Becoming a Technical Leader
By Gerald Weinberg
Organic models can be contrasted with linear models on several dimensions: the way events are explained, the way a person is defined, the way a relationship is defined, and the attitude toward change. Let’s compare the two types of models on each of these in turn, then see how they affect the way leadership is defined.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Linear models get their name from the assumption of a linear relationship between events; that is, one effect stems from one cause, and vice versa. Organic models may be characterized by “systems thinking”: the belief that event X is the outcome of hundreds of other factors, including the passage of time.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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In order to use organic models, you must be able to live with the occasional error.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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One useful side of linear models is that they allow planning of large-scale operations, where it would be impossible to consider each relationship in its full glory.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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People who adhere to the threat/reward extreme tend to see power as existing in the role, rather than the relationship, so they put great store in titles as a way of defining relationships. When things get tough, they are likely to invoke their “authority,” or yield to someone else’s.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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systems thinking:
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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People holding to organic models need security just as much as anyone else, but they obtain their security by taking risks and by tolerating ambiguity.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The organic model says that leadership is the process of creating an environment in which people become empowered.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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If you could perform, you became the leader. These kids wouldn’t listen to their own parents, but they listened to me.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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They wanted to know my secrets, and I soon found myself running an informal clinic.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Their lives just weren’t sufficiently organized to learn anything that required a nontrivial effort.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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M: motivation–the trophies or trouble, the push or pull that moves the people involved • O: organization–the existing structure that enables the ideas to be worked through into practice • I: ideas or innovation–the seeds, the image of what will become
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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• M: kill the motivation—make people feel that change will not be appreciated; do everything for them so they won’t feel the need to do things for themselves; dis- courage anything that people might enjoy doing for its own sake • O: foster chaos—encourage such high competition that cooperation will be unthinkable; keep resources slightly below the necessary minimum; suppress information of general value, or bury it in an avalanche of meaningless words and paper • I: suppress the flow of ideas—don’t listen when you can criticize instead; give your own ideas first, and loudest; punish those who offer suggestions; keep people from working together; and above all, tolerate no laughter
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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A person whose actions are almost totally motivational might be a sales superstar or a charismatic politician who could sell any idea—if only she had one to sell. Someone whose actions are almost entirely organizational might be an incredibly efficient office manager who keeps things super-organized—for last year’s staff and last year’s problems. A person whose actions are all directed toward innovation would be a genius—full of ideas but unable to work with other people, or to organize work for others.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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organization, and innovation. Introducing a new measurement tool to improve quality involves creating the tool (an I-strategy); teaching people to use it and convincing them to try it (M-strategies); and creating a structure for supporting those who use the tool (an 0-strategy).
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Many children have never known the ecstasy of having one of their ideas heard, let alone used to solve a problem. After a while, they stop trying to work with ideas. Some of them grow up trying to stop others.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Read the specifications very carefully. Success or failure often turns on minuscule differences in problem definitions. Although
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Resist time pressure, and take the time to listen when other people explain their ideas.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Withhold quick criticism of teammates’ ideas, in order to keep the ideas flowing.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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When time and labor are running short, stop working on new ideas and just pitch in.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Design tools and processes to measure quality as you build a solution.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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When a lucky shot raises my score by 350,000 points, I suddenly feel a great surge of confidence. When an unexplainable tilt drops me below a million, I start to believe I’m getting old, and slipping. It’s hard to see the climate when you’re experiencing the weather.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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That’s how the plateau stage begins to crumble—with the introduction of some foreign element. My first reaction was typical: I tried to reject the foreign element. I argued that drum memory was superior to core memory, that decimal coding was intrinsically superior to binary.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Nobody said that every ravine leads to a plateau. Some are just ravines.
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the village idiot whose antique watch stopped running. He pried it open and found a dead cockroach inside. “No wonder it doesn’t work,” he said, “the manager is dead.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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suppose a programmer has just built an operating system that wasn’t performing too well under higher-than-average load. And suppose the programmer’s manager says, “Just replace the module that contains the inefficiency. Then it will run faster.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Few software managers are that misguided about the nature of operating systems, but many are when it comes to systems involving people. If the team isn’t productive enough, the manager decides, “Just replace the person who’s not providing the leadership. Then the team will work faster.” Sure it will. And if we just put in a live cockroach, the watch will start running again.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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If you ask a mechanic why your sports car’s engine sounds so awful, the response is likely to be, “Have you checked the spark plugs?” Experience says that if anything is failing, it’s most likely the plugs. It’s easy to slip from this observation into the fallacy that the spark plug is the critical component in an engine.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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is leadership by innovation, by adding new techniques to the group’s ways of getting things done.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Leadership by innovation can be quietly exercised by people like me—and perhaps like you—who lack the charisma and organizational skills that characterize the world’s Teddies.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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One of the hardest choices for technical stars who become leaders is losing touch with the latest in technology.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Climbing is always strenuous, but letting go is brutal.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The threat/reward model may say that change comes from the top, but my experience tells me that change starts with what we choose to have for breakfast.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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SELF-BLINDNESS: THE NUMBER ONE OBSTACLE
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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For many people, work is like Shirley’s eating. They waste time pursuing dead ends, dragging out phone calls, or getting involved in useless arguments, yet never realize why they don’t accomplish anything.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Many programmers, stuck in some fallacious argument, search for a single error long past the point where they should seek help.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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What I need is a consultant, someone to watch me eat and report to me what I can’t see for myself. The same is true for all of us. The only way we can see ourselves is through other people.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Whatever you do, keep it mutual. Don’t ever volunteer your observations about people as I did with Shirley, no matter how helpful you think it would be for them. Shirley was nice enough not to punch me, but I was lucky.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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It’s just not much fun to be watched all the time, so whatever you do, don’t pick your spouse as your watching partner.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Then I realized that the poor man was suffering from a severe case of “No-Problem Syndrome,” or NPS for short.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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NPS seems to affect a large percentage of computer professionals.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Because it can’t be cured, they had better learn to protect themselves through my four-step plan for early NPS detection: You describe your very difficult problem. The respondent says, “No problem!” You say, “Oh, that’s terrific! Could you please describe my problem that you’re going to solve?” 4a. If the respondent then describes your problem, even erroneously, it’s not a case of NPS but only a case of Enthusiasm. 4b. If the respondent describes a proposed solution to your problem rather than the problem itself, then sadly it’s NPS.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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We could characterize NPS as the unshakable belief in your own master intelligence.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Chinese say that the first step to knowledge is a confession of ignorance. If you already know everything, how will you ever learn anything?
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Quite possibly, academic psychology is the most arrogant profession of all time.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Any rat who displays a modicum of suspicion for the psychologist’s setup runs the maze a little slower and is labeled “less intelligent.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Find some multiple choice quiz and go through it in the following way: Instead of picking one answer, take each answer in turn and give a good reason why that could be the answer. Then give a good reason for some answer that isn’t among the choices.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Next time you’re in a meeting and several ideas are brought up, apply the technique of the previous question. That is, make sure you give a good reason to the meeting’s participants to explain why each idea could be the solution you’re seeking. Then offer at least one more.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Q. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? A. Only one, if the bulb really wants to change.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Write about yourself. The subject of my journal is me—what
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“I stick to three things: First, I write down what happened, as descriptive as I can make it without labeling or judging.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Then, I describe how I reacted to it—what I thought about, if it made me angry, if I dreamt about it. Finally, I put down what, if anything, I learned from it. Most of the time, I don’t learn anything, until much later when I read the entry again.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“facts, feelings, findings” formula,
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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I recommend the journal as a first step to becoming a technical leader because it is such a little commitment that there really is no valid excuse for not doing
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Any real problem has one more solution, which nobody has found—yet.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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An Introduction to General Systems Thinking. Another time, I caught a client writing
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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By “stealing,” I include both taking ideas from one person (which is called “plagiarizing”) or from many (which is called “research”). I especially like to use creative methods of doing my research, so that other people can do all the work.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Punishment is one of our most effective teaching methods. It teaches us to avoid punishment. People who are repeatedly punished for error, theft, and copulation are unlikely to generate great ideas. They won’t even think they’re capable of generating ideas.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Take a large sheet of newsprint and a marker pen. Draw a horizontal line across the middle of the sheet; this will represent time, running from the beginning of your career to the present day. Draw a vertical line near the left edge to represent your feelings, running from high at the top to low at the bottom. Now draw a graph representing your career line, moving through the ups and downs of your career. If possible, do it in front of someone else while you relate the story of your career. When you’re finished, stand back and look at the whole graph and give it a title. Then, try to extend the lifeline into the future.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The first big lesson from studying careers is this: It’s not the event that matters, but your reaction to the event.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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A personal vision permeates the lives of star performers. For almost any occasion, the personal vision gives a reference point, a rule for separating the essential from the trivial.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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On the other hand, when someone has motives besides getting the job done—like wanting power, money, or prestige—the transaction is twisted. A leader can hardly say, “I feel bad because if this job doesn’t get done, I’ll get passed over for promotion and a raise. Couldn’t you people work harder so I can get richer?”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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People without vision don’t have much influence on other people.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The first great obstacle to motivation is a different kind of blindness: the inability to see yourself as others see you.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Top problem solvers tend to believe that they each have succeeded without the help of other people. Other people are invisible, or, if seen at all, are seen as obstacles. But when the individual star tries to become a leader, this lack of awareness of other people’s reactions becomes the number one obstacle.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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gestures. Even my own thinking goes by so fast that I frequently fail to notice the sequence, yet the more I’m aware of my inner sequence, the easier it is for me to be aware of what you’re seeing in the manifest interaction. SATIR’S INTERACTION MODEL I find it easier to see what’s going on inside of me when I use Satir’s model of this lightning-fast inner process. The model has seven major steps that take place between the time you manifest something and I respond: sensory input interpretation feeling feeling about the feeling defense rules for commenting outcome
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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This feeling (E) is probably associated with some survival rule (F) that Yetta acquired early in life.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Knowing about survival rules makes you aware that people often respond to you based on experiences they had years ago.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Tell them what you perceive, how you feel about what you perceive, and if possible how you feel about that feeling.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“When I find myself asking you three times when you will finish this late assignment, I feel ashamed about acting like a dictator and not trusting you, yet I don’t know how to deal with my anxiety over the project schedule.” These are difficult
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Lesson Number One: When survival is concerned, there’s no choice but to put people first.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Beverly can’t catch mice, but mice don’t know that, so she makes a good leader of mice. I noted another lesson about motivation:
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Lesson Number Two: If the job isn’t highly technical, the leader need not be competent, but can lead by fear.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Beverly makes a good mouse leader when the task is to keep the mice out of my room, but would fail if the task was to train the mice to do acrobatics.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Lesson Number Three: People with strong technical backgrounds can convert any task into a technical task, thus avoiding work they don’t want to do.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The technical trick I used to avoid my reviewing task is called the “Fog Index.”s It measures writing difficulty based on the average length and the frequency of longish words. A Fog Index of about twelve is considered to be the limit for most technical writing,
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Lesson Number Four: Leaders who don’t care about people don’t have anyone to lead, unless their followers don’t have a choice.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Lesson Number Five: No amount of caring for people will hold your audience if you have nothing to offer but pretend you do.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Lesson Number Six: Task-oriented leaders tend to overestimate their own accomplishments.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Lesson Number Seven: Very little work we do is really so important that it justifies sacrificing the future possibilities of the people doing the work.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Lesson Number Eight: When the work is complex, no leader can be absolutely sure that plans won’t “gang aft agley.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Lesson Number Nine: To be a successful problem-solving leader, you must keep everybody’s humanness at the forefront.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Lesson Number Ten: If you are a leader, the people are your work. There is no other work worth doing.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Programming team leaders are promoted according to their technical skills, with the assumption that any normal person will be able to pick up leadership skills along the way. This myth persists because once in a while, someone does seem to acquire process skills without visible effort. Just as some people learn to program computers without direct training, others seem always to know just how to be most helpful.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Wanting to help people may be a noble motive but that doesn’t make it any easier.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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If people don’t want your help, you’ll never succeed in helping them, no matter how smart or wonderful you are.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Effective help can only start with mutual agreement on a clear definition of the problem.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Always check whether they want your help.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Most people understand that helpers are selfish, but also think they are exceptions to the rule.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Attempts to help are often interpreted as attempts to interfere.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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No matter how strange it may look, most people are actually trying to be helpful.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Offer to help your neighbor only if you would want to be helped in the same situation, and do it in the way you would want to be helped.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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ALWAYS BE SINCERE (WHETHER YOU MEAN IT OR NOT)
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Step 1: State the rule clearly and explicitly.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Step 2: Acknowledge the rule’s survival value and strike a bargain with your unconscious mind.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Step 3: Give yourself a choice.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Step 4: Change from certainty to possibility. As you go
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Step 5: Change the rule from totality to non-totality.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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BECOMING GENUINELY INTERESTED IN OTHER PEOPLE
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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‘You do possess something, but it’s expertise, not power. Any power you get from that expertise is based on a relationship between you and someone else.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“If your whole team consists of novice programmers, your expertise will give you considerable power; but if the other team members are also experts, they will attach less importance to your technical expertise. In that case, they’ll pay more attention to organizational power, like the power to acquire extra hardware, to extend the schedule, or to capture a more interesting assignment.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“You know, I really struggled to demonstrate to the team that my technical skill hadn’t diminished, but all I did was convince them that I was a weak leader.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“The first step in keeping power is to stop trying so hard to hang onto it.” “It’s not a paradox. It follows directly from the idea of power as a relationship. The desire for power is not a desire for a thing, but for a relationship .”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“So when you see a chance for power, ask yourself what you want power for.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“That reminds me of E.T. He didn’t want power, but because he knew what he really wanted, he beat the ‘powerful’ at their own game.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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They know that people do sometimes react badly if told an unpleasant truth about themselves. What they don’t know is that this bad reaction emanates from a person’s low self-esteem.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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be clear when they deal with others. be aware of their own thoughts and feelings. be able to see and hear what is outside themselves. behave toward other people as separate from themselves and unique. treat differentness as an opportunity to learn and explore rather than as a threat or a signal for conflict. deal with persons and situations in their context, in terms of how it is rather than how they wish it were or expect it to be. accept responsibility for what they feel, think, hear, and see, rather than denying it or attributing it to others. have open techniques for giving, receiving, and checking meaning with others.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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In other words, the first step in creating a problem-solving environment is to work on your own maturity, but this can’t be accomplished through gimmicks.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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You’re confusing ‘natural’ with ‘learned early in life, before I was aware of it.’
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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As with any communication skill, being congruent is not some-thing you ever learn one-hundred percent. But the payoff is so great, you don’t have to be perfect. Even if one person manages to act once in a congruent manner when the rest of the group is acting in a twisted way, the results can be worth a thousand failures.
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was about to start accusing him of dishonesty when I realized that I was making inferences about what was inside him, rather than making statements about what was inside of me.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“Power conversion?” “Yes, you know. The ability to convert one form of power into another that you value more. Like converting water power from a stream into electric power to light your house.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“It’s not always so risky, but you do have to know what power you have. If
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“Yes, a lot of them use their spending power to go to boondoggle meetings that may be fun, and may enhance their sense of importance. But I personally think they’re wasting their position power on something that has no further conversion value.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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After two years of that, I must have had a few million points, not counting interest.” “So what did you convert them into?” “Nothing. Points don’t convert.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“When I finally realized how dumb I’d been, I took an inventory of what power I had to convert.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Voting may be helpful if we need assurance that we won’t make a really poor decision, but to obtain this assurance, we will generally sacrifice any possibility of obtaining a superior decision. In other words, voting can be a way of ensuring no worse than a mediocre-plus decision.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Leaders who resist changing their own opinion may do well if they are the most knowledgeable members of their team, but may do terribly if they are the least knowledgeable.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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They typically produce a pattern of scores that resembles the consensus scores, consistently higher than the voting score. Such leaders can have a personal score of 0 yet produce a team score of 85, and leaders with a personal score of 50 can produce a team score of 95. In some cases, however, the leaders allow themselves to be influenced against their own judgment. We once had a leader with a personal score of 88 who listened to some less knowledgeable team- mates and produced a team score of 57.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Keep in mind that not every ranking need meet everyone’s complete approval in every detail, but that every team member should agree in principle with each ranking. • Avoid arguing for your own opinions, just because they are your own. Instead, back up every position you take with logic and facts. • Avoid changing your mind only to avoid conflict. Encourage others to give you facts and logic on which you can base a change of opinion. • Encourage others to use facts and logic before changing their minds. • Avoid techniques designed to reduce conflict, such as voting, averaging, or trading votes. Use facts, no matter how insignificant they may seem. • Consider differences of opinion as helpful, as long as they can be supported by fact or logic. • Don’t withhold information just to be nice. • If necessary, use your intuition, but make clear that you’re doing it. Intuition is a valid fact to add to an argument.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Typically in the exercise, consensus scores exceed their team average by thirty points or more.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Once in a while, though, the consensus process breaks down, producing a very poor score. In such cases, there is no actual consensus, but a lot of arguing, trading off, and backing down, just to get finished on time. When this happens, however, it’s obvious to everyone. Some teams wisely decide to discard any decision that is made under such conditions, even if it means not completing the assignment.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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When a true consensus has been reached, the team is much more likely to proceed to the next problem fully accepting responsibility for what has been done. If not, the team has probably not achieved a true consensus.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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probably the worst method of choosing a leader is to have one strong leader choose another, though that is the method used in most organizations. It works only if you start with a truly effective person at the top, someone who also has the full confidence of the people to be led.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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In fact, I’ve rarely found people who like to give orders. What I have found is people who don’t like to take orders, and who believe there are only two choices: order or be ordered. This false dichotomy leads to what Virginia Satir calls “the Big Game”: Who’s got the right to tell whom what to do?
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Although this approach may sometimes be effective, when carried too far it leads to ever-expanding books of standards and procedures as the basis for organization; and as these books grow in precision, they diminish in effectiveness. Nobody ever takes the time to read them, let alone follow them. The leader who is busy organizing through written procedures and memos soon loses touch with the people who are supposed to be following them.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The leader’s job is usually not to solve a single problem, but to create an environment in which many problems will be solved, not just for today, but for the future.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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the best leader is the one who rarely, if ever, gets into a position of having to make a decision, let alone a life-and-death decision.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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If you had to take a trip with someone else driving, would you prefer a driver who has never had an accident, but would likely be indecisive if an accident occurred has had an average of one accident a week, but was very adept at making decisions in emergency situations Sad to say, many people seem to prefer (b). That’s why Armistice Day has been replaced by Veterans Day. Peace is more difficult to organize, but war is more heroic. Really good organizing seems to lack drama.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Why is it that we reward programmers who work all night to remove the errors they put into their programs, or managers who make drastic organizational changes to resolve the crises their poor management has created? Why not reward the programmers who design so well that they don’t have dramatic errors, and managers whose organizations stay out of crisis mode?
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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I hope I’m never hurt in an auto accident, but if I am, I sure hope the spectators won’t stand around playing the Big Game. I hope, instead, that they’re sufficiently mature and trained to do what’s necessary. I may not be in very good shape to manage the process myself, so I’d much prefer people who are capable of managing themselves, without orders from me.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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A problem-solving leader’s entire orientation is toward creating an environment in which everyone can be solving problems, making decisions, and implementing those decisions, rather than person- ally solving problems, making decisions, and implementing those decisions. In this model,
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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organizing is not creating a set of rigid rules; organizing is not giving orders or taking orders; organizing is getting the job done.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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learning to be an effective organizer takes practice.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Science means observe and experiment, and it can mean something as simple as going to your weekly group meeting and observing where everyone sits, counting how many times each person talks, and noting who asks questions and who, if anybody, answers them.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Once you’ve acquired some skill at observing, try some little experiments. You might come early to the next meeting and sit in a different chair. This will give you a different vantage point from which to observe, and will also give you a chance to see what kind of “musical chairs” develops. Or you might try rearranging the room from its usual pattern. Turn the table. Add a chair, or remove one. Bring in a flipchart, or take away all the pens.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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you may want to come out of the closet. During the meeting, you might grab a pen and start writing important points on the flip chart that’s
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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novice observers usually mistake the formal power structure for the real organization.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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noticing how the people really interact, as opposed to what the chart says.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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I have some favorite assumptions of my own about organization, based on the seed model. The most important of those assumptions is that everyone wants to feel useful—to make a contribution to the organization. This can be a difficult assumption to hold, in the light of actual observations.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“They’re all doing the best they can, under the circumstances. If I don’t think they are doing the best they can, then I don’t understand the circumstances.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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When I’m closely involved, I try to look at things assuming that something has gone wrong with one of the three essential functions of problem-solving leadership: • defining the problem • managing the flow of ideas • controlling the quality
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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On the informational dimension, for instance, the theory says that some people (the N’s) prefer to get their information in an intuitive way, while others (the S’s) prefer to have specific, concrete data. In a meeting organized by S’s, the N’s may be bored by “an overkill of data.” If the S’s interpret the N’s reaction as poor understanding, they may respond by presenting even more data to prove their point. The N’s become even more bored, and they’re off on an electric blanket cycle.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Please Understand Me
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Haven’t you ever felt a conflict between the need to be alone and the need to be with other people? If so, you’ll be better able to recognize such a conflict between people who want to work on a problem by themselves and those who wish to prolong the drama of a problem-solving meeting.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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If you’re an eighty percent performer on each of four parts of your job, you’re not an eighty percent performer overall.” I took out my calculator and computed 0.8 x 0.8 x 0.8 x 0.8 – 0.4096. “You see, that amounts to about forty percent as an overall performance.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Phyllis could do certain useful things for the team as a member, but as a leader, she couldn’t command their respect because she didn’t know much about what they were doing.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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It’s the great American pastime to look for flaws in the leader’s behavior.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Under an additive system, a ten-point increase in either one would be equally good. I would probably choose to increase my skill score because that’s easier and I know how to do it even better than I already do. But if I’m multiplying the two scores, a ten-point increase in the lower score has a bigger influence on my overall score than a ten-point increase in the higher one.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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I wish I’d thought of that example today, to help me convince those new project leaders not to work so hard on improving their technical skills.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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There’s nothing wrong with your system of grading, but it’s your weakest point. That’s why the students probe you so hard about it.” “If it’s not wrong, then why is it my weakest point?” “Because you feel it’s your weakest point. Because you feel bad about yourself in that area, you get upset about it when the students bring it up on the first day of class.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The weakness is not the system of grading, but your feelings about the system.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The person at the top makes the rules, which is another way of saying, breaks the old rules.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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When I do come forward, I fail another leadership test, because it would be undoubtedly better for their learning if I didn’t interfere.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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With a stronger wall, we wouldn’t have needed such a strong leader.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“Oh, I would have pushed him right out of the room, a lot sooner and a lot more violently than you did! And then I would have been ashamed of myself for allowing that situation to develop in the first place.” “And that’s why you favor a preventive strategy?” “Right, because I can’t handle the face-to-face situation very well.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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call Ramon’s style, based on motivation, the personality approach. Arnold’s, based on organization, is the planning approach.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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it’s good to know where your major strength lies so you don’t try to handle situations with somebody else’s style.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Avoiding your weakest style is never sufficient, however, because of a paradox: In order to avoid your weakest style, you first need to strengthen it. Let’s
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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By and large, technical workers tend to be stronger on the planning side than the personality side.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Tests can give you a baseline for development, letting you know what needs work.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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For the same reason, your own management may not push you hard enough. They want you to succeed, so they can succeed. They will put you in situations where you are likely to do well, not situations where you might do spectacularly. With this sort of benign management, you will get little or no chance to strengthen your weaknesses.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Ask yourself how many important tests you’ve failed recently. I start worrying if I don’t fail at least five times in each workshop. If I haven’t failed that often, I’m probably not testing myself very thoroughly.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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whenever we try something new, the brain tries to protect us by putting us into a special state of alertness, so that we pay more attention to everything around us, not just the new activity, and trying to ease us back into the old, safe pattern whenever we stop paying attention.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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I take vacations to new places so I can sense the world with all my faculties.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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those who understand the nature of change can predict that somewhere along the line, a series of ordinary, small changes will suddenly put you on the brink of something large and extraordinary.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Don’t redo work you’ve assigned to others.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Avoid trivial technical arguments to prove your technical superiority.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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“And like the Swiss, successful problem-solving leaders seem able to create situations where they get a little more out than they put in. Yet at the same time, these situations seem to benefit everyone involved; nobody gets cheated.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Don’t do things you’ve already assigned to others, even if you must let them make mistakes. • Avoid administration like the plague. • Don’t waste time trying to prove your competence. • Don’t waste time arguing about wasting time. • Pay attention to what you do when there’s nothing to do. • Get at least two for the price of one. • Act as review leader. • Act as editor. • Be a tutor. • Coordinate a speaking or training program. • Use your car pool. • Share the reading load. • Have a good lunch, but a creative one. and most important • Listen to what other people have already learned. To which I can’t resist adding one more: • Let other people show you how smart they are.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Each part of your personal support system serves different goals.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Some people in my support system want me to stay the same; these I call my Conservatives. Others want me to change; these are my Radicals.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Like most people, I suppose, I sometimes have periods when I can’t cope very well with some of my responsibilities. My manly training tells me to keep such feelings to myself, presumably until I collapse and have to be carried to the funny farm.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Although nobody likes to be around a person who’s always whining, I do have a part of my support system that can help me through periods when all is not rosy.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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At those times, I find great comfort in the silence of a Quaker meeting, seeking the light of God within me.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Others find their spiritual support while singing with thousands of others in a cathedral, or watching the waves pound upon the beach, or reading their Bible, or their Bertrand Russell. But whether the spiritual support is rational, mystical, or biblical, no support system is worth much without it.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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With all this talk of physical, emotional, and spiritual problems, it would be easy to forget that most of the time, most of us are doing pretty well without any special help from other people.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The paradox of problem-solving leadership is that you have to change in order to remain the same.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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It’s awfully easy to fall into the trap of building a support system that’s just like Pete’s Random Number Network. Unconsciously, you seek support from those people who will give you the answer you want to hear.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The Golden Rule says to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. “Do what you really want to do” is the advice I want, even though it sometimes frightens me. It’s not the advice of the Conservative, who always wants you to do what will keep you the same, but it’s not the advice of the Radical, either, who always wants you to change. Instead, it’s the advice of the third and best kind of supporter, whom I call, simply, a Friend.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Why would any intelligent human being risk losing happiness for the questionable pleasure of organizing other people’s lives?
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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People who won’t listen to the great leaders of history certainly won’t listen to me if I advise them to reconsider the whole idea of becoming a leader.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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If you want something that badly, perhaps you shouldn’t have it.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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I want you to sit down and write me two lists. The first list should be all the reasons you want to be a manager. The second should be all the assets and liabilities you have as a leader. When you bring me those lists, we’ll discuss how we can get you a start in management.”
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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From Rosy, I learned that happiness doesn’t come from outside through morphine. From Dave, I learned that leadership doesn’t come from outside through appointment.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Having bought myself a moment of self-control and before I say or do something I may regret, I ask myself three questions: Why do I want to do this? What assets do I have to contribute? What liabilities do I bring?
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Modern Approaches to Understanding and Managing Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts. 1st Touchstone ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Carnegie, Dale. How to Win Friends and Influence People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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Doyle, Michael, and David Straus. How to Make Meetings Work! : The New Interaction Method.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
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The Secrets of Consulting : A Guide to Giving & Getting Advice Successfully.
~ Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg