I was just about to do this, but then thought to myself: wait, see if they realize the error and fix it and then follow up. And then opened HN and saw this post! It was a nice confirming synchronicity.
Don’t point out something wrong immediately
31–40 of 180 posts
Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately
#32I haven’t read the article to be honest because I’m lazy and slightly drunk but I have to agree with the title.
You need to give people enough rope to hang themselves with so you have a tangible reference point in which to start an opposing argument. Broken down into an expenditure of effort consideration it’s cheaper to say I told you so then sit in endless meetings convincing someone they’re about to do something stupid.
Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately
#33If you're not dealing with an adult sure.
Not all grown up people are adults.
Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately
#34This is the hardest lesson I had to learn in my consulting work. It is is especially important if you are not familiar with the full context - which is almost never the case. The main insight for me was that yes, things can be "wrong" due to lack of knowledge or incompetence. Sometimes. But more often than not there is a good reason. Like: * we know this is stupid, but we had immense time pressure and this was the on…
The other side of this is how nearly every engineer is going to trash talk the prior coders, when they inherit a codebase.
So I already know to ignore it.
Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately
#35M
Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately
#36If you're not dealing with an adult sure. Not all grown up people are adults.
No post body was provided.
Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately
#37I've learned to ask questions instead of utilizing call-out culture. I can ask what some component is doing, strategy to scale, etc... That usually works very well in place of me saying that I perceive something is "wrong". Example I saw empathy in the tags. How does empathy apply to this post?
Yes, this a very good approach - it gives people the opportunity to double check and spot it themselves, and it gives you an out if you're wrong. Bit of the old socratic dialogue.
Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately
#38Eh, this is so contextual though. In the context of a code review, as in the article: no, please point out an issue if you see it, don't hold back. But raise it once, be willing to let it go, and respect that your colleagues don't have to act on your advice. The golden rule will get you far.
Right, I think the title should be something closer to "Don't point out something wrong to make yourself feel valuable/smart/etc". Obviously in lots of contexts you do need point it out immediately (the server is down, your neighbor's house is on fire) but when it's just giving feedback, it's good to be helpful (even then there are times when tough love is required, I don't feel bad about pointing out when a mistake…
I think there are status plays, and there are quality plays. Which is which depends on the culture.
The motivation is completely different - one is parasitic and narcissistic, one is constructive - but they can look and feel very similar, especially to those on the receiving end.
I strongly suspect orgs tend towards a status culture unless carefully steered towards quality. I haven't worked out what the full secret is, but it may have something to do with strongly valuing and respecting skills and input outside of reviews, so specific criticisms aren't experienced as part of a consistent pattern of devaluation.
Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately
#39This is the hardest lesson I had to learn in my consulting work. It is is especially important if you are not familiar with the full context - which is almost never the case. The main insight for me was that yes, things can be "wrong" due to lack of knowledge or incompetence. Sometimes. But more often than not there is a good reason. Like: * we know this is stupid, but we had immense time pressure and this was the on…
I now use the discovery of something obviously stupid as a fairly reliable detection mechanism for either a broken system/process and/or a context cue that I am missing some larger, typically organizational, part of the picture.
I also often use my internal voice to say "shut up and listen to myself," when I want to immediately engage in a conversation or correction.
Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately
#40This has been the hardest thing for me as I become more and more … old. I want to be like "this is wrong" "do it this way" etc. For a while there before I realized I was burning bridges, I was… for lack of better phrasing actively an asshole. There's value in letting the juniors flounder a bit.
I had a conversation with my manager about this just a couple weeks ago. One of our junior developers was having trouble getting his local dev environment working with a self-signed certificate, pretty obvious problem, easy fix, and my gut wanted to just remote control his desktop and fix it.
My manager however was like "Let him figure it out on his own, it'll be good for him. If he asks questions, answer them, but let him work his way through it" - I think that's some pretty sagely advice.