Hi everybody 😄
I have read many books in these days, including a book about the personal growth. The book is called "How to win Friends & Influence people", written by Dale Carnegie in 1936. Dale explains how to build positive relationships with people. Every chapter is a principle with many examples about how to approach people that we know and don't know, including friends, parents and colleagues.
I think that some of these principles are useful, in our devs world, so I'll list some for you.
Don't criticize
Don't criticize anyone, as it hurts the people's pride and creates the resentment.
Criticism does not foster better relationships or healthy communication, instead, it provokes resentment.
Resentment discourages collegues without contributing in any way to improving the situation.
Offering sincere and honest compliments
Many people want to feel important. how can you make that happen? You have to offer sincere and honest compliments.
If we see a junior collegue works on important feature and doing an excellent job, that's great! We should make compliments him on the work he's done. (and why doesn't he pay a 🍺? 😄).
Be careful the compliments must to be sincere and we shouldn't fall into flattery.
Helping the colleague
Is our colleague in difficulty? Help him. A day he'll be the one to help us.
Smile!
Smile!!! The people like those who smile! You send the message "I like you, nice to see you".
Ps. If you smile, your mood improves.
Avoiding the discussions
Nine times out of ten, a debate ends with both sides convinced they are right. How can you always win a discussion? Avoid it
Avoid telling people 'you are wrong!' and admit your own mistakes
Telling someone 'you are wrong' is like saying, 'I am smarter than you!' How can you avoid this? Simple: start your sentence with phrases like, 'I see things differently, but I could be wrong,' or 'I might be wrong, perhaps...' or 'Maybe I’m mistaken, but...' By doing this, you acknowledge that your reasoning might be flawed, allowing the other person to admit that they, too, could be mistaken.
Correct your colleague's mistakes with tact
How many times have we encountered functions written by a junior colleague that are 100 lines long? Or cases where they didn’t perform all the necessary tests? What should you do in such situations?
Well, don’t say they didn’t do a good job—that won’t help the team’s wellbeing. Instead, acknowledge their effort and mention that, at their age, you made worse mistakes (nobody is born knowing everything). This approach will point out the error while encouraging your colleague to correct it in a more constructive way.
What do you think on these tips?
I hope this post has been helpful. If you have any other advice to share, please leave a comment, it could be useful 😄!
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