All the best engineering advice I stole from non-technical people
June 4, 2021 10:05 AM Subscribe
We all know we should challenge assumptions, but that calls on us to realize we are making an assumption in the first place, which is not as easy. More often than not the best advice, the things that stuck with me, came from people who had no background at all in software. We talk a lot about psychological safety and giving people permission to speak their mind, but there’s not a whole lot of guidance around how you do that. Being a person who is not afraid to ask the stupid questions and who lets ideas get thrown out easily without a big argument has created an environment where correcting each other and debate doesn’t feel like that big a deal. It normalizes the process and people stop keeping score because it’s clear that their boss isn’t.
The reason why people have to be told to take time off when they have unlimited vacation time, or go home early if they’re finished at 2pm, or not to answer emails after midnight is because they have innate understanding that being observed working is more valuable than the results of their work.
See also:
“I realised that the ability to communicate and get along with people, and understand what’s on other people’s minds, and do full-strength critical thinking – all of these things were valued and appreciated by everyone as important job skills, except the media.”
“What I hope is that those with the knowledge of the humanities break into the closed society where code gets written: invade it,” Ullman writes. But, she warns, be prepared for an environment of “boyish men who bristle at the idea of anyone unlike them invading their territory.”
The reason why people have to be told to take time off when they have unlimited vacation time, or go home early if they’re finished at 2pm, or not to answer emails after midnight is because they have innate understanding that being observed working is more valuable than the results of their work.
See also:
“I realised that the ability to communicate and get along with people, and understand what’s on other people’s minds, and do full-strength critical thinking – all of these things were valued and appreciated by everyone as important job skills, except the media.”
“What I hope is that those with the knowledge of the humanities break into the closed society where code gets written: invade it,” Ullman writes. But, she warns, be prepared for an environment of “boyish men who bristle at the idea of anyone unlike them invading their territory.”
The medium article (first link) has some great advice IMO-- Definitely worth spending one of my 3 views this month.
I'm personally going to remember this bit when attempting to (hurk) "manage up".
The turning point in my life was the day I realized to run great engineering teams I didn’t need to be the best engineer in the world, I needed to get good at advertising my people and their stories up the chain of command. I needed to improve their observability so that we can keep bureaucracy at bay by maintaining a high level of trust.
posted by travertina at 11:01 AM on June 4, 2021 [25 favorites]
I'm personally going to remember this bit when attempting to (hurk) "manage up".
The turning point in my life was the day I realized to run great engineering teams I didn’t need to be the best engineer in the world, I needed to get good at advertising my people and their stories up the chain of command. I needed to improve their observability so that we can keep bureaucracy at bay by maintaining a high level of trust.
posted by travertina at 11:01 AM on June 4, 2021 [25 favorites]
The BBC article has some enraging stats (basically, Humanities degrees give you a leg up financially unless you happen to a woman, woopsie sorry 'bout that pay gap ladies), but I found this bit heartening (why yes I am an engineer with a history degree):
When asked to drill the most job market-ready skills of a humanities graduate down to three, Anders doesn’t hesitate. “Creativity, curiosity and empathy,” he says. “Empathy is usually the biggest one. That doesn’t just mean feeling sorry for people with problems. It means an ability to understand the needs and wants of a diverse group of people.
posted by travertina at 11:09 AM on June 4, 2021 [19 favorites]
When asked to drill the most job market-ready skills of a humanities graduate down to three, Anders doesn’t hesitate. “Creativity, curiosity and empathy,” he says. “Empathy is usually the biggest one. That doesn’t just mean feeling sorry for people with problems. It means an ability to understand the needs and wants of a diverse group of people.
posted by travertina at 11:09 AM on June 4, 2021 [19 favorites]
Oh, that first link is good. Like it says on the tin, I found a lot of cross-applicable wisdom there. My favorite bits come from the same section:
"It isn’t always clear to professionals in other disciplines that this need to be a one person team is how engineers look for acceptance and respect."
"Often I realize that in my enthusiasm to show my casual knowledge I’m about to correct someone that who has devoted a considerable amount of time and effort into developing their expertise in the topic. I never regret keeping my mouth shut and letting them speak."
As an enthusiastic person who stakes a lot on being outwardly competent, I appreciate Bellotti's reminder that teamwork is essentially reciprocal and that value is generated within us but is only realized between us.
posted by Leeway at 11:11 AM on June 4, 2021 [17 favorites]
"It isn’t always clear to professionals in other disciplines that this need to be a one person team is how engineers look for acceptance and respect."
"Often I realize that in my enthusiasm to show my casual knowledge I’m about to correct someone that who has devoted a considerable amount of time and effort into developing their expertise in the topic. I never regret keeping my mouth shut and letting them speak."
As an enthusiastic person who stakes a lot on being outwardly competent, I appreciate Bellotti's reminder that teamwork is essentially reciprocal and that value is generated within us but is only realized between us.
posted by Leeway at 11:11 AM on June 4, 2021 [17 favorites]
Tangential connection to the importance of empathy is reminding me of a great quote from this oft-shared-by-me essay (that essay itself is about US-centric politics and culture, but there's plenty of intersections with work performance and applicability to be had):
posted by Drastic at 11:38 AM on June 4, 2021 [12 favorites]
Empathy, at its most basic level, is epistemic. It is sometimes discussed as though it is identical to love, respect or regard for others, but really it precedes that. It is what makes such love, respect or regard for others possible — what informs it. Empathy is a way of seeing, and therefore a way of knowing.It's heartening seeing that core understanding get more traction elsewhere!
posted by Drastic at 11:38 AM on June 4, 2021 [12 favorites]
When I find myself itching to interrupt someone with my thoughts about a topic I try to ask myself “what am I being asked to be an expert in here?” Often I realize that in my enthusiasm to show my casual knowledge I’m about to correct someone that who has devoted a considerable amount of time and effort into developing their expertise in the topic. I never regret keeping my mouth shut and letting them speak.Oh, gosh. I do operations/chief of staff stuff for the R&D group in our business, and spend a ton of time interacting with specialists in other functions (HR, internal comms, finance, workplace, customer success). We're a smallish company so we're not completely staffed in some areas, so I end up needing to do things that we might usually hand off to a specialist. That means a lot of time sitting with these people and trying to learn enough from them to get close to the standard they'd apply if they had the time, bandwidth, or people to just do the thing I'm trying to do.
I try to show I'm educable, and try to save them time by learning from the last thing we did together. Sometimes I can tell that the interaction has sort of tipped over, and this is a very useful idea to keep in mind ... it offers some insight into how I might be showing up to them. I still can't bottleneck on them, or expect them to handle very well the stuff I am forced to handle merely adequately, but I can smooth out the interaction by keeping this in mind.
posted by mph at 11:47 AM on June 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
Often I realize that in my enthusiasm to show my casual knowledge I’m about to correct someone that who has devoted a considerable amount of time and effort into developing their expertise in the topic. I never regret keeping my mouth shut and letting them speak.I was about to say, "This guy learned not to mansplain!"
...and then I glanced over at the author's name.
posted by clawsoon at 5:46 PM on June 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
I also liked her article on conducting interviews.
I've found there's no one true way to do interviews, only a bunch of wrong ways to be avoided, but her article is food for thought for those of us who do them.
posted by ctmf at 11:46 AM on June 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I've found there's no one true way to do interviews, only a bunch of wrong ways to be avoided, but her article is food for thought for those of us who do them.
posted by ctmf at 11:46 AM on June 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
« Older Freedom For the Man | look out for fast mimes Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Thank you!
posted by BustedCatalyzer at 10:10 AM on June 4, 2021 [4 favorites]