TIL Starting with Yes
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At my previous job, I had the opportunity to work with a really brilliant tech nerd. He was my boss, and he's been in the tech space for over 30+ years, and would frequently remind me of this tip.
So I was pleased to see it in 97 Things Every Developer Should Know.
The tip:
"Start from Yes"
How to start from Yes #
During a meeting, the CEO of my company went to me directly (instead of my boss), and laid out a bunch of things he wanted to see. For about 10 minutes straight, he listed feature after feature.
I immediately became defensive, and that defensiveness became anger.
Everyone in the meeting was surprised, and I was so furious. So now I had like 20 priorities?!
My boss took me aside and shared that with tip with me.
"Say yes, and..." (which is also a improv trick)
For example:
- "Yes, I can do that! Of those 20 things, which one has the highest priority?"
- "Yes, now out of those things, which of my current work would you like me to de-prioritize?"
- "Yes, I can put it on my todo list and put it at high priority - absolutely! But these two tasks seem to require a lot of work that I can't work on both at the same time."
- "Yes, I agree they're both important! In order to meet your expectations, based on my throughput, I can do X, and parts of Y by next week, only if I drop Z."
Do you see where this is going?
To wrap it up:
Starting from yes means working with your colleagues, not against them.
I highly recommend you read the post to reinforce it.
Then get a poster with that statement and never ever forget it.
VIA 97 Things Every Developer Should Know:
https://97-things-every-x-should-know.gitbooks.io/97-things-every-programmer-should-know/content/en/thing_77/
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Tagged: lead-dev