Re:Over Concerns About Openness, OpenStack Founder Leaves Ra...
by ChuckMcM on Thursday March 24, 2011 @02:37PM
(#2365314)
This is a common story, engineer on project X does his best to convince management of X that they are making a mistake, they don't make the change, engineer leaves.
The variables in this particular tale are
* Engineer's ability to influence varies by factors {in|out} of their control.
* Management {listens | doesn't listen} and {ignores | decides} not to act on the suggestions.
* Engineer { leaves | is fired | stays and whines } about the whole affair.
Its one of the rhythms of work. Everyone gets to keep a score in their head of when they were right and when they were wrong. Its been said that if you're right 51% of the time you're ahead of the game. Personally I prefer to be right at least 61% of the time in ensure that being right isn't just a statistical fluke :-).
But listening to people's concerns, asking for them to explain their reasoning, and then acting based on reasoned debate rather than reputation, personality, or prejudice is key to getting to the best answer at a given time.
The variables in this particular tale are
* Engineer's ability to influence varies by factors {in|out} of their control.
* Management {listens | doesn't listen} and {ignores | decides} not to act on the suggestions.
* Engineer { leaves | is fired | stays and whines } about the whole affair.
Its one of the rhythms of work. Everyone gets to keep a score in their head of when they were right and when they were wrong. Its been said that if you're right 51% of the time you're ahead of the game. Personally I prefer to be right at least 61% of the time in ensure that being right isn't just a statistical fluke :-).
But listening to people's concerns, asking for them to explain their reasoning, and then acting based on reasoned debate rather than reputation, personality, or prejudice is key to getting to the best answer at a given time.