Expression
- 1 minOpinions can be expressed in many ways. Some are expressed in a constructive way, others in a destructive way.
Destructive can mean that they leave the receiver with little to no room for response. It can also mean that they deliver no real value to the conversation. When trying to foster a culture where learning and exploration is encouraged, inflammatory statements never help. They actually do the opposite.
A classic example is when you have a teacher saying to a young student that she should not pursue art or music because there’s no jobs in that direction. This is a devastating statement and is probably very wrong. In our industry the equivalent statements go along the lines of “I hate X language”, “Y tool sucks” and so on. These offer zero value and are counter-productive to the aforementioned culture.
Many beginners in our industry start with Javascript. What message am I sending to these people when they come for advice and I respond with “Oh man…Javascript sucks”. I might be right but my approach and the way I’m saying it is wrong for a couple of reasons. First of all I can only make such a statement based on experience, something that a beginner doesn’t have. Secondly, even if the person is somewhat experienced, they still are entitled to satisfying their curiosity. Whether the tool is bad or not, they will figure it out.
I try every day to be conscious of the above. Whenever I catch myself saying these kind of statements, I will apologize and rephrase what I said. A better approach is to say “This might not be the most optimal solution” and proceed with explaining why that might be the case. If you are trying add value to the conversation, making statements without actually providing a reasoning for them doesn’t help.
Encourage exploration and learning by being mindful of the other person’s goals.
Personal blog of Makis Otman