Ask HN: What non-technical skill would help you most in your career in 2016?
I want to write a tutorial/guide that would help other programmers. There are a lot of quality _technical_ guides available and I don't want to write just another one. So I'd like to create something _non-technical_ (productivity, communication, work-life balance...?) that programmers would find useful.
74 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 140 ms ] threadErgo, learn to defend yourself from it.
Bullshit Artists get so far in American organizations. Far, far more than elsewhere where people are less enchanted by nonsense fluff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
One way is to make sure you (a) provide real value and (b) know how to convey that knowledge effectively in tense situations. If you're not sure you provide real value, then BS talk may be your only hope. Even if you know you provide value, you need to be able to convince others of this or else you may be in trouble.
A well-written developer is someone who can organize their thoughts and then express them in a way that others can understand. This requires mental discipline, clarity of thought, empathy, and intelligence, all of which are skills that will take any developer to new heights.
TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking
Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions
Both are insightful and exciting.
It's not a trait I started out in life blessed with but the older I get the more I realise that understanding why something is being said is frequently much more important than what is being said.
I would also say it's kind of magical.. some sort of energy transmission..
The way you talk about it reminds me of people's account of Jobs' so called "reality distortion field". However, it's not some mystical thing that some people are born with. It's a learned skill just like software engineering.
No one knows what you believe
[1] http://www.yourcoach.be/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Dale...
I highly recommend. It gives you a powerful alternative and a beacon that you follow every time you have a conversation with someone. Although the book is old ( before the Internet ), it has pretty much summed up everything about people's nature and can teach you what your parents / teachers forgot.
1. Say less.
2. Listen more.
3. Think of everything from the other people's point of view and honestly consider what is best for them.
I think one thing you said was quite telling: "you go into a meeting with your mind made up". I'd suggest trying to being open to having your mind changed is a good first step too ;)
Persuasion is independent of "shyness" (actually, being an introvert) but a lot of it has to do with natural talent, unfortunately [1]. You can definitely improve it, but some people are just born with a higher degree of "energy transitivity". For instance, their face have more muscles and they're wired in such a way that it is easier for them to control it, among other things.
[1] Malcom Gladwell wrote about this briefly in "The Tipping Point". You can learn more on this by looking up the book "Emotional Contagion" by Elaine Hatfield, John Cacioppo and Richard Rapson. There's also Howard Friedman, from the University of California, who created the Affective Communication Test, which aims to give an individual a measure of his personal carisma - this transmissive or "magical" ability you speak of: http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~friedman/act.html
The Dale Carnegie Company also offers instructor-led training in small classes. Having taken it, I would recommend taking the in-person course if you can; nearly every major city has a DC office. If you're willing it to take it seriously and put work into it, it can be quite beneficial.
The few people I've met like this were pretty much office bullies. There's no mythical silver tongued nice guy. When someone dominates the meeting and shoves his agenda into your face and argues until you're exhausted, well, that works because he's not worth fighting. The question is do you want to be a person like that? Pretty much anyone can be taught to be a Gordon Gekko or a GlenGarry Glen Ross's Blake.
I don't take my job remotely seriously enough or care to modify how I act for crap like this. I kinda pity those who do. They seem to get their validation and emotional fulfillment only from work.
The above might be overly critical, but I think everyone hits a point in their career where they have to decide where they will draw the line in terms of personal modification to get ahead. There are so many more asshole-ish ways I could be at work that would definitely lead me to a higher level of success. I just consider it against my moral system to be a person like that and think its absurd that we have to do this constant study of "how to get ahead" just to make a decent living. Threads like this just depress me. Work life shouldn't make this kind of demand on our personal and internal lives. I think if everyone pushed back more against employers, we'd all be happier, instead we have this rat-race that we accept as perfectly normal and rational. Its not.
Anyway, that's the kind of thing i'm talking about. It's easy to talk over people and beat them over the head til they do what you want. I'm more interested in getting everyone on my side and excited about it.
Many comments have pointed out "How to win friends and influence people" so I'll start there.
[1] https://www.toastmasters.org/
* I will always be nervous before a performance. * The audience doesn't know what I'm about to say, so they don't know if I "screw up" most of the time. * Live demos will go wrong. :) * Talking to 30 people is actually easier than talking to 3 people, because you don't have to pay individual attention to anyone.
The worst part for me anymore is preparing the slide decks.
[1] : http://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/15...
Once you are sure that you have thorough understanding of the topic other ways to improve include reading books, especially science fiction and popular science to expand your vocabulary, and writing a technical blog.
Metaphors can be terribly dangerous because of personal experiences. For example, I've seen people explain object-oriented programming using biology or automobiles. Those sound great until you think about how many people don't relate to those metaphors.
Other people don't care. I don't care how my cellphone works - I care that it works, and if you tried to tell me how it works, I'd tune you out. It's not in my scope of give-a-damn, you know?
If you feel you're terrible at explaining things to non-technical people, reflect on whether or not those people really need to know those things.
If you determine that they are interested, and that you are unable to adequately explain, consider finding situations where you can understand their side of things. A great way to do that might be to learn how to do something that they do. When I meet a new client, I ask them to explain very technical parts of their job to me. Then I am the person on the receiving end of that. I can observe how they explain things, and I can empathize with them when my eyes glaze over. :)
Hope that helps a little, or at least gave you some ideas.
IT people tend to assume that everyone is just as interested in stuff as they are. It's not a great assumption to make. Just cos you think it's cool doesn't mean everyone does. And that's ok.
You'll feel better and have more energy throughout the day.
Leadership, Public speaking, persuasiveness/sales, writing, copy-writing, storytelling, design, diet, exercise, mental focus, personal appearance
Maybe target ones that programmers typically lack.
Accounting, Marketing, Reporting/Data Analysts, Customer Service, Design/UI/Product, and Sales.
Weather your running the website or building the software you sell lots of these folks are going to have varying levels of contact with it. By understanding what these folks do (even at a high level) and the language they use, your going to be able to communicate with them and service them better. Building relationships in other departments can be as simple as being friendly to the people you meet, and getting them out of the office for coffee or lunch on a regular basis. Ask them lots of questions and build a relationship.
With those two skills, all other skills can be obtained more readily, including the need for better oral and written communication.
Empathy and salesmanship require a modicum of innate ability. Everyone can certainly improve on their potential. I've never met a career salesperson who didn't already have some proclivity for sales.
Listening skills are going to get you FAR in business and life, and your going to hear lots of stuff that has nothing to do with your job. Learn NOT to repeat every thing you hear.
Sadly offices have as much gossip if not more than your average high school. Once people know they can trust you to keep your mouth shut, a well spring of interesting knowledge is going to start to fall in your lap. Some times this is just personal drama, but knowing that person A has a grudge with person B can some times be a clue to how a situation is going to resolve itself.
Are you an engineer? What skill(s) will you be leveraging most as a Director or VP of Engineering? Leadership.
Are you a designer? What skill(s) will you be leveraging most as a Director or VP of Design? Leadership.
Are you a <fill in the blank>? What skill(s) will...you get it.
Back in my time at Georgia Tech, Warren Buffet came to speak and told an anecdote about a media executive who would go play records at one of his radio stations in the middle of the night. Buffet said something to the effect of, "the farther I get into this business, the farther away I become from why I got into this business."
I started working professionally at small companies in 1997 as a "Web Developer." I finished my degree in 2004 and I've been doing software engineering since then. I'm currently a Director of Engineering at PayPal and, while my technical skills are useful, my primary role is centered around the leadership of a large team. I haven't written a line of code professionally in over a year. I share these same statements with my managers and engineers from my team. Always be developing your leadership skills--they stay with you forever.
Also agreed that leaders who are NOT managers are extremely important.
Learning how to successfully apply influence with a lack of authority can be incredibly powerful.
In this context - I highly recommend to anyone interested checking out "Becoming a Technical Leader" by Gerald Weinberg.
Even if you are severely introverted (I am) you need to make as much effort as possible to overcome it. People who can't communicate are effectively invisible, regardless of how well they do their jobs, and invisible people are replaceable people.
Why is this important?
The single most important skill I see needed in technical people is empathy to the problems people are solving. Just because it's trivial to one group to solve, or prioritize does not mean it's not valuable. Being able to put yourself in the actual shoes of the user, their needs, their perspectives to ultimately empower them, instead of taking the easy way of interpreting from a distance how they must do their job/task based on how you would approach it.
There is a great deal of intellectual capital in any organization where people have a "why" of how to do things a certain way that is not 100% the standard procedure.
These things form the competitive advantage that software developers, implementors, and consultants can kill in an organization.
Want to be a better software developer? Help people solve problems better in their terms, not our own. Whether it is a sales, marketing, production, design or management problem, being able to relate to the problem and how it's beneficial to solve is the single biggest valuable skill that I have landed on.