Somewhere along the way we picked up the idea that changing your position is a weakness.
You argued for the approach in the design review. You defended it. Then two weeks in you realised the other option was better, and now there is a small awful feeling in your chest.
So you keep going. You defend the thing you no longer believe in, because reversing feels like admitting you were not worth listening to.
I want to tell you that this is backwards, and that it costs people more than almost any technical mistake I have seen.
Changing your mind in public is not weakness. It is the clearest possible signal that you were reasoning honestly the whole time.
Think about who you actually trust on your team.
It is not the person who has never been wrong. That person does not exist, they just have a good memory for their own history.
It is the person who says I have been thinking about this and I think I had it wrong, here is what changed.
You trust them precisely because you know they will tell you when the ground shifts.
The engineers who never reverse are exhausting to work with. Every disagreement becomes a status contest, because their position and their worth got welded together at some point and neither can move.
Do not weld yours.
Say it plainly when it happens. I argued for the queue and now that I have seen the load numbers I think the simpler thing wins. Here is what convinced me.
Two sentences. No apology tour, no self flagellation. State the new position and the evidence, and move on.
And notice what happens to the room. Nobody thinks less of you. Someone usually says they had been wondering the same thing.
Confidence is not holding a position forever.
Confidence is being secure enough that your opinions can update without your sense of yourself coming apart.
Hold your ideas firmly and loosely at the same time.
Then say it out loud when one of them turns out to be wrong.
– Asael Shinder
Top comments (0)