No Buts!

Be careful with the word "But".

Welcome!

Hi this is John with this week’s Developing Skills - Skills for Developers looking to develop their careers.

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NEWS: I’m launching a Software Engineering Podcast!

I’m launching a podcast for software engineers! 🎙️

It’s called Coding Chats and it’s going to focus on software engineering for the 99%.

Because these days software engineers are presented with a rose-tinted view of the world - learn to code, learn to ace LeetCode and blitz the system design interview, land a high paying job at a Big Tech company or rapidly growing start-up, make great money and speed-run your career. 🚀

But that’s not the full story. It’s the highlight reel for social media. 🎥

And it only applies to the 1% of software engineers who work in big tech. Coding Chats will be focusing on the 99% - those of us building a career outside big tech.

I’ll interview guests from novice software engineers to CTOs. From small companies to enterprises, from bootstrapped startups to VC backed startups. Asking them about their career, the challenges they have faced in their role and how they have overcome them.

We won’t tell you what to do, we will share with you what they did, and what they learned from the experience.

The first episode will be available on April 25th. You’ll find it on YouTube and on all major podcast channels from April 25th.

Tip of The Week: Change Your ‘Yes, but’ To Yes, and’.

Be careful with the word "But".

It seems inoffensive, but it’s not. Let me tell you a story, from a few years back in my career.

“That’s a great idea Bill, but our software doesn’t do that” I said, before going on to suggest an improvement to the idea that I thought would be just as good for our customers and which I knew we could deliver.

I felt good, great in fact. I’d taken his idea, identified an issue with delivering it and suggested a different way of delivering the value to the customer. I’d seen a problem and proposed a solution. We were going to get something great done. Everyone was going to be wonderfully happy; the meeting was a success.

Except it wasn’t. And they weren’t.

Bob was unhappy. Very unhappy. Yet again I’d dismissed his idea, shooting it down into a million pieces. Or at least that’s how it felt to Bob. And it wasn’t the first time he’d felt this way.

Although I meant well, and I really thought I was collaboratively problem solving. It wasn’t working out that way.

I could have handled this better. Instead of “yes, but” I should have responded with “yes, great idea, and if we focus on … we can get that done soon.”

So next time you find yourself about to say “yes, but”, take a breath, pause and see if you can reframe it as “yes, and”. You can still get your point across and the other person will be much more open to hearing it.

Here's a a different way of looking at it.

If someone says to you say: “That is a great idea, BUT we don’t have time, because you have us building X, Y, Z”

What do you remember?

The last part.

Why? Three simple reasons:

🧠 1) Our brains focus on negativity.

🧠 2) Therefore we remember the last words more.

🧠 3) And everything after the "But" has more power.

Instead, change the “but” to an and:

“That is a great idea, AND we can do it if we deprioritise one of X, Y, Z”.

Believe me, I really struggled to believe this would make a difference, I thought that surely by the time people got to an executive level they wouldn’t be so sensitive.

And I was wrong, so please, be mindful of your buts!

Two Ways I Can Help You Level Up As A Software Engineer:

1. I write another newsletter, Coding Challenges that helps you become a better software engineer through coding challenges that build real applications.

2. I have some courses available:

   1. Become a Better Software Developer by Building Your Own Redis Server (Python Edition) which guides you through solving the Redis Coding Challenge in Python.

   2. Build Your Own Shell (Go Edition) which guides you through solving the Shell Coding Challenge in Go.