The One Where You Know You’re Right

Let’s set the scene. You’re at work, and there’s one of things happening, where Alice (or Bob) have come to a decision that is as far as you’re concerned. You you’re right, and you they’re wrong. those self-evidently dumb know know Or, it could be a bigger thing. This could be a design meeting, and the rest of the team is going down a road that you just don’t agree with. Or even worse, it could be the tech-lead (or product-manager, or your boss) handing down a decision from on-how to do this stupid thing. clearly Soooo, what do you do? “ ”? If so, you’re probably seriously burned out, in which case you should move on. Or, you might be in a “collecting a paycheck” kinda place, in which case the rest of this post really isn’t for you. F**k-it, it’s not my problem “ ” Ok, maybe not quite this phrasing, but it does bring up the question of how forcefully you should argue, and/or get into the fray. Yup, let’s get it on ! The thing is, it’s quite easy to come to a decision when you’re just by yourself. After all, the only person you need to convince is you! But, when it’s more than you, when you’re part of a team — or an organizational unit, or a company—it’s all about consensus (yes, if you’re a ). In this world, things almost always are a heck of a lot more complex than what you see at first blush. Yes, yes, “black and white” situations do exist, but most of the time you’re operating in a morass of gray. And within this morass even #CowboyDeveloper . Do you know what all the business pressures are? The sales opportunities that present themselves if you just add this one stupid feature? Or, the likelihood that if you use this perfectly ridiculous technology, the makers of said ridiculous technology might acquire your company?I know, in a perfect world you would be privy to all the information necessary to make an informed decision, but that just becomes less and less feasible as businesses grow in size. It’s far far easier — and more efficient — to delegate responsibility to the tech lead, manager, business lead, whatever. And through simple information leakage, by the time information gets to you, it’s been muted/dumbed down to the point where you simply can’t have the entire context. You might not have all the facts . This is a variation of the above, but sometimes perfectly stupid decisions are made for perfectly sound business reasons. You probably don’t know that the reason you’ve been told to integrate this utterly un-necessary 3rd party feature is to placate that one recalcitrant board member (who owns said 3rd party). And odds are that if you brought it up with the CEO, they would completely deny it. And yet, it happened… It might be above your pay grade . This is classically what happens when you need to deal with business pressures. For example, deploying the new feature using Kubernetes might be spectacularly overkill-ish, but this might be something that gets buy-in from the platform team, and that means one less battle to fight come budget time. And, in case you haven’t already figured this out, much of what happens in companies invariably boils down to generating consensus across various Involveds around budgetary expenses… This might be necessary for consensus internal so . A bit of a tricky one this. You see, people learn best from mistakes, and if making the wrong choice here isn’t catastrophic — and/or can be backstopped — then this could be a great opportunity for to learn! (There’s a meta-lesson here too, in that if it turns out that it wasn’t a bad choice in the first place, then hey, learned!) There might be an opportunity for to learn others others you That’s good then, you should stay quiet, and not argue, right?No!Mind you, that doesn’t mean you start with “ ”. Speaking your mind — without repercussions! — is a privilege, one that is granted only when ¹. If you are new to the team, you need to build those bonds with the tea, and get to to a place where you are a trusted — and trustable! — voice. And in that vein That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard! you are in a position of trust The more rapport you build, the more your voice will be heard without automatic barriers going up. As your team-mates that your viewpoint has value, they’ll listen more. Ratchet up. learn . Understand the other person has their position. And, always, remember that the larger the organization, the more likely that decisions are going to have some aspect of “lowest common denominator” in them. Consensus is Be empathetic why hard! . Always keep in mind that . Ideally, the rest of the team also operates from this premise, but if not anything else, need to keep this in mind! Don’t personalize it the discussion is not about you you The bottom line here is that your ability to speak up, , depends on your relationship with the team, your boss, and others. If you have agency (you’re the team lead, or the boss, or whatever), then it is incumbent on to make sure that everybody on the team feels comfortable in speaking up, and making themselves heard, and be heard you without punishment or embarrassment! Yes, I mentioned that being part of the conversation is a Privilege, but what you should strive for is to change things around. Get to a place where being part of the conversation becomes a Right, not a Privilege. It won’t be easy, but every step in that direction is a worthwhile one! If , then you have other issues. Either get to a place of trust, or move to a place of trust (if that’s an option, that is) you are not in a position of Trust ( This article also appears on my blog )