I thought the new way was to just say "You're absolutely right" to any objection and then rephrase your original proposal without really changing it.
That just makes you sound like a weasel and destroys your trust.
How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts
51–60 of 146 posts
Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts
#52What is a lead developer in this context? An engineering manager? Is it like an architect (staff engineer/whatever)? An engineer who is in charge of a specific project? There are different dynamics at play in each role and reading the guy's bio I'm getting the sense that he is a freelancer? or has a consulting company? which would have a whole different dynamic.
In the aerospace world, it's called a "systems engineer."
The lead:
1: Understands the whole system, but not necessarily every detail.
2: Plans the whole project.
Edit:
Sometimes in the software world, the title is "architect."
This is rarely the "manager," except in organizations that have a hard-on for hierarchy and artificial promotion for "career advancement." Managers are usually concerned with people, schedules, and resources; but don't go very deep into technical issues.
That being said, the lead/manager may fill in for each other when one is on vacation, sick, quits, ect.
Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts
#53I thought the new way was to just say "You're absolutely right" to any objection and then rephrase your original proposal without really changing it.
That just makes you sound like a weasel and destroys your trust.
It was a joke about how AI loves to tell you that you’re right but then it regurgitates its prior plan verbatim.
Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts
#54Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts
#55"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…
Alternatively, my preferred method: "You're the one doing the work. Tell me what your decision is."
Your job as a leader isn't necessarily to make the decision, just to be sure that the decision was made.
Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts
#56What is a lead developer in this context? An engineering manager? Is it like an architect (staff engineer/whatever)? An engineer who is in charge of a specific project? There are different dynamics at play in each role and reading the guy's bio I'm getting the sense that he is a freelancer? or has a consulting company? which would have a whole different dynamic.
The lead developer is the person assigned to the lead developer role. I know it's cheeky but it really could be anyone. It's usually at least a senior-level individual contributor (IC). It's not uncommon for it to be a manager (that hopefully used to be an IC).
The lead's authority also tends to be varied in scope. They could be the lead of the feature, project, repo, team, initiative, or org. Depending on the context, their hierarchy might not always be the same.
So really, a lead is someone that is in or uses leadership within their scope and with others in the same position. Alternatively referred to as "politics".
In this context, they're handing the politics of development issues with the goal of getting features done.
Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts
#57"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…
Alternatively, my preferred method: "You're the one doing the work. Tell me what your decision is." Your job as a leader isn't necessarily to make the decision, just to be sure that the decision was made.
Also, to ensure that the decision made is based on logic and reason. Insofar as that is even possible.
Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts
#58Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts
#59"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…
Alternatively, my preferred method: "You're the one doing the work. Tell me what your decision is." Your job as a leader isn't necessarily to make the decision, just to be sure that the decision was made.
In my opinion this advice is quite fatuous, because it skips over the actual difficult bit, which is figuring out what to do when you have a problem that can't simply be decided by the person directly responsible for the the work, either due to complexity/scale of the problem, or because that person is not capable of making the decision.
Re: How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts
#60> 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-b…
> 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.
I don't agree. Humans are fundamentally social and illogical creatures, and in many cases regardless of the experience or context they have, they will make decisions based on social factors regardless of hard logic.