10 ms·

We need your beginner’s mind

141 points by joshcanhelp 5y ago

legerdemain 5y ago
I have once spent four sprints shipping and then unshipping a minor feature because no one on the dev team explained an implicit invariant in the object model, despite repeated questioning. The unit tests ran fine and people rubber-stamped each successive revision without hesitation. Then the change would land on our scary haunted staging instance, and the release manager would come knocking at my desk. Gatekeeping is totally a thing.
- sail0rm00n 5y ago
  It's possible they weren't aware of it and were answering honestly. Systems can grow incredibly complex. These dependencies and contracts became not-so-well-defined after long periods of time.
- joshcanhelp 5y ago
  Like so many things, there is that implicit caveat “none of this applies in a toxic environment”
bovermyer 5y ago
One of the most important lessons I've learned from fiction is from the relentless joy in spite of, or maybe because of, repeated failure in some stories. The most common source of this trope in my memory is in anime, but it's everywhere, in every culture and narrative medium I've experienced. Failing is not a negative in itself. Sometimes the consequences are a negative. Usually though, there's a lesson to be learned that's a net positive. Something something Edison.
- joshcanhelp 5y ago
  Do you have a particular story/book/anime that really drove this home? I find I’m able to think that way about failure far removed from when it happened but, in the moment and soon after, it’s near impossible.
  - Hextinium 5y ago
    The one that comes to mind for me is Tenga Topa Guerren Lagan, but most shonen shows have a plot arc of getting defeated and coming back at some point. The other one is Steins;Gate but that one is deep into the show.
  - mattgreenrocks 5y ago
    While a different medium, the Dark Souls series of video games does a great job of conveying this. The vibe is more of, “things can seem hard and unfair, but by adapting and persevering, you can overcome.” I think it is an excellent life lesson and one I find highly resonant.
  - bovermyer 5y ago
    Most immediately, Hunter x Hunter comes to mind. The main character, Gon, gets excited even when faced with some pretty shocking problems.
- kqr 5y ago
  I've always liked the perspective that all three of problem, learning, and information can be defined as "the difference between expectation and outcome". They're effectively the same thing.
errantmind 5y ago
> Your lack of understanding is a valuable attribute that goes away as you gain experience Not necessarily true. Beginner's mind can be embraced by anyone who stays humble. Some of my favorite people to work with have ample experience, but approach each new challenge from the ground up.
- joshcanhelp 5y ago
  I agree. In fact this post was inspired by someone I work with who embodies this mindset. I probably could have said something more along the lines of it fades naturally unless you mindfully keep it around. That quality, though, feels like a hard one to learn. Not impossible but it seems like it comes naturally to some and not to others.
  - errantmind 5y ago
    In a society dominated by signalling, few want to risk looking like they don't know what they are doing. They fear people will mistake humility for incompetence
    - tejtm 5y ago
      It is not an unfounded fear, especially with people not capable of understanding what you are being gracious about.
    - mattgreenrocks 5y ago
      The irony is that true competence demands the ability to inhabit beginners mind when necessary in order to continually hone one’s skills.
    - joshcanhelp 5y ago
      100%, I totally agree. I linked to an article [1] that talked about one person's experience with this. My argument here is that I believe it's overall better to accept that risk and important to encourage that in others. [1] https://danluu.com/look-stupid/ https://danluu.com/look-stupid/
mwattsun 5y ago
See also: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is a book of teachings by the late Shunryu Suzuki, a compilation of talks given to his satellite Zen center in Los Altos, California. Published in 1970... helping readers to steer clear from the trap of intellectualism...it is one of the two most influential books on Zen in the west. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Mind,_Beginner%27s_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Mind,_Beginner%27s_Mind
- roeles 5y ago
  Came here to post this. You beat me to it. Thank you!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
lazyant 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin
- hyperpallium2 5y ago
  > In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
floppydiskette 5y ago
I think the most valuable articles I’ve written were in the beginning of my development career. I struggled to do so many things and was able to document them with a beginner’s mind. Most of those things are so easy now they don’t even make it to the “prerequisites” of an article I write. What I write now reaches a smaller, more focused and advanced audience.
gandutraveler 5y ago
I'm a better beginner than an expert at anything I do. I mainly attribute this to the excitement around learning and the rate of returns I'm the initial part of the learning journey.
ggm 5y ago
The "no bad questions" thing is big with me. I remember about 40 years ago talking to a smart latinist retraining into IT who said she felt hugely shamed and embarrassed at work having to ask what an IDE ribbon cable was. Whoever was teaching them, needed a good talking to. Sure, in hindsight it's obvious, but also not.
roeles 5y ago
This is what made Data from Star Trek TNG such an interesting character to me. He embodies the beginner's mind quite well I'd say.
- notapenny 5y ago
  The way people responded to him was nice as well, they understood he was a beginner and either trying to learn or challenge his image of what he'd learned until then.
known 5y ago
I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys is relevant
log101 5y ago
Wow, I felt like I'm listening to myself, thanks a lot for writing this. "Beginner" is an such an important concept.
douglee650 5y ago
Most people become rigid in thinking and lose elasticity in the problem, solution, and containing domains — especially when hardened onto specific workflows and process. We are all guilty of it. Consulting addresses this at the org level — they are the "smart dumb group" that will unlock lateral and z thinking. -- On a personal level, do not think in failures or successes. Think in learning and level gains. "Success" as per your definition is a side-effect of reaching higher and higher levels of ability. Learning ("failure") is a major path.
- joshcanhelp 5y ago
  > On a personal level, do not think in failures or successes. Think in learning and level gains. I wanted to include that in my post but I didn't want it to get too long. This is so critical, IMHO. When I truly internalized this I felt like I had unlocked some secret mode in life. I had heard it over and over but it also sounded like a way to make yourself feel better. I know better now! I wrote about this as well [1] but from a mental/physical health perspective. [1] https://www.joshcanhelp.com/improvement-as-experimentation/ https://www.joshcanhelp.com/improvement-as-experimentation/
musically_ut 5y ago
> The world needs more people who are two days into learning something writing about the problems of people who are one day in. ~ https://twitter.com/patio11/status/803825771349426176 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/803825771349426176
Jensson 5y ago
> If you don't feel safe to ask questions and make mistakes at work, it might be time to find a place that you can. There is basically no such job. You can find jobs where you are allowed to make small mistakes, but no job will let you make big mistakes without lots of experience and big mistakes is the important part to learn. If you want to learn big things quickly you have to do it on your own and not at a job.
- dijit 5y ago
  That's simply not true. There is no "Sysadmin School" the only way to learn is through experience. The only way you get experience is to do things. That's why we don't fire people if they make $1,000,000 mistakes, because those are very expensive lessons and that is a large investment in a persons education. If you only make $1,000,000 mistakes and you keep making the same ones, then it's time to talk safety nets.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    We are talking about different things here. You assume the company put you in a position where making $1,000,000 mistakes is reasonable. My point is that companies wont put you in such a position unless you have enough experience that they trust you wont make the mistake. Similarly, for them to put you in a position where you are allowed to make $1,000,000,000 mistakes you need even more experience. That is why company CEO's have tons of experience if they were hired, they were forced to take the slow path of slowly ramping up the mistakes they were allowed to make. Compare with Bill Gates who was the CEO of a massive global company when he was 30, he ramped up to big mistakes really quickly, no company hires like that.
    - dijit 5y ago
      Sure, but even junior sysadmins can take down production systems by mistake. What do you need to know to be a junior sysadmin? Not a lot (comparatively).
  - teddyh 5y ago
    > The only way you get experience is to do things. Why can’t you do sysadmin things at home?
beepbooptheory 5y ago
Can you be a beginner like this and even still be able to get a job these days? It seems like the industry as a whole has entered a new phase of professionalization and scientific recruitment that makes attitudes like this obsolete.
- Juliate 5y ago
  In enterprises/organizations consciously playing the long game, yes, definitely - because they know they need this to survive and gain new perspectives, and budget accordingly. That, they will not only tolerate, but search for people that will not be what-you-could-consider-as-productive-in-a-narrow-view-way for some time.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
I'm routinely stymied by the projects I take on. I learn new stuff every day. It annoys me to be treated like a n00b, but that comes with the territory. I don't let it stop me. I write about it here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships-are-built-for/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...
psychomugs 5y ago
“The professional...must fight to preserve the naiveté that the layman already possesses.” —Bill Evans

141 points by joshcanhelp 5y ago

I have once spent four sprints shipping and then unshipping a minor feature because no one on the dev team explained an implicit invariant in the object model, despite repeated questioning. The unit tests ran fine and people rubber-stamped each successive revision without hesitation. Then the change would land on our scary haunted staging instance, and the release manager would come knocking at my desk. Gatekeeping is totally a thing.

sail0rm00n 5y ago
It's possible they weren't aware of it and were answering honestly. Systems can grow incredibly complex. These dependencies and contracts became not-so-well-defined after long periods of time.
joshcanhelp 5y ago
Like so many things, there is that implicit caveat “none of this applies in a toxic environment”

bovermyer 5y ago

One of the most important lessons I've learned from fiction is from the relentless joy in spite of, or maybe because of, repeated failure in some stories. The most common source of this trope in my memory is in anime, but it's everywhere, in every culture and narrative medium I've experienced. Failing is not a negative in itself. Sometimes the consequences are a negative. Usually though, there's a lesson to be learned that's a net positive. Something something Edison.

joshcanhelp 5y ago
Do you have a particular story/book/anime that really drove this home? I find I’m able to think that way about failure far removed from when it happened but, in the moment and soon after, it’s near impossible.
- Hextinium 5y ago
  The one that comes to mind for me is Tenga Topa Guerren Lagan, but most shonen shows have a plot arc of getting defeated and coming back at some point. The other one is Steins;Gate but that one is deep into the show.
- mattgreenrocks 5y ago
  While a different medium, the Dark Souls series of video games does a great job of conveying this. The vibe is more of, “things can seem hard and unfair, but by adapting and persevering, you can overcome.” I think it is an excellent life lesson and one I find highly resonant.
- bovermyer 5y ago
  Most immediately, Hunter x Hunter comes to mind. The main character, Gon, gets excited even when faced with some pretty shocking problems.
kqr 5y ago
I've always liked the perspective that all three of problem, learning, and information can be defined as "the difference between expectation and outcome". They're effectively the same thing.

errantmind 5y ago

> Your lack of understanding is a valuable attribute that goes away as you gain experience Not necessarily true. Beginner's mind can be embraced by anyone who stays humble. Some of my favorite people to work with have ample experience, but approach each new challenge from the ground up.

joshcanhelp 5y ago
I agree. In fact this post was inspired by someone I work with who embodies this mindset. I probably could have said something more along the lines of it fades naturally unless you mindfully keep it around. That quality, though, feels like a hard one to learn. Not impossible but it seems like it comes naturally to some and not to others.
- errantmind 5y ago
  In a society dominated by signalling, few want to risk looking like they don't know what they are doing. They fear people will mistake humility for incompetence
  - tejtm 5y ago
    It is not an unfounded fear, especially with people not capable of understanding what you are being gracious about.
  - mattgreenrocks 5y ago
    The irony is that true competence demands the ability to inhabit beginners mind when necessary in order to continually hone one’s skills.
  - joshcanhelp 5y ago
    100%, I totally agree. I linked to an article [1] that talked about one person's experience with this. My argument here is that I believe it's overall better to accept that risk and important to encourage that in others. [1] https://danluu.com/look-stupid/ https://danluu.com/look-stupid/

mwattsun 5y ago

See also: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is a book of teachings by the late Shunryu Suzuki, a compilation of talks given to his satellite Zen center in Los Altos, California. Published in 1970... helping readers to steer clear from the trap of intellectualism...it is one of the two most influential books on Zen in the west. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Mind,_Beginner%27s_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Mind,_Beginner%27s_Mind

roeles 5y ago
Came here to post this. You beat me to it. Thank you!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

lazyant 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin

hyperpallium2 5y ago
> In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.

floppydiskette 5y ago

I think the most valuable articles I’ve written were in the beginning of my development career. I struggled to do so many things and was able to document them with a beginner’s mind. Most of those things are so easy now they don’t even make it to the “prerequisites” of an article I write. What I write now reaches a smaller, more focused and advanced audience.

gandutraveler 5y ago

I'm a better beginner than an expert at anything I do. I mainly attribute this to the excitement around learning and the rate of returns I'm the initial part of the learning journey.

ggm 5y ago

The "no bad questions" thing is big with me. I remember about 40 years ago talking to a smart latinist retraining into IT who said she felt hugely shamed and embarrassed at work having to ask what an IDE ribbon cable was. Whoever was teaching them, needed a good talking to. Sure, in hindsight it's obvious, but also not.

roeles 5y ago

This is what made Data from Star Trek TNG such an interesting character to me. He embodies the beginner's mind quite well I'd say.

notapenny 5y ago
The way people responded to him was nice as well, they understood he was a beginner and either trying to learn or challenge his image of what he'd learned until then.

known 5y ago

I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys is relevant

log101 5y ago

Wow, I felt like I'm listening to myself, thanks a lot for writing this. "Beginner" is an such an important concept.

douglee650 5y ago

Most people become rigid in thinking and lose elasticity in the problem, solution, and containing domains — especially when hardened onto specific workflows and process. We are all guilty of it. Consulting addresses this at the org level — they are the "smart dumb group" that will unlock lateral and z thinking. -- On a personal level, do not think in failures or successes. Think in learning and level gains. "Success" as per your definition is a side-effect of reaching higher and higher levels of ability. Learning ("failure") is a major path.

joshcanhelp 5y ago
> On a personal level, do not think in failures or successes. Think in learning and level gains. I wanted to include that in my post but I didn't want it to get too long. This is so critical, IMHO. When I truly internalized this I felt like I had unlocked some secret mode in life. I had heard it over and over but it also sounded like a way to make yourself feel better. I know better now! I wrote about this as well [1] but from a mental/physical health perspective. [1] https://www.joshcanhelp.com/improvement-as-experimentation/ https://www.joshcanhelp.com/improvement-as-experimentation/

musically_ut 5y ago

> The world needs more people who are two days into learning something writing about the problems of people who are one day in. ~ https://twitter.com/patio11/status/803825771349426176 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/803825771349426176

Jensson 5y ago

> If you don't feel safe to ask questions and make mistakes at work, it might be time to find a place that you can. There is basically no such job. You can find jobs where you are allowed to make small mistakes, but no job will let you make big mistakes without lots of experience and big mistakes is the important part to learn. If you want to learn big things quickly you have to do it on your own and not at a job.

dijit 5y ago
That's simply not true. There is no "Sysadmin School" the only way to learn is through experience. The only way you get experience is to do things. That's why we don't fire people if they make $1,000,000 mistakes, because those are very expensive lessons and that is a large investment in a persons education. If you only make $1,000,000 mistakes and you keep making the same ones, then it's time to talk safety nets.
- Jensson 5y ago
  We are talking about different things here. You assume the company put you in a position where making $1,000,000 mistakes is reasonable. My point is that companies wont put you in such a position unless you have enough experience that they trust you wont make the mistake. Similarly, for them to put you in a position where you are allowed to make $1,000,000,000 mistakes you need even more experience. That is why company CEO's have tons of experience if they were hired, they were forced to take the slow path of slowly ramping up the mistakes they were allowed to make. Compare with Bill Gates who was the CEO of a massive global company when he was 30, he ramped up to big mistakes really quickly, no company hires like that.
  - dijit 5y ago
    Sure, but even junior sysadmins can take down production systems by mistake. What do you need to know to be a junior sysadmin? Not a lot (comparatively).
- teddyh 5y ago
  > The only way you get experience is to do things. Why can’t you do sysadmin things at home?

beepbooptheory 5y ago

Can you be a beginner like this and even still be able to get a job these days? It seems like the industry as a whole has entered a new phase of professionalization and scientific recruitment that makes attitudes like this obsolete.

Juliate 5y ago
In enterprises/organizations consciously playing the long game, yes, definitely - because they know they need this to survive and gain new perspectives, and budget accordingly. That, they will not only tolerate, but search for people that will not be what-you-could-consider-as-productive-in-a-narrow-view-way for some time.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

I'm routinely stymied by the projects I take on. I learn new stuff every day. It annoys me to be treated like a n00b, but that comes with the territory. I don't let it stop me. I write about it here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships-are-built-for/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

psychomugs 5y ago

“The professional...must fight to preserve the naiveté that the layman already possesses.” —Bill Evans