What Makes Me Unhappy as a Developer?
By: Dhananjay Trivedi
Tags: Leadership, Programming, Teamwork, Software Development, Startup

Part 2. How to Improve the Way We Interact With People

There are two very popular books that teach us very well about this area. I will be covering them in brief so that you don’t have to go and read the books, but you are always welcome to do so.

Book 1. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

In Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, the author Robert B. Cialdini has laid out six weapons of influence. You can use these properties to your advantage, but use them with positive intent.

1. Reciprocity — If you do a small favour for someone which they didn’t even ask for, it sort of makes them accountable to reciprocate back with a favour in return, which can be a much bigger one.

2. Consistency — People have a tendency to remain consistent with their promises and actions, which you can now use to influence them.

3. Social proof — At the time of uncertainty, people always feel more comfortable in a group.

4. Authority — There are certain people who can easily influence us by their title or if they are seen as experts.

5. Liking — When there is liking, trust also comes in. So we tend to trust people easily whom we like. If we like somebody more, we will trust them more.

6. Scarcity — We value things more if there is a scarcity of them. That is why all ecommerce websites show “two left in stock.”

Book 2. How to Win Friends and Influence People

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is divided into these four different parts which cover certain behaviours that you should cultivate.

1. How to make people like you

Be genuinely interested in other people.

Remember a person’s name.

Be a good listener.

Talk in terms of other people's interests.

Make the other person feel important.

2. How to handle people

Don’t criticise, condemn, or complain.

Give honest and sincere appreciation.

Arouse an eager want in other people.

3. How to win people to your way of thinking

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say “You’re wrong.”

When you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

Be friendly.

Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

Let the other person feel that the idea is theirs.

Try to be in their shoes. Have sympathy for their ideas and desires.

Throw a challenge at them.

4. How to be a leader

Begin with praise and appreciation.

Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.

Talk about your own mistakes before criticising the other person.

Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

Praise the slightest improvement.

A short summary would be: Act as if others are interesting and you will eventually find them so.

So from all the above learnings, we can understand —

It’s not about them, it’s about me.

So if I change the way I behave, others will change too.

So far, we have been making an assumption that it’s other people’s fault and we are right at our place. But this was the hard question that was thrown to me: How do you know you’re right?

Man, that shook me!

A lot of arguments and differences are not around the end goal but rather on how to achieve it.

Do the people I work with have the intention to destroy the application? No! Then why am I fighting with them to do things a certain way?

All right, since one thing is clear — they are our teammates, with the team’s best interest at heart — let’s make it about them and not us. Let’s try to motivate them to take up the initiative and lead things all by themselves so that we don’t have to worry about them.