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Ask HN: How to work with people who push back forcefully?

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Re: Ask HN: How to work with people who push back forcefully?

#81

Post by notaspecialist »

These examples all say the same thing. You have outgrown that company. I bet you've been there for more than 2 years, hm? 2 years is the average period at a company these days unless you're aiming for management.

My advice: leave it alone. Focus on yourself and your code, improve your skills, and look for another role in another company. You'll be happier in the long run for the only reason that you can only change your behaviour. You cannot help others, I've got the scars and burns to prove it.

Re: Ask HN: How to work with people who push back forcefully?

#82

Post by dottedmag »

hbrn wrote: post #71

Plenty of bad advise here. It sounds like you already made up your mind about this person and came here to enforce your confirmation bias. Since I've been on both sides of this story, I'm going to be the devil's advocate. > I try as much as possible to explain _why_ practices are what they are, the effects on our project, the team, etc. Any suggestions for these conversations in the future? How about showing the hard…

The answer is: there are rules adopted by the team, and the only accepted way to change them if they are not optimal from the point of person described in the post is by challenging the rules explicitly, not by trying to violate them.

Re: Ask HN: How to work with people who push back forcefully?

#83

Post by dottedmag »

jawns wrote: post #54
randombits0 wrote: post #51

Reject changes with a short but accurate description why. Some folks communicate better through text/email/post/etc. Reply all always and cc: managers when necessary. Another rule is never blindside your manager. That’s a sub-rule of, never be the highest ranking person aware of a problem.

Can you elaborate on "never be the highest ranking person aware of a problem"?

It means keeping the manager in the loop about the problem.

Re: Ask HN: How to work with people who push back forcefully?

#84

Post by nickd2001 »

Please don't take offence at this, but... really try to avoid thinking about this on the weekend, absolutely not worth it. And try to be nice to this person even if you find them annoying. As Steven Covey says, “Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood.” -ironically that's mentioned in a sibling HN article today. (I have to admit to failing to do that myself of course... ;) ). I'd hazard a guess they might be finding it a rather intense work environment that's stressing them out, hence, not entirely rational response when challenged about StackOverflow code. Give 'em a way to save face. Be nice :)

Re: Ask HN: How to work with people who push back forcefully?

#85

Post by andreime »

When I was working as a team lead, I rejected any PR that was not in line with the rules. I stopped the review immediately I saw the rule breaking line(s).

One time, a manager asked me why I rejected a PR at the end of the sprint, before the demo, and I said, as you wrote above, that it's my responsibility and if he wants to overrule me, he should do that officially by assuming responsibility and escalating to our boss.

Make sure the rules are clear and then stop trying to appease.

edit: I wanted to make it clear that the rules were broken only when a new dev joined the team, after a rejection or two, PRs were extremely rare instantly rejected.

Re: Ask HN: How to work with people who push back forcefully?

#87

Post by egberts1 »

egberts1 wrote: post #66

This is where office politics come into play. You build not only a strong list of counterpoints and points (without a single mention of the forcefully person's name) then elicit as many peer supports as you can with that list (preferably on paper that you can take back). Sometimes, I've had to remove the forcefully person's lone point in order not to tip my hand. Then reveal in a meeting, again without mentioning the…

I love it when my post gets downvoted because it tells me that it is probably some disgruntled middle manager who previously got upstaged due to its own idiocy.

On this, I have to say, listen to their POV and weigh carefully.

Re: Ask HN: How to work with people who push back forcefully?

#88

Post by Raidion »

comprev wrote: post #52
Raidion wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll ask because we're struggling with this now. What do you do to reduce the risk of an auto applied TF change going sideways? Our current workflow involves a manual review/approval by devOps.

Our teams all control their own infrastructure so there is very low risk of two pipelines trying to alter the same resources. Step 1 plans, and outputs the changes to a local plan file. Step 2 prompts for a human approval after viewing the above potential changes. Declining the approval simply ends the pipeline. Step 3 applies step 1 using the plan file.

Ok, human involved in the loop, thank you!

I also think there should never be more than one source of truth for TF, but I have seen two devs fight it out in the development environment. Each add their own SNS topic with similar names, get very weirded out by how it seems to magically change as the other dev applies and deletes the first one and replaces it!

Re: Ask HN: How to work with people who push back forcefully?

#89

Post by comprev »

Raidion wrote: post #88
comprev wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our teams all control their own infrastructure so there is very low risk of two pipelines trying to alter the same resources. Step 1 plans, and outputs the changes to a local plan file. Step 2 prompts for a human approval after viewing the above potential changes. Declining the approval simply ends the pipeline. Step 3 applies step 1 using the plan file.

Ok, human involved in the loop, thank you! I also think there should never be more than one source of truth for TF, but I have seen two devs fight it out in the development environment. Each add their own SNS topic with similar names, get very weirded out by how it seems to magically change as the other dev applies and deletes the first one and replaces it!

Yes, the code is treated no differently from any other language. A human has to confirm changes which will impact others.

The key is to act quickly when presented with a plan. It's advised to decline stale pending approvals and kick off a new pipeline for freshness.

There's no magic unfortunately :(

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