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How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

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Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

#31

Post by DangitBobby »

wavemode wrote: post #6

> I often get "eye rolls" when I say this to developers: You are not going to convince anyone with facts. True in technical leadership and true in life. Engineers are especially prone to this sort of frustration, where you're technically right but socially aren't speaking the right language for your audience.

It's directionally correct but not entirely accurate IMO. It would be more accurate to say, your audience does not have the experience and context necessary to turn the facts into a decision criteria. You need to translate your "raw data facts" into "refined facts" ready for consumption by the audience. That's what a good communicator does. The original phrasing makes it almost sound like the decisions are not fact-based or emotional, which should elicit eye-rolls.

Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

#32

Post by 9rx »

Herring wrote: post #24
floydnoel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Are they insufferable otherwise? Or is it more that you find it unbearable to tolerate a different opinion? I'm so curious, about both of you. What part does he think was a hoax?

In my experience that's usually just the tip of the iceberg. You've heard the expression "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"? It's like a link broke in a chain, and usually it's many links correlated. Maybe they just distrust expertise, well I have a phd and I assure you it'll come up later. Maybe he's an immigrant from Russia and he just distrusts everything to do with the n…

> I have a phd and I assure you it'll come up later.

Will it? One would have to dig pretty deep into one's personal life to learn about that. Someone who thinks COVID was a hoax isn't going to be one to dig deep. And, well, if he really did somehow dig deep enough to find that information, you can just laugh it off as a hoax.

Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

#33

Post by tracerbulletx »

Aurornis wrote: post #10
ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #5

"I'm the lead, and we are going to do it this way": avoid it for as long as you can, but do NOT hesitate to use it when it's the appropriate answer. Take the time to listen to everyone and to form an educated decision. Explain your conclusion once, twice and even thrice. But sometimes teams can get caught in an endless futile discussion over details that don't matter for the stated goals. In that case, it's *your dut…

This is a lesson I learned the hard way. When I was a first time manager I had the naive idea that I was going to build consensus for everything and get everyone to come to an agreement naturally. It worked at first with a good team. Then later I inherited a fragment of another team with some older know-it-all engineers who thought everything modern was garbage and we should be doing everything like they did 25 years…

You can build consensus around the decision making process and build a culture where the outcome of that process is widely accepted. As long as people have the time and pathways to make their case and input, and understand there will be some verdict that may or may not align completely with their opinion. Then its just the decision makers duty to synthesize things in good faith but probably has bought themselves some leeway.

Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

#34

Post by watwut »

wavemode wrote: post #6

> I often get "eye rolls" when I say this to developers: You are not going to convince anyone with facts. True in technical leadership and true in life. Engineers are especially prone to this sort of frustration, where you're technically right but socially aren't speaking the right language for your audience.

I think it does deserve eye roll, because it is huge oversimplification on itself. The situations in which you convince people with facts are not exactly rare.

That person is getting an eye roll, because they are just repeating popular phrase that is not even particularly useful.

Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

#35

Post by Herring »

9rx wrote: post #32
Herring wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience that's usually just the tip of the iceberg. You've heard the expression "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"? It's like a link broke in a chain, and usually it's many links correlated. Maybe they just distrust expertise, well I have a phd and I assure you it'll come up later. Maybe he's an immigrant from Russia and he just distrusts everything to do with the n…

> I have a phd and I assure you it'll come up later. Will it? One would have to dig pretty deep into one's personal life to learn about that. Someone who thinks COVID was a hoax isn't going to be one to dig deep. And, well, if he really did somehow dig deep enough to find that information, you can just laugh it off as a hoax.

It's right on my linkedin, and I'm joining their team as a specialist/consultant.

Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

#36

Post by 9rx »

Herring wrote: post #35
9rx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a phd and I assure you it'll come up later. Will it? One would have to dig pretty deep into one's personal life to learn about that. Someone who thinks COVID was a hoax isn't going to be one to dig deep. And, well, if he really did somehow dig deep enough to find that information, you can just laugh it off as a hoax.

It's right on my linkedin, and I'm joining their team as a specialist/consultant.

Linkedin is editable, no? Maybe he could still find it in a cache if he digs deep enough, but I mean, really, it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to put in that much effort unless they are on a mission. Nobody casually cares.

Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

#39

Post by moffkalast »

fladrif wrote: post #38
physicsguy wrote: post #37

> When the product team requests a "simple" feature, I'm thinking about the 3 teams that need to be involved to update the necessary microservices. God I hate modern web sometimes

What's the alternative?

Macroservices, or several megaliths instead of one monolith, if you will.

Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

#40

Post by roughly »

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #5

"I'm the lead, and we are going to do it this way": avoid it for as long as you can, but do NOT hesitate to use it when it's the appropriate answer. Take the time to listen to everyone and to form an educated decision. Explain your conclusion once, twice and even thrice. But sometimes teams can get caught in an endless futile discussion over details that don't matter for the stated goals. In that case, it's *your dut…

Make sure people understand why you're making the tradeoff you're making, and also make sure they know you're taking the fire for it if you were wrong and they were right, not them.
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