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Tangentially, I've been applying something similar, but actually thinking of it as the privilege of high status. As a very senior member of my team, which has

Tangentially, I've been applying something similar, but actually thinking of it as the privilege of high status. As a very senior member of my team, which has a lot of new college grads, I've been asking the "dumb" questions, the "irritating" questions, intentionally speaking up what I believe others may be thingking, specifically because I figure I can afford the social (career) hit.

no_wizard 1y ago
In my experience this usually doesn’t turn into a career hit, but a career boon. I’ve been doing this since I was a junior, now I’m a staff engineer, and admittedly I am biased toward myself, but my career growth has been robust and among both my current t team and my professional network I feel I command a fair amount of respect and approachability because of this practice, which always pays off in the long run
- bravesoul2 1y ago
  There must be much more to it. Staff is a leadership role effectively, right?
  - no_wizard 1y ago
    Yes, though that is what I am getting at. It displays good leadership characteristics and reflects positively upon a person who acts this way, having the confidence to ask questions that others don’t or won’t. It’s a positive thing
- pfannkuchen 1y ago
  I've had a similar experience with doing this overall in terms of career impact. It hasn't consistently worked for me, though. It really depends on the team. The main issue I've run into happens when a person's reply to my stupid question doesn't make sense to me. If I continue asking follow up questions in order to understand better they sometimes get angry. But if I stop asking questions when I start to detect anger then I am left feeling confused about how the system works. Either way I'm left with a negative emotional impression of the person's caliber. Which isn't great for me cohering with the team. I imagine that you've also run into this problem. How do you think about it?
matthewdgreen 1y ago
Never be afraid to ask stupid questions. As someone who spent years doing penetration testing, I can assure you that when stupid questions don’t have an obvious answer, someone isn’t thinking properly. Also never be afraid to question people who answer quickly. We spend way too much effort training smart people to answer quickly rather than deeply, and there’s almost always a tradeoff between the two.
- akoboldfrying 1y ago
  > Never be afraid to ask stupid questions. Unfortunately that's the kind of black-and-white advice that seldom applies in the real world. Would you want to see your surgeon asking stupid questions? The pilot of the flight you're on? You wouldn't, because part of your psychological comfort depends on your perception that people like this -- people whose decisions really matter -- actually know what they're doing. ETA: By "stupid questions", I don't mean "basic but obviously important questions". I mean questions that reveal that you don't know something that other people expect you to know, that signal to them (rightly or wrongly) that they may have overestimated you.
  - pharrington 1y ago
    I absolutely would want someone who's becoming a surgeon or pilot to ask the "stupid questions." This discussion is about growth and change over time as a person.
    - akoboldfrying 1y ago
      > This discussion is about growth and change over time as a person. Is it? Because the original statement used the word "never" and didn't mention growth and change over time as qualifiers. The more one attempts to qualify -- that is, restrict the scope of -- the advice, the more one tacitly admits the point I'm trying to make, which FTR is: This advice is not always good advice.
  - cthor 1y ago
    Surgeons mark where on the body they're operating. This didn't used to be a standard practice. Asking "Did I mess up my left and right?" or "Is this the right patient?" feels like a stupid question to ask. I'd certainly rather they ask those questions before operating on me! But turns out it's very hard to get them to do that, so we do surgical site marking instead.
atq2119 1y ago
I would go even further and call it the responsibility of high status to ask such questions. As a high status person, you have an outsized influence on culture whether you like it or not, and an environment in which this kind of question can be asked ultimately leads to better outcomes.
iamthemonster 1y ago
Yes - I'm a senior member of my team too (to the extent that I've previously been the team lead of similar teams) and it's so freeing to be able to: 1. Give plenty of credit to the juniors when they do good work, even if they were reliant on support, with no need to take credit myself 2. Give up some time working on my own objectives to coach the juniors, even though there's no cost code to book the time to and nobody asks me to do it 3. Easily say, with zero guilt: "no sorry that can't be done in 2 weeks, that's a 6 week job" or "sure I can do my part of this job but I'm going to need you to commit XYZ other resources if you want it to be a success" 4. Interpret the rules in the way I think is best for the organisation, not trying to please the person with the most pedantic interpretation 5. I can produce convincing explanations of how my work performance is delivering value to the organisation (whereas juniors can sometimes work their arse off and get no recognition for it) I'm also a middle aged white man which seems to confer a lot of unearned trust, but combined with my professional experience I seriously think I have it easier than the juniors in so many ways, and it's my responsibility to give back a bit.
- NetOpWibby 1y ago
  You might need to a new username, you are the good guy.
- matwood 1y ago
  > Give plenty of credit to the juniors when they do good work, even if they were reliant on support, with no need to take credit myself This is one of the most effective ways to lead because it builds goodwill and trust on the team. It also takes almost nothing away from you because as the senior/leader you will get default credit for most everything. It's always odd to me more people don't realize this.
  - eru 1y ago
    Even more so: as a senior, if you don't give extensive credit to the juniors, people will assume that you have some reasons to be insecure. So it's worse for your status.
  - brookst 1y ago
anal_reactor 1y ago
I have understood that the vast majority of people are simply not interested in having conversations, their goal is to perform social dance that scores them social points.
Ampersander 1y ago
Sufficient status entirely changes how the act of asking dumb questions is perceived by others. A person with a small title is seen as asking dumb questions because they are dumb. A person with a big title asks dumb questions because they are smart. Of course it's not just title but also age, gender, race, appearance, etc.
worldsayshi 1y ago
Yes this is probably the best thing about feeling senior enough and maybe the best measure of seniority. If you dare ask stupid questions you aren't stupid. But then there are likely also situations when you feel that you ask a bunch of stupid questions but are faced with blank stares because people doesn't understand the context enough for those questions either or they are struggling enough with other problems to even entertain that kind of question. It can kind of lead to a similar situation to when the math professor at uni jokingly asks a "trivial" math question in front of his students. It's trivial only once you have worked that kind of problem a 1000 times.
- mettamage 1y ago
  > If you dare ask stupid questions you aren't stupid. I'm the exception to the rule, I always do this and I'm not senior. I make it clear too that I do this. Ah, I just read the article. Yea, I'm not afraid of the moat of low status. I know what reward it brings, it's easy +EV.
recursivedoubts 1y ago
Good! https://grugbrain.dev/#grug-on-fold https://grugbrain.dev/#grug-on-fold
yieldcrv 1y ago
I have an account on reddit that leans into extremes, specifically to collect the ad hominem attacks, while wading into benign topics people won’t talk about but would like consensus on because they are afraid the benign topic will cause them to get ad hominem attacked or generally vilified most people’s reddit profiles are their whole identity and they try to stay in moderate “polite company” at the expense of remaining ignorant
niuzeta 1y ago
Absolutely. As I get more and more senior, I found myself prefacing a lot of questions with "let me ask some stupid questions" to ask some broad questions or context of the meeting. It can be something seemingly obvious, what's important is it somehow breaks the barrier for others to ask questions. I used to say "I'm going to play my 'new guy' card one more time" when I'm new at a company, but this seems to work more generically, and tends to work in the team's benefit.
citizenpaul 1y ago
I wish more people were like you. I can't speak to the past but it seems all anyone in high status positions wants to do is be "guilded" and left alone.
nuancebydefault 1y ago
I used to be the one that in big meetings would ask the 'dumb' questions a lot of people undoubtedly had in their mind, but wouldn't dare to pose. I didn't care that some people would find the question stupid, since it would make other people happy for not having to speak up themselves while still getting the info they needed. It would as well make some people happy for establishing a slightly higher place in the pecking order. At least i would gain some karma and maybe even some admiration. Over the years I did this less and nowadays I mostly only speak when asked so in rather big meetings. How did this come to be? I found that people who feel that they belong in the higher ranks of the social pecking order sometimes don't like this behavior and actively try to make you look bad. As I'm quite sensitive and am generally a people pleaser who thrives on getting external validation (I'm working on it...), it did not feel good and I feel it wasn't worth the trouble...
djmips 1y ago
Indeed. As a senior, I found out that at the last 'retrospective' I was one the only ones who had anything on 'needs improvement' 'saying what I believe others might be thinking' - and during anonymous voting my items did get most of the votes.

no_wizard 1y ago

In my experience this usually doesn’t turn into a career hit, but a career boon. I’ve been doing this since I was a junior, now I’m a staff engineer, and admittedly I am biased toward myself, but my career growth has been robust and among both my current t team and my professional network I feel I command a fair amount of respect and approachability because of this practice, which always pays off in the long run

bravesoul2 1y ago
There must be much more to it. Staff is a leadership role effectively, right?
- no_wizard 1y ago
  Yes, though that is what I am getting at. It displays good leadership characteristics and reflects positively upon a person who acts this way, having the confidence to ask questions that others don’t or won’t. It’s a positive thing
pfannkuchen 1y ago
I've had a similar experience with doing this overall in terms of career impact. It hasn't consistently worked for me, though. It really depends on the team. The main issue I've run into happens when a person's reply to my stupid question doesn't make sense to me. If I continue asking follow up questions in order to understand better they sometimes get angry. But if I stop asking questions when I start to detect anger then I am left feeling confused about how the system works. Either way I'm left with a negative emotional impression of the person's caliber. Which isn't great for me cohering with the team. I imagine that you've also run into this problem. How do you think about it?

matthewdgreen 1y ago

Never be afraid to ask stupid questions. As someone who spent years doing penetration testing, I can assure you that when stupid questions don’t have an obvious answer, someone isn’t thinking properly. Also never be afraid to question people who answer quickly. We spend way too much effort training smart people to answer quickly rather than deeply, and there’s almost always a tradeoff between the two.

akoboldfrying 1y ago
> Never be afraid to ask stupid questions. Unfortunately that's the kind of black-and-white advice that seldom applies in the real world. Would you want to see your surgeon asking stupid questions? The pilot of the flight you're on? You wouldn't, because part of your psychological comfort depends on your perception that people like this -- people whose decisions really matter -- actually know what they're doing. ETA: By "stupid questions", I don't mean "basic but obviously important questions". I mean questions that reveal that you don't know something that other people expect you to know, that signal to them (rightly or wrongly) that they may have overestimated you.
- pharrington 1y ago
  I absolutely would want someone who's becoming a surgeon or pilot to ask the "stupid questions." This discussion is about growth and change over time as a person.
  - akoboldfrying 1y ago
    > This discussion is about growth and change over time as a person. Is it? Because the original statement used the word "never" and didn't mention growth and change over time as qualifiers. The more one attempts to qualify -- that is, restrict the scope of -- the advice, the more one tacitly admits the point I'm trying to make, which FTR is: This advice is not always good advice.
- cthor 1y ago
  Surgeons mark where on the body they're operating. This didn't used to be a standard practice. Asking "Did I mess up my left and right?" or "Is this the right patient?" feels like a stupid question to ask. I'd certainly rather they ask those questions before operating on me! But turns out it's very hard to get them to do that, so we do surgical site marking instead.

atq2119 1y ago

I would go even further and call it the responsibility of high status to ask such questions. As a high status person, you have an outsized influence on culture whether you like it or not, and an environment in which this kind of question can be asked ultimately leads to better outcomes.

iamthemonster 1y ago

Yes - I'm a senior member of my team too (to the extent that I've previously been the team lead of similar teams) and it's so freeing to be able to: 1. Give plenty of credit to the juniors when they do good work, even if they were reliant on support, with no need to take credit myself 2. Give up some time working on my own objectives to coach the juniors, even though there's no cost code to book the time to and nobody asks me to do it 3. Easily say, with zero guilt: "no sorry that can't be done in 2 weeks, that's a 6 week job" or "sure I can do my part of this job but I'm going to need you to commit XYZ other resources if you want it to be a success" 4. Interpret the rules in the way I think is best for the organisation, not trying to please the person with the most pedantic interpretation 5. I can produce convincing explanations of how my work performance is delivering value to the organisation (whereas juniors can sometimes work their arse off and get no recognition for it) I'm also a middle aged white man which seems to confer a lot of unearned trust, but combined with my professional experience I seriously think I have it easier than the juniors in so many ways, and it's my responsibility to give back a bit.

NetOpWibby 1y ago
You might need to a new username, you are the good guy.
matwood 1y ago
> Give plenty of credit to the juniors when they do good work, even if they were reliant on support, with no need to take credit myself This is one of the most effective ways to lead because it builds goodwill and trust on the team. It also takes almost nothing away from you because as the senior/leader you will get default credit for most everything. It's always odd to me more people don't realize this.
- eru 1y ago
  Even more so: as a senior, if you don't give extensive credit to the juniors, people will assume that you have some reasons to be insecure. So it's worse for your status.
- brookst 1y ago

anal_reactor 1y ago

I have understood that the vast majority of people are simply not interested in having conversations, their goal is to perform social dance that scores them social points.

Ampersander 1y ago

Sufficient status entirely changes how the act of asking dumb questions is perceived by others. A person with a small title is seen as asking dumb questions because they are dumb. A person with a big title asks dumb questions because they are smart. Of course it's not just title but also age, gender, race, appearance, etc.

worldsayshi 1y ago

Yes this is probably the best thing about feeling senior enough and maybe the best measure of seniority. If you dare ask stupid questions you aren't stupid. But then there are likely also situations when you feel that you ask a bunch of stupid questions but are faced with blank stares because people doesn't understand the context enough for those questions either or they are struggling enough with other problems to even entertain that kind of question. It can kind of lead to a similar situation to when the math professor at uni jokingly asks a "trivial" math question in front of his students. It's trivial only once you have worked that kind of problem a 1000 times.

mettamage 1y ago
> If you dare ask stupid questions you aren't stupid. I'm the exception to the rule, I always do this and I'm not senior. I make it clear too that I do this. Ah, I just read the article. Yea, I'm not afraid of the moat of low status. I know what reward it brings, it's easy +EV.

recursivedoubts 1y ago

Good! https://grugbrain.dev/#grug-on-fold https://grugbrain.dev/#grug-on-fold

yieldcrv 1y ago

I have an account on reddit that leans into extremes, specifically to collect the ad hominem attacks, while wading into benign topics people won’t talk about but would like consensus on because they are afraid the benign topic will cause them to get ad hominem attacked or generally vilified most people’s reddit profiles are their whole identity and they try to stay in moderate “polite company” at the expense of remaining ignorant

niuzeta 1y ago

Absolutely. As I get more and more senior, I found myself prefacing a lot of questions with "let me ask some stupid questions" to ask some broad questions or context of the meeting. It can be something seemingly obvious, what's important is it somehow breaks the barrier for others to ask questions. I used to say "I'm going to play my 'new guy' card one more time" when I'm new at a company, but this seems to work more generically, and tends to work in the team's benefit.

citizenpaul 1y ago

I wish more people were like you. I can't speak to the past but it seems all anyone in high status positions wants to do is be "guilded" and left alone.

nuancebydefault 1y ago

I used to be the one that in big meetings would ask the 'dumb' questions a lot of people undoubtedly had in their mind, but wouldn't dare to pose. I didn't care that some people would find the question stupid, since it would make other people happy for not having to speak up themselves while still getting the info they needed. It would as well make some people happy for establishing a slightly higher place in the pecking order. At least i would gain some karma and maybe even some admiration. Over the years I did this less and nowadays I mostly only speak when asked so in rather big meetings. How did this come to be? I found that people who feel that they belong in the higher ranks of the social pecking order sometimes don't like this behavior and actively try to make you look bad. As I'm quite sensitive and am generally a people pleaser who thrives on getting external validation (I'm working on it...), it did not feel good and I feel it wasn't worth the trouble...

djmips 1y ago

Indeed. As a senior, I found out that at the last 'retrospective' I was one the only ones who had anything on 'needs improvement' 'saying what I believe others might be thinking' - and during anonymous voting my items did get most of the votes.