking them a question" that terrifies me? What do I think would happen if I did this? Would they mock me? Would I feel like an idiot? Would they tell my boss I don't know something I ought to know? Reflect if the fears are real. Is anyone in the work environment actually going to react the way your fear would suggest? If intellectually you know that the thing is right and safe, then you force yourself to do it. Hyperventilate at your desk and then suck it up and walk over to the sales guy. Ask them, get the information, have a conversation. Reflect in retrospect: was this a helpful activity, and did I get hurt the way I feared I would? Keep doing it. Build up the experience/muscle of doing the thing, and prove to your anxiety that it's not a dangerous thing to do. Talk to others who got good at this thing despite being not good at it originally. Find people who are awesome at the thing and study what they do. Become a nerd on the thing that's scaring you and you will likely see it stop being scary. And I would be remiss not to say that in most cases, our deepest problems (even if they simply manifest in work performance) stem from psychology and childhood experiences. The guy in my story must have had some rough experiences growing up, maybe he was called an idiot or ignored or mocked or whatever, which made it hard for him to be communicative/open later in life, including with his family. Making a little crack in the armor of anxiety through the work process would help, but when something is this deep, seeing someone like a therapist is often helpful as well. But to rewind, the key thing is to recognize a gap between how you are and how you want to be. You fundamentally have to say to yourself "I don't want to be forever limited by this thing, I don't want to hurt myself and others because of this thing" -- everything else is problem-solving.
- allenu 5y ago
  I feel like in this particular case, the first step is to recognize there's a "problem" at all. I don't know the person in this story, but it seems like to them, communication is not that important. Maybe the most important thing for them in their work is technical achievement. (I've definitely been in that boat before.) As a result, they are likely never going to work on the communication aspect. This is like the quote of "Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value." Before you go and try and improve yourself, it's good to be honest about what you value and what your goals are. If what you value is moving up the corporate ladder, then learning even more about C++ is not going to help. On the other hand, if it's to be even better technically, then go for it. If you value improving your business all around, then the communication angle is a better place to spend your time.
joyeuse6701 5y ago
The author of the post does address your Scott Galloway example by stating that that is an obvious weakness that needs correcting. I think if we're starting with an individual with no obvious weaknesses, perhaps they are just average at many things for example, the ROI is better for things one has a natural aptitude in. Correcting an obvious weakness would generate a better ROI as per your examples.
- ghaff 5y ago
  There was an older consultant "StrengthFinder" thing. The idea was to systematically identify strengths and weaknesses and, as I recall, one of the ideas was that, assuming no gross deficiencies relative to career, you may want to focus on the things that you may not already be A+ in but you have some level of skill in. For example, a very good coder who is OK but not great at presenting or writing may want to spend some effort on those areas.
- xyzelement 5y ago
  > I think if we're starting with an individual with no obvious weaknesses, perhaps they are just average at many things for example I didn't mean that the weaknesses have to be obvious. I agree the first example I used was a blatant one, but in the other case the person had lived 5 decades without recognizing the impact that lack of communication skills had on his life. He always just thought "that's how I am." So in your case, of someone who is "just average at many things" - perhaps there's a fear of chasing a direction, a reluctance to commit, an inability to focus, etc. that probably got them to "just be ok" and living below their potential, and probably overcoming that thing is a meta-skill that they need to gain.
  - ihodes 5y ago
    I think I agree with your argument, directionally, but in the case of the C++ hacker, might it be the case that he needed to find a different role, job, and/or manager to really leverage the power of a 98%tile C++ programmer?
    - 5y ago
MA6 5y ago
Pointing at the issues of someone and saying if only they fixed it is very similar to pointing at poor or disabled people and saying the same thing. Its is known as denial of personal responsibility. You see someone who needs help, either go figure out how to help and help or shut the fuck up and keep walking.
- xyzelement 5y ago
  So basically your approach to life is to "not teach a man to fish" ?
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    > either go figure out how to help and help or shut the fuck up and keep walking. No, he's saying that you don't tell someone who is hungry "if you would learn to fish, you wouldn't be hungry" and leave it at that. Especially don't do this if you don't know how to fish yourself. But do, if you know that "learning to fish" is good, team up with the other person and learn to fish together. At the very least, you can help them find an angler to teach them.
    - xyzelement 5y ago
      I get the point you are making and the "hunger" example is obviously a painful one. But I actually think feedback should be shared freely. EG: if I have bad communication skills, yes ideally someone coaches me. But at least, random feedback of "wow that meeting went badly" - hearing that from many people over and over - may make me aware of the area and look into it myself. Like, if I am starting to get fat, I want people to tell me when they see it, even if they don't have a diet and training regiment set up for me.
      - cratermoon 5y ago
        > if I am starting to get fat, I want people to tell me But would you want random people to tell you, unsolicited, "you're fat, you need to lose weight". Also, I'm obligated to note that the energy balance model of weight gain and loss has come under close scrutiny in recent research, and it is never as simple as eat less, exercise more. https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2011132 https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2011132
stonecharioteer 5y ago
So I wonder about this a lot. If I have a developer on my team who needs to learn X, or get better at Y, I can always offer that feedback and it is construed as constructive feedback. But if I tell a developer who can't speak well or communicate lucidly that they need to work on their communication skills, that comes across as offensive. There was a horrible architect at my previous organization who was universally loathed for his bad communication skills and general lack of empathy. He was a Korean, and his English was abysmal. To him, it felt like something to shrug about. We had to go to HR, multiple times, about his behavior. Nothing much changed because again, they didn't know how to address the core issue, which is he couldn't speak clear English. His lack of empathy became masked with indifference and some of the higher ups (also non native English speakers) supported him saying it was general culture differences. However his lack of communication severely hindered progress and made life difficult. I once had a colleague who had horrendous body odour and wouldn't wear deodorant. It made working with him really difficult. And he was one of the best developers I've known. I've never told him this because I didn't want to offend him, but stuff like this should also be addressed. Communication, body language, writing skills and general personal skills need to be addressed. How do you offer feedback in that sense without embarassing them or offending them?
- borroka 5y ago
  One day I saw a colleague-to-be with their bare feet on the the desk, I looked at them and I said, "that's a no". He apologized and we moved on. But I also told the guy sitting next to them, "why didn't you say anything to them?".
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    When you left, they turned to each other and said "his answer to solving problems is to immediately demand you change to do what he wants. No asking, no discussion, not even a 'please'."
  - bo1024 5y ago
    Maybe it didn't bother that guy.
zerr 5y ago
Neurodiversity is a thing. Companies compete with each other on how good diversity stats they have, only taking in count visual appearance while on the behavioral side it is expected that everyone is the same corporate employee archetype.
- xyzelement 5y ago
  I don't understand your point. Neurodiversity is a thing, but not every flaw and limitation can be attributable to an immutable biological fact about a person, and thus we have many opportunities to improve a grow. If I told myself when I graduated college that I either had no problems or they were all permanent, I'd be a fucking mess of a 40 year today. In reality, so many good things professionally and personally came to me because at some point I looked at what I was/did and said "I don't want to do this anymore"
Jensson 5y ago
> It sounds simple but I believe this held him back not just in work but in life. I happen to know that he didn't have great communication with his wife and kids either - solving this thing would make him so much better at all parts of his life. Did he improve? Or do you just think he could improve? Maybe he had already tried to work hard on his communication skills and this was as good as it gets, so to avoid the stress of failing over and over he just stopped trying? There is nothing wrong with that, having a programmer who can write good code is valuable even if you need a technical product manager to talk to him. It might not be as valuable, but at some point life is more important than stressing out about things you can't fix. Similarly we don't blame all the product managers etc who never improve their technical skills enough to talk with such engineers. People have limits, some have more limits than others, we just have to learn to accept that people are different instead of demanding that they have the same skills as us.
jldugger 5y ago
> if you are a great guy, great father, great boss, etc, but once in a while you get violently drunk and hurt people in your life - THAT thing offsets everything else. So the Manager Tools podcast had a discussion about this I can't be bothered to find. Their advice, as best I recall it, was that you should focus on two things: fixing absolute deal breakers, and honing your strengths. Imagine you come up with N dimensions you want to rate yourself across on a 1 to 5 scale from worst to best. If you have any 1 out of 5's that are clearly blocking career progress, you should focus on that. If you're sitting at 2s and 3's, you should work on getting a 4 or 5, rather than leveling up across the board. You have described scenarios that seem to be absolute deal breakers (likely because those are the memorable stories) but in most cases, I think the latter applies. > Every year, his own developmental goal was to go learn the next C++ standard. And that would have been useless because he was already a great C++ programmer. Well, those don't come around that often. But more to the point -- situation matters. If you're working on a major C++ product that is expected to last decades, the company is in trouble if _nobody_ is allowed to study improvements. Best case scenario the company has some talent management app that you can query to find out two other people intend to master C++20; worst case, every engineering manager focuses employees on short term wins and the mountain of tech debt becomes unclimbable. I fear though, that the worst case is also the average case!

borroka 5y ago

That is not a weakness that can be scored on a 0-10 scale (say, I am a 9 Python programmers and a 2 Java programmer, that's an either/or, a "threshold" weakness, or an attractor (of evil!).

premek 5y ago

> solving this thing would make him so much better at all parts of his life. How do you do that?

xyzelement 5y ago
> How do you do that? Great question. I assume you're asking from the point of view of the person having the challenge rather than someone observing/helping them. There's no easy or painless answer. The reason these deep flaws exist in us is precisely because we have been avoiding dealing with them for some deeply personal and painful reason. But I do think there's a general pattern that I can share from my own experience. The first step is to recognize that the problem exists and be "fed up" with it. To recognize that you're selling yourself short in some way, that you're failing yourself or your relationships. "I don't want to have my work and family life suffer anymore because I am afraid to talk to people." Or even "I don't want to be out of shape and struggle to walk a mile" kind of thing. You can't solve problems like this unless you're seeing them clearly and desperate to get out. They often say that you have to hit "rock bottom" as a requirement for curing yourself. I think this is what they mean. Once you hate the problem, it's good to get some external data. Ask your boss, colleagues, family about how you are (eg: tell me where my communication skills are weak, what am I doing that is so obviously wrong?) and then listen to what they say. They may surprise you? Eg is there a pattern, you are bad at it in some contexts and good in others? What is that about? From the above and other resources, come up with the list of behaviors that would be an improvement. For example: "I would be better at my job if before I dive into a project, I speak to 3 people who understand the problem space" is probably a non-controversial one. Then you ask yourself: why does that feel hard? Why am I just reluctant to get up and ask the sales person what the context of the client need is? What is it about "going up to someone I don't know super well and asking them a question" that terrifies me? What do I think would happen if I did this? Would they mock me? Would I feel like an idiot? Would they tell my boss I don't know something I ought to know? Reflect if the fears are real. Is anyone in the work environment actually going to react the way your fear would suggest? If intellectually you know that the thing is right and safe, then you force yourself to do it. Hyperventilate at your desk and then suck it up and walk over to the sales guy. Ask them, get the information, have a conversation. Reflect in retrospect: was this a helpful activity, and did I get hurt the way I feared I would? Keep doing it. Build up the experience/muscle of doing the thing, and prove to your anxiety that it's not a dangerous thing to do. Talk to others who got good at this thing despite being not good at it originally. Find people who are awesome at the thing and study what they do. Become a nerd on the thing that's scaring you and you will likely see it stop being scary. And I would be remiss not to say that in most cases, our deepest problems (even if they simply manifest in work performance) stem from psychology and childhood experiences. The guy in my story must have had some rough experiences growing up, maybe he was called an idiot or ignored or mocked or whatever, which made it hard for him to be communicative/open later in life, including with his family. Making a little crack in the armor of anxiety through the work process would help, but when something is this deep, seeing someone like a therapist is often helpful as well. But to rewind, the key thing is to recognize a gap between how you are and how you want to be. You fundamentally have to say to yourself "I don't want to be forever limited by this thing, I don't want to hurt myself and others because of this thing" -- everything else is problem-solving.
allenu 5y ago
I feel like in this particular case, the first step is to recognize there's a "problem" at all. I don't know the person in this story, but it seems like to them, communication is not that important. Maybe the most important thing for them in their work is technical achievement. (I've definitely been in that boat before.) As a result, they are likely never going to work on the communication aspect. This is like the quote of "Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value." Before you go and try and improve yourself, it's good to be honest about what you value and what your goals are. If what you value is moving up the corporate ladder, then learning even more about C++ is not going to help. On the other hand, if it's to be even better technically, then go for it. If you value improving your business all around, then the communication angle is a better place to spend your time.

joyeuse6701 5y ago

The author of the post does address your Scott Galloway example by stating that that is an obvious weakness that needs correcting. I think if we're starting with an individual with no obvious weaknesses, perhaps they are just average at many things for example, the ROI is better for things one has a natural aptitude in. Correcting an obvious weakness would generate a better ROI as per your examples.

ghaff 5y ago
There was an older consultant "StrengthFinder" thing. The idea was to systematically identify strengths and weaknesses and, as I recall, one of the ideas was that, assuming no gross deficiencies relative to career, you may want to focus on the things that you may not already be A+ in but you have some level of skill in. For example, a very good coder who is OK but not great at presenting or writing may want to spend some effort on those areas.
xyzelement 5y ago
> I think if we're starting with an individual with no obvious weaknesses, perhaps they are just average at many things for example I didn't mean that the weaknesses have to be obvious. I agree the first example I used was a blatant one, but in the other case the person had lived 5 decades without recognizing the impact that lack of communication skills had on his life. He always just thought "that's how I am." So in your case, of someone who is "just average at many things" - perhaps there's a fear of chasing a direction, a reluctance to commit, an inability to focus, etc. that probably got them to "just be ok" and living below their potential, and probably overcoming that thing is a meta-skill that they need to gain.
- ihodes 5y ago
  I think I agree with your argument, directionally, but in the case of the C++ hacker, might it be the case that he needed to find a different role, job, and/or manager to really leverage the power of a 98%tile C++ programmer?
  - 5y ago

MA6 5y ago

Pointing at the issues of someone and saying if only they fixed it is very similar to pointing at poor or disabled people and saying the same thing. Its is known as denial of personal responsibility. You see someone who needs help, either go figure out how to help and help or shut the fuck up and keep walking.

xyzelement 5y ago
So basically your approach to life is to "not teach a man to fish" ?
- cratermoon 5y ago
  > either go figure out how to help and help or shut the fuck up and keep walking. No, he's saying that you don't tell someone who is hungry "if you would learn to fish, you wouldn't be hungry" and leave it at that. Especially don't do this if you don't know how to fish yourself. But do, if you know that "learning to fish" is good, team up with the other person and learn to fish together. At the very least, you can help them find an angler to teach them.
  - xyzelement 5y ago
    I get the point you are making and the "hunger" example is obviously a painful one. But I actually think feedback should be shared freely. EG: if I have bad communication skills, yes ideally someone coaches me. But at least, random feedback of "wow that meeting went badly" - hearing that from many people over and over - may make me aware of the area and look into it myself. Like, if I am starting to get fat, I want people to tell me when they see it, even if they don't have a diet and training regiment set up for me.
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      > if I am starting to get fat, I want people to tell me But would you want random people to tell you, unsolicited, "you're fat, you need to lose weight". Also, I'm obligated to note that the energy balance model of weight gain and loss has come under close scrutiny in recent research, and it is never as simple as eat less, exercise more. https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2011132 https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2011132

stonecharioteer 5y ago

So I wonder about this a lot. If I have a developer on my team who needs to learn X, or get better at Y, I can always offer that feedback and it is construed as constructive feedback. But if I tell a developer who can't speak well or communicate lucidly that they need to work on their communication skills, that comes across as offensive. There was a horrible architect at my previous organization who was universally loathed for his bad communication skills and general lack of empathy. He was a Korean, and his English was abysmal. To him, it felt like something to shrug about. We had to go to HR, multiple times, about his behavior. Nothing much changed because again, they didn't know how to address the core issue, which is he couldn't speak clear English. His lack of empathy became masked with indifference and some of the higher ups (also non native English speakers) supported him saying it was general culture differences. However his lack of communication severely hindered progress and made life difficult. I once had a colleague who had horrendous body odour and wouldn't wear deodorant. It made working with him really difficult. And he was one of the best developers I've known. I've never told him this because I didn't want to offend him, but stuff like this should also be addressed. Communication, body language, writing skills and general personal skills need to be addressed. How do you offer feedback in that sense without embarassing them or offending them?

borroka 5y ago
One day I saw a colleague-to-be with their bare feet on the the desk, I looked at them and I said, "that's a no". He apologized and we moved on. But I also told the guy sitting next to them, "why didn't you say anything to them?".
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  When you left, they turned to each other and said "his answer to solving problems is to immediately demand you change to do what he wants. No asking, no discussion, not even a 'please'."
- bo1024 5y ago
  Maybe it didn't bother that guy.

zerr 5y ago

Neurodiversity is a thing. Companies compete with each other on how good diversity stats they have, only taking in count visual appearance while on the behavioral side it is expected that everyone is the same corporate employee archetype.

xyzelement 5y ago
I don't understand your point. Neurodiversity is a thing, but not every flaw and limitation can be attributable to an immutable biological fact about a person, and thus we have many opportunities to improve a grow. If I told myself when I graduated college that I either had no problems or they were all permanent, I'd be a fucking mess of a 40 year today. In reality, so many good things professionally and personally came to me because at some point I looked at what I was/did and said "I don't want to do this anymore"

Jensson 5y ago

> It sounds simple but I believe this held him back not just in work but in life. I happen to know that he didn't have great communication with his wife and kids either - solving this thing would make him so much better at all parts of his life. Did he improve? Or do you just think he could improve? Maybe he had already tried to work hard on his communication skills and this was as good as it gets, so to avoid the stress of failing over and over he just stopped trying? There is nothing wrong with that, having a programmer who can write good code is valuable even if you need a technical product manager to talk to him. It might not be as valuable, but at some point life is more important than stressing out about things you can't fix. Similarly we don't blame all the product managers etc who never improve their technical skills enough to talk with such engineers. People have limits, some have more limits than others, we just have to learn to accept that people are different instead of demanding that they have the same skills as us.

jldugger 5y ago

> if you are a great guy, great father, great boss, etc, but once in a while you get violently drunk and hurt people in your life - THAT thing offsets everything else. So the Manager Tools podcast had a discussion about this I can't be bothered to find. Their advice, as best I recall it, was that you should focus on two things: fixing absolute deal breakers, and honing your strengths. Imagine you come up with N dimensions you want to rate yourself across on a 1 to 5 scale from worst to best. If you have any 1 out of 5's that are clearly blocking career progress, you should focus on that. If you're sitting at 2s and 3's, you should work on getting a 4 or 5, rather than leveling up across the board. You have described scenarios that seem to be absolute deal breakers (likely because those are the memorable stories) but in most cases, I think the latter applies. > Every year, his own developmental goal was to go learn the next C++ standard. And that would have been useless because he was already a great C++ programmer. Well, those don't come around that often. But more to the point -- situation matters. If you're working on a major C++ product that is expected to last decades, the company is in trouble if _nobody_ is allowed to study improvements. Best case scenario the company has some talent management app that you can query to find out two other people intend to master C++20; worst case, every engineering manager focuses employees on short term wins and the mountain of tech debt becomes unclimbable. I fear though, that the worst case is also the average case!