What do you do when a kid beats your solution?

We were asked, "Has a software engineering interviewee ever come up with a better solution than the expected best answer?"

The question told me that the one who posed it hadn't done many interviews. As an interviewee, I did this often, though it was often met with defensiveness from the interviewer.

As an interviewer, it happens to me all the time, and I've tried awfully hard not to be defensive as I'd seen so many interviewers become.

Once on the job, too, software engineers frequently come up with better answers than their managers, teammates, or team leaders knew and expected. Or, I must admit, better than their consultants.

When this happens in any of these situations, it's important for the interviewer, manager, team leader, teammate, or consultant to accept the answer graciously, thanking the person for teaching them something new.

Even if the new idea isn't "better," if it's new, it's an opportunity to learn, so you don't want to spend your efforts trashing the idea. Just take in into your mind and offer thanks.

When I was a little boy, my father challenged me to learn something new every day before allowing myself to go to bed. Learning new things all the time is perhaps the most important behavior in my life. It's certainly the most important behavior in our profession

Generally, the most powerful learning occurs  when someone produces a better solution than you had imagined. If your ego cannot deal with “better” or even “different” solutions to problems you pose, you have no business being in a leadership position in software engineering.

Or maybe anywhere.

Read: Becoming a Technical Leader 

Some Advice on Advice

I was asked, "I'm very bad at taking my own advice but love helping people with their own personal issues. Does that make me a hypocrite?"

You seem to equate “advice” with helping people, but there are many other ways to help people without offering advice. And, of course quite frequently, even the best advice doesn't help at all.

(Note that I wrote “offering,” not “giving.” You offer, but they need not accept. Nor do you have to accept your own advice. You test it in your mind, or with small actions, and either follow or not, depending on the test’s outcome.)

If you like helping, try asking people what kind (if any) help they want from you. Perhaps they merely want a friendly listener. Or a pat on the back. Or a kick in the rear. Maybe they want you to clean their house. Or carry their heavy package. Maybe they just want a smile.

Stop worrying about labels like “hypocrite,” and start seeking ways to help people the way they want to be helped. Forget the advice business. As Ambrose Bierce says in The Devil’s Dictionary, “Advice is the smallest common coin.”

The Anti-Esteem Tool Kit

The self-esteem tool kit consists of tools you can use to build your self-esteem. For instance, the wishing stick (or wand) reminds you that it's okay to think about what you want, instead of always deferring to the desires of others. Or, the thinking cap reminds you that it's okay to come to your own conclusions about what's going on in the world.

These tools all help you to raise your self-esteem, but there's another tool kit, one that helps you remember to put aside certain tactics that simply help you to maintain low self-esteem. Here's some examples:

The Bully Club: Low self-esteem people often think they can feel better if they hurt other people. Sometimes they think the Courage Stick is a form of bully club, but that's a mistake.

The Blame Pointer: Low-self esteem people are often found pointing the finger of blame at others.

The Blindfold: This tool enables a person to go through life not seeing anything they don't want to see.

The Earplugs: By plugging their ears, people are able to avoid hearing anything that might make them uncomfortable. Some Earplugs replace all sound with distracting music. Some just totally deafen to all sounds. Both the Blindfold and the Earplugs counteract the positive effects of the Golden Key, a tool that allows you to open any inquiry you're puzzled about.

The Nose Clamp: This double-duty tool keeps their wearer from remembering to breathe with their Oxygen Mask. It also prevents the wearer from smelling the stink that everyone else is aware of in a situation.

The Stupid Pill: A single one of these pills drugs one's mind to counteract the effects of wearing a Thinking Cap which would otherwise have you thinking as clearly as possible.

The Last Aid Kit: - Use this to bandage your wounds after agreeing to requests you can’t fulfil because you did not use your Yes/No medallion.

Do any of these tools remind you of any politicians you know?

So, what other anti-esteem tools do you have in your tool kit?

For more on the Self-Esteem Tool Kit, get yourself a copy of More Secrets of Consulting: The Consultant's Tool Kit.

https://leanpub.com/moresecrets

What is the difference between a good manager and a bad manager?

Because a previous blog of mine asked about good and bad managers, the question naturally came up about what's the difference.

There are, of course, many ways to be a bad manager. Or a good manager. But if I’d been asked for a single difference (and you didn’t use the plural) I’d say that the First Law of Bad Management is this:

If what you’re doing isn’t working, do more of it, faster and louder.

For more on good vs. bad management, take a look at 

Do You Want To Be A (Better) Manager? 

Am I Boring, and What Can I Do About It?

I was asked, "Am I boring, and what can I do about it?"

The questioner explained, "Everything I have to say seems boring or unimportant. When I talk about my feelings it seems like I'm complaining or too complicated for others to understand. I don't feel like talking to anyone anymore. What should I do?"

I’ve heard this complaint many times, and much of the time, the person’s problem is not talking, but listening.

I advised him to devote some attention to what the others are saying to him and around him. Often they are trying to tell him why they seem bored, but he's not paying attention (which is a common symptom of “boring” people).

So I had him work on his listening for while and see what happened. He discovered some startling changes.

If you think you're boring people, maybe you’ll want to read

What Did You Say?: The Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback Revised Second Edition (https://leanpub.com/Feedback)

p.s. BTW, his question itself seems like he's complaining, and it may be too complicated for others to understand. As an exercise in learning to be less boring, try rewriting it so it’s not complaining and far less complicated.

Challenge 9: Organizing The Grand Tour

When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it's time to die... - Lillian Smith

One of the most important sources of ideas for change is ideas that have already worked in a similar organization. Moreover, one of the most supportive acts you can perform is to ask someone to teach someone else what they do well. When people teach other people about what they are doing, it forces them to become aware of their own processes.

The Challenge
Your challenge is to organize a tour of your work place for other change artists. Have the people in your workplace teach the change artists "what we do well that others might want to imitate."

Experiences
1. I thought this was a silly assignment—until it paid off with a savings of about $40,000 a year in our printing operation. One of the programmers on the tour had never seen an actual high-volume printer in operation. Once she understood the way things worked, she easily changed one of our major applications so that weekly printing was significantly faster.

2. We found that their performance analyzer did things that we never imagined. We felt a bit foolish using the crude tool we had concocted, but I was proud that we didn't defend it in the face of an obviously superior product (change artist training helped with that). With more than a little help from their team, we switched tools—and, as a side benefit, no longer had to maintain our homemade kludge.

3. The effect on my group was fantastic, and that really surprised me. First they grumbled about all the trouble it would be to prepare for the tour, but then they started cleaning house. It was like when my mother comes to visit—I clean the toilets and put away things that have been laying out for months. The group did the same thing with their code and their supporting documentation. I don't know if the visitors got anything out of their visit, but they sure saw a clean operation. And—this is the best thing—it stayed clean. Actually, I do think they got something out of it, because we've been asked to give four more tours to groups where someone wants to clean house.

4. Well, we didn't learn much, and they didn't learn much, except that we do things pretty much the same way. I guess that's confirming. And I learned that they're nice people. Perhaps in the future we'll be able to help each other, and that feels good even if we don't have any specific current benefits to show.

Reference

This post is part of the series, adapted from the book, Becoming a Change Artist.

Change Artist Challenge #6: Being Fully Present

It always seems to me that so few people live—they just seem to exist—and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't LIVE always... - Georgia O'Keeffe

In order to be a successful catalyst for change, you must learn the art of being fully present. To be fully present, you must:
1. Pay full attention to the speaker.
2. Put aside any preconceived ideas of what the speaker is going to say.
3. Interpret descriptively and not judgmentally.
4. Be alert for confusions and ask questions to get clarity.
5. Let the speaker know that he/she has been heard, and what has been communicated.




Here are a number of common hindrances to being fully present:

   • Ignoring: lack of attention (looking elsewhere, fidgeting), boredom, disinterest, pretending to listen

   • Selective listening: hearing only parts

   • Sidetracking: changing the subject (without proper transition); telling your own story; making light of, with inappropriate humor

   • Evaluative listening: agreeing or disagreeing before the explanation is finished

   • Probing: asking too many questions (from your frame of reference) with little sense of the person

   • Interpretative listening: explaining what's going on based on your own motives and behavior

   • Advice giving: offering solutions; focusing too much on content

The Challenge
Your challenge is to pick one habit that keeps you from being fully present, and focus on reshaping that habit in all your interactions.


Experiences
1. I decided to try going through a meeting without telling any jokes. I didn't actually make it all the way, but they seemed to appreciate my joke more, when I finally told it.

2. I didn't really know what to do, as I thought I was a good listener. I got a support person who told me that I should stop reading my mail during meetings. That really surprised me, because I thought myself so good a listener that I could read mail and listen at the same time. Besides, it kept me from interrupting. My supporter told me that even though I might be hearing everything that was said, my reading made it look like I wasn't paying attention, or at least didn't care what was being said.

3. I'd read about not giving solutions during review meetings, but I was strongly opposed to the idea. It just didn't make sense to me. But, since I had to do this assignment, I decided to try doing one review without offering any solutions. I did have two solution to offer, but the author came up with one of them a few minutes later, before I said anything about it. Actually, I guess it was pretty obvious, and if I'd said it, he probably would have thought I considered him stupid. I saved the other until after the meeting, and it was really appreciated. It seemed to be a pretty good review, actually one of the better ones I've ever attended.

4. I have to tell you that I'm known around here for being the person who can get anything out of anybody with my penetrating questions. I decided to try a new tactic. Whenever I found myself thinking of a neat question, I caught myself and asked, instead, "What else do you want to tell me?" I got just as much information as I ever get, so maybe I'm not such a great questioner as I thought. Or maybe I'm greater—I can do it with just one question!

5. I looked at whoever was speaking. Every time. I had been missing a lot, not seeing facial expressions and posture. I think I'll do it again.

Source
These challenges are adapted from my ebook, Becoming a Change Artist, which can be obtained from most of the popular ebook vendors. See my website <http://www.geraldmweinberg.com> for links to all of my books at the major vendors.