Keep it Down

I've tired (for the moment anyway) of adding Part II, III, etc. to the titles. So I'm going with a whole new name.

This is a followup to last week's post, Shut Your Mouth! In the comments Niall Litchfield (love the hair!) left a link to a brilliant article, Unskilled and Unaware of It.

I know I have read that or a summary of it at some point in the last few years.

The summary of the article reads:

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and
logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error...

As Niall suggested, try to read it self-critically.

I think I know when I don't know...but I'm sure there have been plenty of occasions where I thought I knew but I really didn't. I'd also like to think that I don't do this any longer, that it was a fancy of youth, but I can't be so sure. Most recently it would have been in the consideration of building out a highly scalable system.

Anyway, have you ever worked with someone so described? If so, how did you go about dealing with it? Did you make an effort to teach or give "negative" feedback so they might learn? I'm thinking every domain (IT, Financial Services, etc) has those that fall into this category? How do you fix it? Can it be fixed?

Shut Your Mouth!

Those of you who know me, know that I have a tendency to talk a bit. I've been counseled by many (wife, friends, co-workers, etc) to keep my thoughts to myself but I still have a "problem" with it.

I've been known to send out emails late in the night to my CIO...only to do the same exact thing a couple of weeks later at the start of a holiday.

Just a little advice here, if you do decide to do something like this. Don't do it on Friday night where you have all weekend to think about whether or not you should have sent it. Especially don't do it on a Friday night if you have Monday off too.

Starting a blog helped, a little. I could scream out into the nothingness that is the 'tubes. There wasn't as much back and forth as I would like though. It's gotten better over time as more and more people read this blog, but nothing can replace that instant gratification of a healthy discussion.

And healthy are the ones I am talking about. I don't (necessarily) mean that I just talk to talk. I have opinions on just about everything software related. Architecture. Design. Style. Best Practices. Performance. I'm even worse when it comes to databases. I think I have a pretty good grasp of how to model data. I've been creating diagrams since before I became an IT guy. I understand when it is good to normalize and when it is good to denormalize.

I am very passionate about what I do. I love what I do. Every other week I get a paycheck and I'm stunned that someone pays me to do this.

You know what, if they're gonna pay me all this money, I'm not so sure they want me to keep my mouth shut.

The usual caveat: When a decision is made, with or without my input, I will keep my mouth shut about it. Either I accept the decision or I start looking for other work...that's my decision to make. But I won't be that guy who keeps arguing the point long after. At least I try not to be, I ain't perfect.

It also goes without saying that not all people are equal in a discussion. Some have strengths that others do not.

I think a good discussion can lead to better products. There is plenty to be learned through good discussion. A multitude of view points can force you to reconsider your own position; possibly strengthening it for future debate or forcing you to abandon that idea.

How could that ever be bad?

Not everyone feels the same way of course. Not everyone likes these types of discussions. Either they feel that it's not my place to disagree (i.e. I'm not qualified) or they just don't like being challenged. If my boss says stop, I stop. If a peer says stop I'll ask why.

So, do you know how to keep your mouth shut? Any good stories of how it went bad? or good? Please share...there's much to learn from the discussion.

April Fools!

Suffering from a bout of writer's block I impulsively decided to post that I had lost my job again. I figured it would be somewhat plausible given my recent past. I think it worked, a little. I realized that I did tag it "funny" but left it on there. Notably, Gary caught it.

I did email Lewis and Dom privately to tell them I was being funny. Bradd caught it himself going so far as to delete his original post.

I started to worry about jinxing myself, you know, the self-fulfilling prophecy sort of stuff? One way or another, it's out of my hands. It was funny to me at least. I think Jake chuckled a little bit but didn't want to acknowledge my small prank.

I was paid back by LC when I got home...he popped out of the bushes and scared me. Followed by another sneak attack shortly there-after.

Happy April Fool's Day!

Not Again...

Seriously...could I have a worse year?

I've been laid off again!

I'm starting to get a complex...

Mr. Justice,

Due to the economic downturn...yada yada yada