Okay, this next post should be much more readable than the last to non embedded software people.
Talk in person if someone is angry, or you are angry is the idea
. This is a generic piece of advice you have probably already heard. Now that I'm at writing generic stuff, I might as well write for MSNBC articles such as "5 ways to be healthy... one, eat well, two, excercise, three get a good nights rest, etc.". But my hope is that writing my thoughts and experience trying to follow this advice will further elaborate and affirm its importance.
How I Learned: LogicPD
Going back to when I was an applications engineer at LogicPD, I was very close to the "front line" of customer support. My pal Aaron's resposibility was to qualify potential customers, and shield us from problem customers. Sometimes times customers would sign up to contract their development out to us, and I often was the guy to help them out.
When in this environment, inevitably you will have to deal with an angry customers. There are many fish in the customer sea. Some will be angry for good reasons, such as misleading or "swiss cheese" documentation. Others are just, well, crazy. I remember Aaaron saving emails that we deamed "gems". One of our favorites was one that ended "THIS IS UNEXPECTABLE@!!!!!" (I'll leave it to you to do the translation).
When this happened, I remember the first thing my leader at the time (Mr. Rempel, who would leave to start
Exosite) told us to do was to give them a call on the phone. And almost 100%, the tension that was in the email didn't come through. Things could worked out, person to person. To this day this has stuck with me, both inside and outside of work.
Why it Works
There is so much more communication that happens in person compared to email. Your tone of voice, your facial expressions, eye contact. When this is lost, each party fills in the dots. Dots can be filled in correctly or incorrectly.
More fundamentally, when you communicate over email, you are sending and receiving words from and to a peice of software. You are in your own head and not communicating with another human being in the moment. When you talk in person, you never loose site that you are talking to another human being.
Why it is Hard
Like most peices of generic advice, it is easy to listen to, agree with, and accept. But the act of looking someone in the eyes, not having the leasure of planning and brainstorming each sentence in an email, and telling your true feelings on something is hard to do. It requires improvising, not overthinking, and courage. If the person to talk to is someone who you are intimidated by (I've found this inside and outside of work), getting everything out that you are thinking is very hard. This is the core issue with fear/intimidation management styles.
Beyond the difficulty of actually doing it, simply changing habbits and behavior is very challenging too. It took a couple "lessons learned" for me before doing this sunk in and stuck.
Why Conflict is Unavoidable
You will never work in a workplace without passionate people. You will never work somewhere where everyone has the exact same personality. Even if you are king at avoiding conflict, things will arise at some point in your career. This is fundamental to being a human being, and working with human beings.
More Tips
- Write down bullet points in your notebook of the key things you want to convey and follow it during the discussion. Keeping focus when talking in person can be challenging, and could require persistence and steering.
- Read and learn about NVC and NVC in the Workplace.
- In case you forget or realize your built-in habbits aren't changing because of this blog post, get a reminder tatoo backwards on your forehead. Sometimes that daily note when you look in the mirror is just what is needed. :)
That's it for this week. I can't decide whether I want to write about
dealing with imperfection or
the top 6 people I owe my career to next
. Stay tuned!