
Strong Opinions Loosely Held Might Be the Worst Idea in Tech - tim_sw
https://blog.glowforge.com/strong-opinions-loosely-held-might-be-the-worst-idea-in-tech/
======
groby_b
It's depressing the term has become that. "Strong opinion" _used_ to mean
"I've looked at the arguments and the counterarguments closely, and I've
developed the arguments to the point where I'm convinced this is the right
answer".

Not "I shout the loudest about it".

And "weakly held" meant "I am willing to believe there's data out there
showing I'm wrong, and I will look at any new data with an open mind". Not
"I'll flip if somebody shouts louder".

And sure, on the face of it, the proposed solution here addresses that, but...
we don't know "how sure" we are of something. It's a made up number. And I'm
willing to take bets that the same people who do the loud shouting will be the
ones who just declare every certainty 100%. (The smarter ones will pick 98%).

The key to making this work is openness to new data.

If you want a rhetorical trick to facilitate debate, I prefer the old "Tell me
what I'm missing" \- it presupposes you don't have all the data, nudging you
to be open to counterpoints and validating people who might want to offer
counterpoints.

~~~
twiceaday
This is what happens when society views itself through a prism of most popular
(i.e. social media). Certain topics and ways of communicating are more viral
so they "win." Signaling allegiance and conviction without accompanying
reasoning is easy to do, easy to digest, and contributes to the ongoing
popularity of the desired message. It is a great strategy and is effective to
the point of being required. If your opponents do it and you don't you will
lose. The real problem is people thinking (and being lead to think) that the
social media discourse corresponds to reality.

------
vikramkr
I've learned the hard way that you always need to be cognizant of other
people's defaults in conversation. Willingness to have a vigorous debate is
never the assumed default, so even if you are receptive to criticism, other
people wont give it. The concept of the percent certainty is intriguing to me,
since thinking back on it, it makes a lot of sense that posturing with
certainty ("strong opinion") actually likely sends the signal that I am not
receptive to criticism- otherwise I would have the self awareness to include
in my original statement of opinion that I might be wrong by putting that
acknowledgement of uncertainty in. Perhaps even that isn't enough? What I do
now is explicitly say "I want your criticism on this" or "your job is to push
back" or something since explicitly laying out the expected culture seems to
help. Would people naturally interpret the statement of uncertainty as an
invitation to disagree or is even that assumption based on a set of social
norms around where the author lives? Wouldn't people just get attached to the
number for percent certainty and feel insecure challenging that? I wonder if
it's simply not explicit enough to set the lind of culture you would want.

~~~
BeetleB
>What I do now is explicitly say "I want your criticism on this" or "your job
is to push back" or something since explicitly laying out the expected culture
seems to help.

Not as much as you'd like. For many, "your job to push back" is saying "Your
job is to argue." Many people want to discuss, not argue. Regarding "I want
your criticism":

I took a communications workshop, and we discussed this. Make a
statement/claim, then follow it up with "Let me know if I got anything wrong."
Half the class thought it was a good idea, and the other half said it wasn't
(and likely wouldn't engage). The reason was that too many of them had seen
the tactic used by insincere, argumentative people, and the very phrasing
comes off as adverserial to many (like "show me how I'm wrong!").

The other half of the class was completely surprised by this ("When I say it,
I'm sincere!").

The phrase that didn't trigger any problems is "This is how I see it. What do
you think?" or "This is how I see it. What is your perspective on it?" or even
better "This is how I see it. I'd like to hear your perspective."

~~~
ssivark
Your communications workshop experience jives well with my observations. Over
the last decade or so, I've evolved my expression style to a much more
discussion oriented tone (de-escalating the situation) rather than a debate
oriented one (trying to prove yourself right, often escalating tensions). If a
subject is worth talking about with someone, I hold a frame of mind that they
might have something new to say which will augment my understanding of the
situation. IME, that makes people much more open to communicate -- they listen
to you with an open mind, consider what you're saying, and respond with their
perspective. I much prefer this mode of operation, because my perspective had
diversified significantly from the things I've learned and I consider it as
bringing out the best in the people I communicate with. Conversations are now
a collaborative discovery process.

"Strong opinions, weakly held" (in it's best spirit) is often a crutch for
people who feel paralyzed by ambiguity. This mindset lets them sweep
uncertainty under the rug and continue operating ("bias for action") till
feedback requires them to change their mind. The problem with that assumption
is that the willingness of people around them to express feedback is inversely
proportional to the confidence they express.

On the topic of being comfortable with ambiguity, I feel Feynman puts it best:
[https://youtu.be/_MmpUWEW6Is](https://youtu.be/_MmpUWEW6Is)

~~~
tempguy9999
> Over the last decade or so, I've evolved my expression style to a much more
> discussion oriented tone (de-escalating the situation) rather than a debate
> oriented one (trying to prove yourself right, often escalating tensions).

I've been heading this way over time, and as you clearly have experience that
it works I'll make an effort to try harder. Nothing like learning from other
people's wisdom - thanks!

------
skywhopper
I agree that the behavior described in this article is toxic. But I'm
surprised the author attributes it to this saying. Maybe I've just missed the
aphorism being used as an excuse for bullying. That seems to hang entirely on
the word "strong" and miss the other half of the saying entirely, but
whatever. If it's being used in a toxic way, then sure, let's stop saying it.

But there's a valuable philosophy locked up in the meaning I've always
attributed to this saying. Namely, that many--maybe most--architectural
decisions in tech don't actually have a correct answer. And so it's more
important to pick an approach and stick to it, unless and until there's some
compelling reason to change strategy. BUT, when that reason does appear,
follow it, and change your mind.

~~~
sonnyblarney
There's nothing necessarily toxic about being unequivocal. In some situations,
people have experience and know better.

It's toxic to be unequivocal in situations that are inherently ambiguous and
require input.

Also, there's something powerful about orienting towards action; often, what
matters is less architecture but simply moving forward at a reasonable pace. A
mediocre decision is usually better than no decision.

~~~
BeetleB
>It's toxic to be unequivocal in situations that are inherently ambiguous and
require input.

The catch is that people will not agree with what is ambiguous and what isn't.
Don't assume that something that seems unambiguous is.

The other thing not mentioned in the article: The likelihood of
misunderstandings and miscommunications. The issue could be as black and white
as "This functions gives the wrong answer with this input." It's simple,
right? We both agree on the answer it should give. Just run the function and
see. How much more unambiguous can you get?

What I've found is that a significant percentage of these discussions aren't
about what I think they are. Yes, I can insist that the function gives the
wrong value. And no, that's _not_ what the other person is even discussing,
and neither of us has realized that we're both talking about different things.
Stating it unequivocally is a barrier to the discovery process for realizing
we're not on the same page.

Some people are good at verbal debate. But many don't revel in it, and it's
always a pain point for them. They don't want to work with a constant debater.
I know in a lot of tech culture, we set the expectation on _them_ to speak up,
but that culture is working against human nature - and often results in losing
talent that doesn't fit in.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"Don't assume that something that seems unambiguous is."

Don't make assumptions about what we assume :).

There are innumerable situations wherein there is legitimate experience and
authority for people to make fairly clear and unambiguous decisions.

It's patently wrong to suggest that unequivocal positions are inherently
toxic.

~~~
BeetleB
>It's patently wrong to suggest that unequivocal positions are inherently
toxic.

I'm reading your comment and kinda wondering what it has to do with my comment
that you're replying to. I never suggested such a thing.

>There are innumerable situations wherein there is legitimate experience and
authority for people to make fairly clear and unambiguous decisions.

I'm not disputing that. The context of my comment is the discussion around it.
My question is: If that is the case, does there need to be any discussion
around it at all? Just make the decision. It kind of gets to the point of the
article. If it's unambiguous and you're sure about the decision, you can
present it that way and close any room for disagreement. If you actually
_want_ people to express disagreement, then it means you are willing to
consider your analysis of ambiguity would be wrong.

My counter would be:

There are innumerable situations where people's belief that the situation
allows for clear and unambiguous decisions is wrong.

I'm not saying your scenarios don't exist. I'm arguing about Type I vs Type II
errors.

------
tepidandroid
The way I see it, there are two choices:

Choice #1 is debating with engineers who have strong but loosely held
opinions. This path is the way of 'moving fast and breaking things'.

Choice #2 is debating with engineers who have mild convictions at best. This
is the path of endless bike-shedding and yak-shaving.

Option 1 implies that people aren't afraid to take leadership of an idea and
accept responsibility for its consequences if things go wrong, which is
conducive to iterative development and innovation. It implies that the person
making the strong case for a decision has done thorough research on the matter
and has good reason to be confident in their approach.

Option 2 is more of an ego-preservation mechanism where people hedge their
opinions to protect themselves from criticism if things go wrong. You don't
know how they really feel about the matter because everyone is walking on
eggshells in order to preserve one another's egos. People don't want to say
anything with conviction and most of the time would rather say nothing at all.

Anyone who has ever tried to elicit candid feedback from option 2's engineers
will know what I mean.

~~~
BeetleB
Your comment is a classic example of a "strong opinion", and I thought quite a
bit about whether I should bother to engage. And this is precisely what people
will do when you state something they don't agree with: "Is it worth my time
to engage with you?"

>Option 1 implies that people aren't afraid to take leadership of an idea and
accept responsibility for its consequences if things go wrong, which is
conducive to iterative development and innovation. It implies that the person
making the strong case for a decision has done thorough research on the matter
and has good reason to be confident in their approach.

Yet I've come across too many people who have identical behavior to Choice #1,
and have not done enough due diligence in their research, and whose reasons
are strongly biased towards their own comfort.

>Option 2 is more of an ego-preservation mechanism where people hedge their
opinions to protect themselves from criticism if things go wrong. You don't
know how they really feel about the matter because everyone is walking on
eggshells in order to preserve one another's egos. People don't want to say
anything with conviction and most of the time would rather say nothing at all.

Yet I've come across too many people who have identical behavior to Choice #2
who don't have any egos at stake - they just do not speak in a confidence
signaling manner. Their tone is no reflection of the accuracy of what they
say.

>Anyone who has ever tried to elicit candid feedback from option 2's engineers
will know what I mean.

I have, and have often succeeded.

Anyone who has tried and failed with option 2 is strongly encouraged to study
the art of communication. I assure you: The failure is not on the part of the
people who exhibit this behavior.

Your description of the situation is incomplete, and is missing quite a few
other Choices. Amusingly enough, in the book Crucial Conversations, they start
off early with people who have the same view as you on Option 2. They call it
The Fool's Choice: "Either I state what I think and damage the relationship,
or I preserve the relationship at the cost of not getting what I want." They
discuss it early in the book because people will simply not become better
communicators while they believe in the Fool's Choice.

After reading 2-3 different books on communications, you'll generally see
communication problems in the wild as, frankly, textbook examples of bad
communications. Almost all scenarios are in one of these books.

~~~
tepidandroid
> Your comment is a classic example of a "strong opinion"

What can I say, I practice what I preach ;)

I'd like to point out that your comment has many characteristics of a "strong
opinion" as well, which I appreciate. For example, strong statements "i.e - I
assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this
behavior" and research based evidence. It will be of use to me in formulating
a judgement on my own strongly expressed opinion. If you had instead said
something like "The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this
behavior... but this is based solely on my own personal experience and might
not apply here", it would have been a much less convincing argument leading to
dead-locking opinions at best.

With respect to your point about The Fool's Choice, I would think that in an
ideal world, stating what one thinks about a technical matter should not be
damaging to a relationship at all (unless truly fragile egos are involved).
One should be free to state strong opinions in the best interest of the
organization, but not be afraid to back down in the face of contradicting
evidence. It should also not be about 'getting what _I_ want', but 'getting
what's best for the organization'.

~~~
BeetleB
>I'd like to point out that your comment has many characteristics of a "strong
opinion" as well, which I appreciate. For example, strong statements "i.e - I
assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this
behavior" and research based evidence. It will be of use to me in formulating
a judgement on my own strongly expressed opinion.

Well, I come from an academic background, which is rife with debate. The style
you prefer is natural to me.

And yet, despite that, I had to think and see whether it is worth the effort
to engage with you. If someone who enjoys debate has that thought, then people
who do not enjoy debates are even less likely to engage with you. That's the
point I'm trying to get across.

For me, debate has a low cognitive load. For most humans, that's likely not
true. Yet for most people, simple _discussions_ have low cognitive load. So in
general you'll get more out of people if things are not framed as a debate.
Putting the onus on the other party to counter is framing at as a debate and
is working against human nature.

I also want to touch on:

>but this is based solely on my own personal experience and might not apply
here", it would have been a much less convincing argument leading to dead-
locking opinions at best.

It need not lead to deadlock. You're allowed to disagree with people. You're
allowed to say "This sounds like your world view, which doesn't match mine. Do
you have any resources to support your view?" (Also, bearing in mind whether
you have any to support your own). And at the end, "It seems this is a matter
of opinion, and at the moment I am going with X. Thanks for your input."

(Not saying it's easy to talk like that if not used to, even I don't do it all
the time - or even 50% of the time - but people do learn it and become good at
it).

And even worse than a deadlock is people simply electing not to give you their
opinion, an option I almost took.

One last tangential point. People in the HN crowd tend to have very strong
analytical skills. One thing I've learned to be mindful of is if someone
doesn't have good arguments for their position _it does not mean they are
wrong_. Lack of good arguments from a person is a very poor signal of whether
they are correct! I learned the hard way when on a number of occasions, I
turned out to be wrong, and yet someone had told me the correct thing - they
just were not good at articulating their reasons. I've realized that, time
permitting, it is _my_ responsibility to explore _their_ suggestions. I cannot
hide behind "Yes, he didn't explain it well."

>With respect to your point about The Fool's Choice, I would think that in an
ideal world, stating what one thinks about a technical matter should not be
damaging to a relationship at all (unless truly fragile egos are involved).

That is what the Fool's Choice says: One should believe they can state their
perspective without hurting relationships. The problem often arises in the
purpose or intent. Is your goal to state your perspective, or to get feedback
on it? What you've described is the former. Is your goal to tell people, or to
have a discussion? For a lot of people, unless it is clearly phrased as the
latter, they will assume the former, even if it wasn't your intent.

We don't live in an ideal world.

(Off topic, but I had a manager who often said "In an ideal world, we
would...". At some point I cut him off and said "In an ideal world, I wouldn't
need to work". Ideality has its degrees.)

~~~
tepidandroid
This is good food for thought, thanks for the discussion.

------
rjkennedy98
This title is a prime example of what he denigrates in his essay. He should
change it to: "I am 75% sure Strong Opinions Loosely Held Might Be the Worst
Idea in Tech"

~~~
dwaltrip
It's pure clickbait. "Worst X in Y" is one of the prototypical clickbait
phrases.

~~~
Tade0
Complete with a "click to tweet quote" to spoon-feed you the exact phrase that
you should be sharing on social media.

------
yanowitz
Among my favorite non-engineering books to help engineers is Annie Duke’s
Thinking in Bets (referenced in the article). It approaches probabilistic
thinking systematically (some of the book reflects my own trial-and-error
learnings but with far more rigor). It also cites a lot of literature on
decision making if you feel like doing a depth first search.

For example: One new tool for me: the _pre_ -mortem. Given a major deliverable
or initiative, pretend it’s, say, 90 days from now, and the project is a
flaming crater. Go around the room with everyone throwing out ideas of what
“went” wrong. Then assign probabilities to the various issues and discuss
possible motivations. It’s difficult to overstate how valuable this tool is.
It also gamifies what can be considered negative thinking or nay-saying.

Or, get 60% of the benefit by listening to this interview with her:
[https://overcast.fm/+Ei1D2qbQQ](https://overcast.fm/+Ei1D2qbQQ)

If that doesn’t grab you within 15 minutes, bail. But if this topic is
interesting to you, I suspect you’ll easily devour the whole thing.

(Edited to add pre-mortem)

------
mistermann
I suspect "strong opinions, loosely held" used to be very common in hacker
culture (although personally I've never actually heard the phrase used before
this other than Jeff Atwood: [https://blog.codinghorror.com/strong-opinions-
weakly-held/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/strong-opinions-weakly-held/)),
but as time marched on and the makeup of people working in technology (and
people on the internet in general) changed, the younger generations
increasingly only saw the "strong opinions" part, and now that's mostly all we
have left.

My perception is that open-mindedness and nuance in discussions have been
steadily decreasing, replaced with hyper-confidence and binary thinking, and
the rate of that decrease is accelerating. I wonder if anyone other than me
has noticed this change in the nature of forum discussions (here and
elsewhere?

> Even if someone does have the courage to push back, in practice the original
> speaker isn’t likely to be holding their opinion as loosely as they think.

"isn't likely" is a massive understatement in my personal experience, not only
when the topic of discussion is technology, but even more so when the topic is
politics.

> So, what about the situation where someone else goes first and makes an
> absolute statement? There is a simple ninja move! Just say “It sounds like
> you are 100% sure of that, is that right?” If the answer is yes, you can ask
> them to explain why they are certain and see if they have any data to back
> it up....

This does seem like quite the ninja move, I like it.

> ...If not, you’ll have prompted them to assess their actual level of
> conviction, sharpen their thinking, and open up the conversation. It is a
> simple, kind way of helping them develop a style of thinking and
> communication that will improve your organization.

I am very curious if this ninja move will indeed be received/interpreted in
the real world as a "simple, kind way of helping them develop a style of
thinking and communication that will improve your organization." I predict
(80% certainty) that kind of reception will be quite rare (<50%).

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
A while back I was reading a memoir by someone who consulted for DEC in the
70s and 80s, and he was astounded that engineering meetings were sometimes
full of people shouting at each other. Apparently this was considered a normal
way to find consensus. So - things may not have changed as much as you say.
(See also Usenet in the 90s.)

What has changed is YouTube culture, which seems to have a scary number of
people SHOUTING and EMOTING in VERY EXTROVERT WAYS DIRECT TO CAMERA with
plenty of FAST CUTS and ASIDES, even when making videos about technical
content.

Sometimes it's entertaining, but just as often it's tiresome and distracting.
I wouldn't object if it was toned down.

~~~
mistermann
> and he was astounded that engineering meetings were sometimes full of people
> shouting at each other.

I'd bet (there's no way of really knowing obviously) that back then, that
worked perfectly fine because those people for the most part actually held
their opinions loosely. Oh, they wouldn't give them up without a fight, but
what was Correct trumped personal opinion. I don't think there's very much
left of this in modern culture, even among those who _think_ they behave this
way, at least on certain topics. Distinguishing between reality and one's
_perception_ of reality does not come naturally.

------
anoncake
Thread from yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878830](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878830)

------
crehn
Isn’t the proposed “solution” obvious? Isn’t it just normal, decent human
behavior in social situations with potentially conflicting views? Does anyone
actually speak in absolutes similar to the ones in the article?

~~~
dictum
Many thought leaders on social media do.

They also write like this.

Short sentences, free of uncertainty.

They give direct orders, separated by 3 newline characters.

Beginners are surprised.

If you don't do the same, you cannot count yourself among the best.

 _(This is satire, but if you 're online enough to discover this group, you'll
recognize them.)_

~~~
Tade0
You mean like this?

[https://overreacted.io/name-it-and-they-will-
come/](https://overreacted.io/name-it-and-they-will-come/)

------
coffeefirst
I’ve always taken this phrase to be a contradiction. If you’re always certain
but frequently changing your mind, shouldn’t it lead you to, gradually,
understand that you need to reserve a shred of doubt?

~~~
azhu
I'm also sometimes confused by how people don't get this. Anybody honest with
themselves should realize their phenomenal fallibility. Life necessarily
involves drawing conclusions from incomplete data. I can't see how it's
reasonable to not be intellectually humble in the face of that fact.

------
azhu
The situation described in the article is at least partially caused by people
acting without understanding their motivations, or how to concert them.

It can be drilled many layers into, or it can simply stated as having this
work on your team requires everyone meet a certain level of maturity.

If every team member understands the axiom that the singular reason for
anyone's participation in the discussion of the idea/topic is strengthening
the idea/collective understanding of the topic and can maintain that as their
primary motivator when deciding how to act then you will find that what was
interpreted as toxicity before is then interpreted as passion, and that the
toxicity previously motivated by fear of looking bad is now reasoned into
nonexistence because engaging in reasonable discussion via admitting to a
blindspot is in service of the ultimate goal.

You need some combination of things that get you the end result of everyone
cognitively keeping their emotional reactions at bay if you want this style of
thing to work on your team.

edit: also, IMO the whole adding a percentage certainty qualifier to your
statements misses the point, bless its heart. The reason discussion gets
better results is because you get more data. Slapping a percentage estimator
to your certainty implies that you know about how much data you already have
(true) and that you know how much data is all the data (false). No one knows
that. This is another axiom that's very helpful in diverting the emotional
shrapnel that this style of debate can otherwise toss out because it allows
everyone to be comfortably humble. Comfortably so because they will not be
humbled by another person, but rather by the undeniable infinity of the
universe, which some might call God.

------
asveikau
I have been in a number of workplace situations where I try to accurately
convey uncertainty of outcomes and people latch onto that part, and not the
~95% accurate core message I am really saying.

Then they go to ask an overconfident jerk who is maybe 10-20% correct, but
expresses it as 100% certain.

Then I get the reputation for being the one who never knows what he is talking
about, and the next time something comes up they won't even ask me, they will
go straight to the overconfident one who consistently gives bad advice with no
room for doubt.

So I guess the short way of saying it: I think it's great to communicate when
you are not sure, but you need buy-in from everyone that this is what
everybody does. You can't have people that assume uncertainty is weakness, or
expect that the world is more certain than it is. And it can get troublesome
when you have a mix of different levels of honesty and humility. People get
shafted for being honest.

~~~
oehpr
When I was a just getting out of being a teen (17-19 ish?), I started a
challenge (ideology? creed?) for myself. It was to "never be wrong". To do
this I would have to be realistic of my certainties, be brutally honest with
myself about what I thought I knew, how I knew it, and the likelyhoods of
each. I had hoped I'd build up over time, a blurrier, but more accurate view
of the world.

I learned this lesson myself, people interpret uncertainty as simply "not
knowing", if you "not know" enough you're considered not knowledgeable. I had
thought stating my certainty would mean when I was very certain, people would
take that information seriously. It was the exact opposite. Simply being
uncertain means you arn't reliable and can't be trusted.

I've mostly abandoned this way of thinking now. I don't even think like that
internally any more either. It was not a useful challenge/ideology/creed for
me. I take comfort that I'm at least no worse than anyone else.

~~~
asveikau
"Never to be wrong" sounds like a big source of anxiety. I think for me it was
always to admit that my mind isn't perfect, that it's always possible that the
model built from assemblage of facts could be faulty. And a polite deference
to opposing ideas.

Some people in corporate politics will walk all over you for allowing such
things. But I would call it not being a jerk.

~~~
oehpr
I don't suffer much from that kind of anxiety. I found the challenge pretty
compelling actually. Built in was the recognition "You're certain of this, but
why? Is your tower built on shaky foundations? Check it again, because if
you're wrong you'll fail the challenge". Does that seem like anxiety? It
didn't feel that way to me, because I could always just pair back my certainty
in such cases.

Again, I enjoyed the challenge, I just didn't enjoy the effect it had on me
socially, or in my career. I'd rather have friends who believe I'm smart and
competent on a good career path than always be right.

------
tomcatfish
Makes me think of this essay [1] by the CIA comparing different common speech
words to their probability. Some people might say "absolutely" and mean 95%,
and 95% to them really only mans 80%. It is just important to explain why you
think what you do, but also to not penalize people for a wrong estimate or
they will stop trying at all. Otherwise, you will just get a stratified upper
staff layer that has too much power to be removed that is "100% sure" about
everything because it is better to be a yes-man than to be uncertain.

[1]: [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/sherman-kent-and-the-board-
of-national-estimates-collected-essays/6words.html#top)

------
Lowkeyloki
I don't know if the solution proposed here is the answer, although I use it
every day of my life. In fact, I've started to resent having to use it as it
should be the understood default. But then I'm not prone to puffery.

I can say that "strong opinions loosely held" is basically an oxymoron and
never works in practice, assuming it actually means anything in the first
place. The few places I've seen proudly proclaim this motto have been the most
toxic, poorly managed businesses I've seen. That phrase has, to me, come to
represent a big, giant glowing neon warning sign to stay far, far away.

------
skybrian
The problem described here is basically exaggeration, and it's not limited to
tech, it's become a very common cliche on Twitter to exaggerate for effect. It
has also taken over many topics on Hacker News. (You might as well skip most
discussion of privacy issues, for example.)

I wonder what it would take to start a community where we downvote
exaggeration, much like we do jokes on Hacker News?

------
mabbo
> What really happens? The loudest, most bombastic engineer states their case
> with certainty, and that shuts down discussion.

Oh neat, he's talking about me.

I'm terrible for this. I know it. I struggle with it. And I hope that over
time I improve, get better at it. Because I've met people like me, ones who
don't know it's a problem, and they're very difficult to work with.

~~~
scruple
I believe that I used to be guilty of this, as well. Maybe I still am, but I
haven't gotten much feedback on it in a long while (and I try to elicit
feedback on these things _very_ frequently -- weekly).

What I've done is to take a step back and try to channel communications into
asynchronous channels. I find it very challenging, if not outright impossible
(again, this may just be me and my personality talking) to try to explain my
thoughts and opinions in real-time in a room, or worse a video conference,
where you're forced to make all manner of assumptions about other peoples
understandings of what you are saying. When it goes async, you can lay out the
foundation and point towards specific points in the sort of nuanced and
context-rich environment that technical conversations demand.

On the team that I lead, this looks like Slack, email, Confluence, and Jira.
Decisions are distilled down from all of these sources and worked on in shared
documents, maintained in a decisions log that people can be pointed towards to
get a better understanding of the projects. This documentation is very useful
for rooting out incorrect assumptions, inaccuracies, confusion, etc..., in the
topics that we talk about. It takes a lot of work, of course, but I think the
outcome is better. This team has much more cohesion and a higher degree of
collaboration (as in boosting each other up vs. simple cooperation) than the
other teams I've been part of.

------
InTheArena
I think there is a really interesting subtext is that the certainty attitude
also has severe communications challenges with people who are not self-
confident and loud engineers (Usually minorities and introverts get shut down
in this process).

~~~
InTheArena
Ironically, one reason I think this gets adopted not because in in-team
dynamics, but rather managing upwards dynamics. Speaking without qualification
and with certainty is often the only way to survive in management structures.

------
resters
People who do that kind of thing are just intellectually lazy and most likely
prefer an environment where game playing and politics is more important than
clear thinking and rationality.

Life is too short to work with stupid, intellectually lazy people.

------
bartimus
Then ever so often the opinions are about decisions that came into existence
for the sake of making a decision. Solving problems that never existed.

------
betenoire
Having a strong opinion is not the same as being a dismissive asshole.

Be informed and educated, trust your judgement, and be willing to change and
adapt as needed.

------
jhatemyjob
This describes my manager pretty well. The solution described in this article
did not work for me. I am going to quit in about a month.

------
threatofrain
Strong opinions loosely held is for leadership, but possibly not for polishing
theory with colleagues on distributed computation.

------
ianamartin
Strong Opinions Loosely Held goes right along with Move Fast and Break Things.
The bottom line is that if your team can afford to have either one of these
attitudes, you aren't doing anything important. Your strong opinion doesn't
matter, and you should stop having strong opinions about things you can't
explain. It's obnoxious.

------
kache_
"Stroll through an engineering office and you are likely to hear the (mostly
white, mostly male) denizens making statements"

Wait, what? Why would the author go so far to generalize something like that
based on sex and race?

~~~
culturestate
It’s not really a stretch to suggest that your average engineering office is
mostly white and mostly male.

Unnecessary, perhaps, but not inaccurate.

------
dwighttk
Tldr: Explicit uncertainty is the solution

