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Ask HN: How to help a shy developer to participate to a team?

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Ask HN: How to help a shy developer to participate to a team?

#1

Post by darlyy »

Hello HN,

I recruited a junior developer for my company who I knew to be very shy and reserved. He has been working with us for almost a year in an open-minded and low-hierarchical company.

He is a good player, but his shyness prevents him from sharing its ideas and contributing to the company's progress like any other employee.

Do you have effective management techniques that I could use to help him?

I'll probably suggest him to make small informal technical talks within the team or even in public to show him that he has things to share. But i'm sure some people tested very good method.

Thanks for your responses \o/

Re: Ask HN: How to help a shy developer to participate to a team?

#3

Post by artemavv »

Has he shown any initiative to become more outgoing? And what would be his incentives for doing so?

It is possible that he sees his situation as perfectly fine and not in need of any correction. In that case any change in his behavior would be caused by pressure from others, and I am not sure this is a good outcome.

Re: Ask HN: How to help a shy developer to participate to a team?

#4

Post by kevla »

I think I can emphasise with him on this one. I get a tremendous amount of anxiety whenever I show anyone my work or anything that I've worked on. The key here, and I think you've got it, is starting small.

But, I mean really small. Do you do much pairing at your company? Just sitting down with him and 1:1 and getting him to show you his stuff and then slowly expanding that group with people that he feels comfortable with. That's what I did anyway - I even did my first conference talk this year.

Do not throw him in the deep end and make him the focus of something that he's not comfortable with. When in a group as well take more pauses so he has a chance to speak and invite his opinion occasionally.

Hope you can work it out, if you can you'll do him a massive favor.

Re: Ask HN: How to help a shy developer to participate to a team?

#5

Post by qp11 »

We have a voluntary reading group that meets once a week. There is a constantly growing team reading list from which volunteers pick and present 5 minute summaries at the weekly meeting. Usually just a round table conversation, but sometimes a blackboard gets used. Works quite well in building up comfort level and confidence of the more reserved types.

Re: Ask HN: How to help a shy developer to participate to a team?

#7

Post by takinola »

I would recommend being explicit about this expectation with him. Some shy people are badly calibrated and have the erroneous impression that they are speaking too much already leading to their low contribution rate. Make him aware of this issue and get his response to why it is happening and working together to address whatever the issue is.

You may also want to directly call on him in meetings to solicit his opinion thereby forcing him to speak ("Hey Bob, we haven't heard your thoughts yet, what do you think about option XYZ?"). If you do this often enough, he may see that his fears about speaking up are unfounded.

Re: Ask HN: How to help a shy developer to participate to a team?

#9

Post by darlyy »

takinola wrote: post #7

I would recommend being explicit about this expectation with him. Some shy people are badly calibrated and have the erroneous impression that they are speaking too much already leading to their low contribution rate. Make him aware of this issue and get his response to why it is happening and working together to address whatever the issue is. You may also want to directly call on him in meetings to solicit his opinio…

Thanks for the advice. BTW, i've been working with ASD people in the past and they will never communicate until you ask them something.

Re: Ask HN: How to help a shy developer to participate to a team?

#10

Post by Chandraa »

First, try to understand why he is shy and how exactly is his shyness preventing him from contributing to progress. Is he shy by design, even outside work? Or does he feel like he does not have the psychological safety to speak up? You can get a sense for this by spending some time with him 1:1 outside work and getting to know him as a person.

Second, examine your own relationship with him. Does he trust you as a manager? Is he open to your feedback? If not, you should work on building that relationship - you know how you can/should do that.

Finally, once you have that relationship and understand the root cause, give him constructive and candid feedback. If he's shy by design, you could have a constructive conversation about it - does he perceive it as a weakness? Does he realize that it might be holding him back? Make him think and align on a plan to help him overcome it. If he's not seeing psychological safety in the team, dig into how the team works and make a plan for yourself to fix that.

Then make this part of your regular 1:1s and track progress. Important that he sees that you are vested in his success and are genuinely helping him.

Needless to say, this assumes that you want him on the team and help him become a better version of himself.

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