‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#51

Post by RealityVoid » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

ofrzeta wrote: post #40

asveikau wrote: post #37

> For instance, Steve Jobs was famous for arguing against one position or another, only to decide that you were right, and then come back a month later holding exactly your opinion, as if it were his all along. Unrelated to the larger theme of the post, but I absolutely hate it when people do this. I thought it sounded like a silly parable until I saw people do it in real life. At which point I concluded it was some…

I have this "theory" that one trait of successful people is forgetfulness. In my experience they tend to forget their mistakes and also forget the source of their successful ideas.

I tend to suffer from this, only in the _other_ dirrection, in that I forget when I give something or I add something or I help with something or I forget conflicts with people and slights reeal easy. My mistakes and failures, I remember vividly. Does that set me up for anti-success I wonder?

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#52

Post by ukj » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #44

ofrzeta wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this "theory" that one trait of successful people is forgetfulness. In my experience they tend to forget their mistakes and also forget the source of their successful ideas.

Then they should take more notes.

The whole point of forgetfulness is to have less “memory” to trawl when making decisions.

Notes are the worst kind of memory with the highest seek latency.

I am in the business of making good choices - not remembering when, where, how and why I learned the lesson.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#53

Post by hugey010 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:49 AM UTC

I've always been this kind of person, opinionated but backed by reasons, and most people find it abrasive. There's nothing I like more than having someone change my opinion, because that means they taught me something. The catch is, most people are either unwilling to teach such an opinionated person, or have nothing of value to teach.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#54

Post by NhanH » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:56 AM UTC

recursivedoubts wrote: post #3

I prefer "weak opinions, strongly held", as in, "I don't know. And I am pretty sure you don't either." Won't sell me any books, but it's been my experience.

There are another version of "weak opinions, strongly held", and unfortunately the version I encountered more: "I don't know why and I don't care, but I will do it my way and you can't change it".

Your interpretation sounds very much more similar to "weak opinions, weakly held" to my ear.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#55

Post by legerdemain » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

In my experience, "strong opinions weakly held" is a style of workforce management, not a thinking style. In brief:

- Project total confidence to your employees. At any given moment, your course of action is the best one available.

- Announce changes instead of proposing them. Announce them at the last possible moment, or even retroactively.

- Never mention past iterations you have discarded. Now is now.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#56

Post by didibus » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #37

> For instance, Steve Jobs was famous for arguing against one position or another, only to decide that you were right, and then come back a month later holding exactly your opinion, as if it were his all along. Unrelated to the larger theme of the post, but I absolutely hate it when people do this. I thought it sounded like a silly parable until I saw people do it in real life. At which point I concluded it was some…

I'm someone who does that I believe. I don't see it as a bad thing. I'm not going to go and pretend it was my idea, it's just that I take a while to make up my idea of what's right, and I'll discuss edge cases and all kind of issues with others really thoroughly and strongly, I'll do that with many people, about the same thing. And then I'll kind of form my own opinion from that, which could be 90% of person's X, and 10% of person's Y, or any other combo, sometimes mixed in with some of mine as well, but not always, it's very possible I was the most wrong of all initially.

In practice, it means that when I commit behind an idea, I'm often right. But the ideas are not necessarily mine. And I don't care.

I wouldn't say it's narcissistic, for me, I feel it's actually the opposite. I don't care that I came up with it or you or who did, or even if multiple people contributed to it, I just care that it's the right idea, and once I'm confident that it is, I will strongly upheld it and hold it as my opinion. That's because I've already put it to the test by arguing against it in all possible ways, talking to many others about it, getting their opinions, their alternative ideas, etc.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#57

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

I perhaps haven't been using the phrase as originally intended, but I've always used the phrase "strong opinions, loosely held" when it comes to hiring and building a team, and I've found it incredibly useful.

The "strong opinions" part for me means hiring someone who not just has a lot of experience on some topic or technology, but they understand it at a very deep level. The strong opinions come from a place of perhaps having been burned hard by a particular technology or process (or, contrarily, loving a technology or tool for some reason), and being able to point out the 10 little details that turn out to be big issues in real-world usage.

The "loosely held" part to me means being able to trust that (a) you don't know everything in all situations and (b) most importantly you're willing to really listen to other people on the team and are open to the idea that you may be wrong.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#58

Post by jcheng » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 5:18 AM UTC

raz32dust wrote: post #24

recursivedoubts wrote: post #3

I prefer "weak opinions, strongly held", as in, "I don't know. And I am pretty sure you don't either." Won't sell me any books, but it's been my experience.

What is the practical implication of that? "Strong opinions, weakly held" means (IIUC) make a decision, but be open to changing it if data points to it being wrong. It helps avoid the trap of looking for perfect data to make a perfect decision. Can you provide a practical application of "weak opinions, strongly held"?

It might imply that whatever path you take, you should also prepare a strong hedge in the other direction...?

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#59

Post by gnicholas » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 5:23 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #31

gnicholas wrote: post #9

I understand what “weakly held” means, but what does the “strong opinions” part mean? I couldn’t get this from the post. What would be an example of a weak opinion and a related strong opinion? Is this just the difference between “the 49ers will win most of their games this year” and “the 49ers will win the Super Bowl this year”? If so, why is the latter preferred? Edit: thanks for the downvote, perhaps you can help…

Examples below. Weak opinion: I cannot conclude anything about why my car won't start. Strong opinion: I think my battery is dead and that's why my car won't start. Strongly held: I tested the battery and voltage and current are within good thresholds. I still believe what I believed before. Weakly held: I tested the battery and voltage and current are within good thresholds. I have adjusted my belief about what I be…

Thanks for the examples. Is it possible for a weak opinion to be something other than "IDK why X is happening"? That is, can it be an affirmative opinion about some causal relationship or future event?

Honestly, if someone asked me whether the WO example above was strong or weak, I would tend to say it is strong because it is a categorical statement. To me, a weak statement would be "I think my car won't start because there's either a battery problem or a starter engine problem or a wiring problem". That doesn't take a strong stand or eliminate many possibilities.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#60

Post by xwdv » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 5:27 AM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #37

> For instance, Steve Jobs was famous for arguing against one position or another, only to decide that you were right, and then come back a month later holding exactly your opinion, as if it were his all along. Unrelated to the larger theme of the post, but I absolutely hate it when people do this. I thought it sounded like a silly parable until I saw people do it in real life. At which point I concluded it was some…

I do this with software related things, but what I noticed is that I implement just enough of my own tweaks until I’m comfortable enough taking the credit for the whole idea. My defense when people call me out is to highlight my differences and understate the similarities, even going as far as to say without my features the idea was half baked from the start.

Why do I do it? I don’t know, a lot of developers do it. Just how we are I guess. Not Invented Here syndrome.