Excel by giving everyone else the perception of power
By: Chris Hornberger
Tags: Life Hacking, Software Development, It

I’ve been in I.T. for a little over 30 years. Before that I was building race cars and earning my daily bread turning a wrench. At the heart of things, I’m a diagnostician and a fixer of broken things. People look at me funny when I say my auto mechanic roots were a good footing for ending up as a software developer.

It’s all just logic trees and analytical, diagnostic thinking. In those, if you’ll allow me a moment to sound perhaps a little braggy — I excel. Take your strengths and turn them into earning potential and all that. Plus… making software from a text editor and a few commands is pretty freaking cool. “Your iPhone is pretty magical, huh? Well, I make the magic that makes the magic.”

Anyway, I’ve developed this idea and axiom (among several) by which I try to live during all my various and sundry interactions with people.

Give people exactly what they ask for. (within all reason and legality and ability and in-situ context, etc. No, I can’t give you the Brooklyn Bridge, but I can drive you there, and probably help set up an appointment with the office of land management if you want to buy it…) ;)

And here’s where giving them the power comes in; often times when you need me to do a thing for you, I’ll need something from you to make that happen. Usually the more specific and detailed your request, the more information, resources, subject matter expertise, etc., I am likely to need from you.

I go off and think about the problem, and I break it down into reasonable chunks.

That thing you wanted me to do really comprises these 16 steps. For steps 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14, and depending on how 15 goes, 16, I need the following list of things. So give me what I need for task #1, I’ll go off and do that, then we’ll reconvene, review, and I can get you more detail for what I need for #2, if it doesn’t make itself known by then.

Pretty simple. Like the early days of Agile.

I involve you, I do my part, I engage you when you need to give me something, and 9 times out of 10, that provides me a moment to take a breath, gather my thoughts, clean up my mess from the previous tasks, review what’s next, tune and tweak, or just go sit at a cafe for two days watching people and their dogs while I wait for you to get me what I need, because we’re all busy.

I will always do my very best to give you what you need, but what I won’t do, what I can not and will not ever do again in my career, is assume or just make shit up, or just use placeholder crap, and try to bang out the entire job and “just go back and patch this up later” on the placeholder stuff.

Nope. That’s not a thing.

I’ve been doing this a long time, and that never works as smoothly and is never as efficient as you think it might go.

I’ll give you everything you ask for to my level best. And I’ll give you all the power to control a huge part of the process because I promise you, I don’t have everything I need, and if it makes sense to stop and wait for whatever resources help me finish my tasks according to your needs, then that’s what I’ll do.

It’s why I don’t have ulcers and an exploding heart from stress, and I can sleep at night, and I still have a pretty damned good rep in the biz. “Yeah, he gave me exactly what I needed at a fair price.”

Plus… if what you want sucks, and I tried to talk to you about it, and I deliver exactly what you want, and we’ve had all these reviews and chances to change things, it’s really just not my fault. We talked about this. I gave you all the power control how this went.

I’m just over here turning your wrench.

It sounds cold and calculating and maybe a little manipulative, but I see it as self defensive, while also… again… giving you exactly what you ask for. It’s been a big part of my career management, and in many cases, personal life management as well.

I’m here to help you. You have all the power… but I’m going to need a few things first. I’m gonna go snag a coffee and catch up on emails while you get that for me. Thanks!