 But basically, this topic is how we confront our opinions about these others with our teammates. Let's take one thing first. There used to be a time we thought planes couldn't fly because they're heavier than air. And somebody came up and said, yeah, but what? Like, what if about we make a curve and we put some speed, and there's a difference in pressure? Like, maybe that could work. And nowadays, we take it for granted. If we don't confront thoughts, there's no progress. You'll find that in every company people talk about nowadays. You'll find that praised by Pixar, by Apple, by Google, you have books like Radical Candor, Good to Great, Creative Incorporated, and they all come down to that. If you want to be a great team, if you want to go high performance as a group, you've got to be able to confront your opinions and your thoughts again and again. Now, it's simple to say, it's not easy. And how do I know that? A bit of background about myself. So I come from Paris, France. And I was a Java developer. I started in, like, 1999. And so I was very involved in the Java user group in Paris. Until 10 years ago, I became an agile coach. And I've been doing that pretty much since then. I came in Singapore three years ago. And my friend at the Java user group, like, kept me around. They keep talking to me, even though I was no more coding Java, like, every day. And sometime late on the drinks after the meet-ups, like, when there's nobody around, they start to talk to me, because I became the soft-skilled guy in the group. I do that soft-skilled human thingy. And they ask me super incredible questions like, hey, there's something I want to talk about with my clients and my team. I just, I feel I'm just unknowing them. I don't know how to say that to them. Or somebody else came to me and say, OK, I brag a lot. I say, I do go my way now. I want your honest opinion. I think I'm an asshole. But the point is they didn't say it like this. They waited for everybody to be away. And they talk to me like this, because it's a soft skill. And they're kind of shameful about it. And that's kind of the thing we have in the tech communities. We're so crazy when it's going to talk about, is Vue going to resolve the debate between Angular and React.js, right? We can go nuts. But like, how do we work? How do we talk with each other? Like, human to human, you mean? We're super shy. And so after I talk with these guys, I realize I want to know more. I want to know how some of us have actually, like it seems things always go their way. So I talk, I interview the best developer I know or the one that we're called the most influential in the Paris that I knew. And I learned so much from them. One of the things that came up among other thing is this. The attention they put on being able to confirm their opinions, to talk with other. And actually, I thought they were just bravado going, talking down to people absolutely not. There's a freaking science they have about it. And it goes pair to pair with everything you get in the books that I mentioned. So it boils down to actually one first question, which is often an intro to that. Actually, do you have anything to say? Because we all want to change a lot of things. I give you the typical case, right? There's something that you think should change in the project you're in. But it's out of your control or out of your authority, let's say. But the first question they ask is actually, does it matter? Should you speak up or should you shut up? And the way they look at it is simple. They ask themselves, you should speak about it if it's in the interest of the project. Simple. Say about that JavaScript framework on the front end that you think could change. Like, actually, why do you want that? And to know if actually it's in the project interest, they got me back to the school on teaching me how do engineers speak with each other and get their mind. They'll use logic. They'll start with facts. They go down in analysis. And they come with an outcome. So their point is, before they reach out to colleagues about anything, they think anything disturbing. They're like, what makes me think it's a good thing? Do I have observation that comes up? Do I have an analysis? And can I am able to mention something good for the project? Like, you want that new framework? Why? Maybe because we're going to develop faster. Maybe we'll bring certain opportunity in our code. Maybe these new features that are coming down the line is going to be faster to develop. Like, this framework could shape the architecture more in the line of where we want the product to go. OK. But maybe it's not. Now, if you can't formulate all this when you're still thinking with yourself, because that's the question, like, we're only so smart, right? But sometimes we can't get everything right. So what? If you can't find a logic, that means probably you're just looking for fun. And to my surprise, these guys were crazy about. Now I realize I want that framework because I'm just so excited about it. But I can't find why it's good for the project. Honestly, yeah, OK. It's just because I'm passionate. And that's very true when we're in the tech world. We're so passionate. And so sometimes they acknowledge, OK, I know it's for me. I'm going to work on it on my spare time. But that doesn't make sense for the project. I know that now. What came to me, what blew me away was actually how intransigent they were about that. I can't figure out a reason. I just don't talk about it. That was the first intro and lesson. Now, let's say you find something. To you, it makes sense. At the stage you're in. Hi. Maybe I should speak integrity. It means you don't compromise with the principle you got. Somebody came up with a better definition. It's like they're really going down to the extreme of it. They won't bulge out of that. They took that principle. They apply it to themselves. That works for everyone. So it's a French word originally. And I think it passed through English, because I googled it somewhere. But I don't have the definition in my English. So, OK, you got that point. You know there's something you want to talk about. Like, OK, how do I start? And I'll share the first one I heard from them. And it got me back to my own consulting years. So I've been doing consulting since 2005. And then later on, drifted to coaching. There's one moment I realized I could do much better. If I use that simple advice, they remind me that this year's later. First, say what you mean. There's a thing people say in business. They say, are you bargaining with yourself? So the first thing that came up is I realized there was a point in my time when I was a consultant. I wasn't giving my clients my best idea. I was already thinking, compromising, and giving a melt, starting where they are. And I just stopped. You start where you are. You think about the best idea. That's the one you go for. So speak to your mind. And one of the easiest way to speak to your mind when somebody comes up, for example, with another proposition is, OK, I don't understand. I'm sorry. I don't get it. I don't understand. That's the one people think people forget to say. But basically, you start with that. Start where you are. Speak to your mind. Go ahead. And we'll come back later to that. So now you know you're going to speak up. Couple of rules, right? Because here's the point. We know sometime there's fights. Unfortunately, I watch these kind of nerd movies like Silicon Valley or startups lately. Every time they talk about tech, it's emotional. They yell at each other and everything. And it never happens in our world, right? We never get angry at each other because we don't have the same idea, right? Yeah, we do. We do totally. So a couple of healthy rules that I got. I like how one of them translated in. So you can find them in several domains, in business negotiations, things like this. But the way he mentioned it is talk about the code. Never talk about the person. And if I give an example, I push it to the extreme, right? To the extreme is that code is crap. That works. It's not very explanatory, but it works. What works less would be your code is crap. There's a UNN. And of course, the worst would be, you suck. And we know what we hated with that. So the discipline, by the way, so here I realize we're talking about skills. We develop that. That's why honestly, my only point is that people start to talk about it. Like that's all I want. Once we start to talk about the skill, how we interact, how we're great together, how we can be a better team, how we just, when we realize these are skills, it's not like you're born with it or you're not born with it. These are skills. That's why my point here is like to initiate the conversation about it. So you don't say you suck. Basically, you never go personal, ever. And I'm telling you, it's an exercise. And sometime when you're about to go into a conversation and you have this topic you want to talk about, whoever saw a code from a colleague or a partner and like you think it just sucks. Somebody? Your colleagues are so good. OK. Who kept it for herself or himself? Ryan. So sometime what you do, take the time and prepare what you're going to say. In everything about soft skill, it boils down. We think some people are natural. They show up in the room and everything is great. No, that's not how they do. Take the time, they rehearse, they review their words. It comes naturally with training like everything else. But so you take the time and you write down what's wrong about that code, what are the facts. You check that you're never talking about your code. It happens sometime, but you're reformally, the code is bad. The code is bad, the code is bad. By the way, it's a collective ownership, isn't it? In a proper team, it's not your code, my code. It's our code. So anyway, code is bad. One notice, it's the other person's job to not take it personally. Are you saying my code is bad? Get out of that trap, right? I said that code is bad because da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Don't enter the debate of the person. Stay on the code, not about the person. Well, that's a correlate you'll find in Creative Incorporated. Great book, by the way. Don't take it personally. You are not your code and you are not your ideas. So if your ideas are being trashed down, you're still a smart person. You're still a great colleague. I don't have a proper practice about that, except eventually write it somewhere. But once again, this is training and this is skills. This is why also it matters to stay in the same team for a while because you build trust. And that's how you know that you're respected by your colleagues, even though your ideas are trashed half of the time. That's actually a pretty low estimate. Okay, so let's say you enter that conversation. Hey, I think we should go. I just want to ask, what's corollary? It's, I believe, a consequence of a theorem. Something connected to a theorem, logic. Yeah, you have a theorem, like a connection between two logical prepositions. Okay, I'm going there. And corollary means if you accept the first proposition, then the second one is true. And I'm not a mathematician to define that more. I think it also connotes that they run in parallel after that. So they, after the initial connection, they are from then on separate. We're learning every day. Yeah, think about consequences. So, you raised your point. Okay, you got it. Hey, I think we should go react because, I don't know, I think it's like library versus framework, that kind of thing, not an expert. And then, no, I think it's Angular because come on, they brought the latest version actually, changed us that, and so it's better because we've been doing that and so on. And like, look, we're only so smart. At some point, we don't have all the arguments, all the facts, and sometime it's uncertain. It's too complex, we can't figure that out. And we're stuck. But first, in the middle of the debate, you came up with your thing and somebody come up with another thing like, when should you hold your position actually? Once you stick to your guns, if there is nothing new, you shouldn't change your mind. You don't have a new fact. You don't have a new logic analysis, you didn't see. There is no outcome you didn't think about. You shouldn't change your mind. And that's the thing. It's not like we're making a recipe, you put more of this, more of that and it balance one way or another. This is freaking logic. This is math. If you're an engineer, how long, how fast can go your server? Doesn't matter if it rains, doesn't matter if it's sunny. An engineer answers the same thing. If you ever work with Russians, I had a colleague who was Ukrainian, that was a delight. He wouldn't change his mind like, you want to know the truth, you ask him. And that's the point. The server's not gonna go faster because your colleagues yell at you. The user's not gonna respond differently to your product because all your colleagues have been pushing the argument onto you. It works or it doesn't. The server makes a one or a zero. We're engineers. We're not here to have a socially pleasant debate eventually. So, no new rational. You don't have a reason to change. So, yeah, peer pressure is a thing, right? And it's difficult. You ever had a boss actually asking you for your estimate on a planning? I had that. Hey, I saw what you did. So, you guys estimate it, right? So, and usually it goes for a single person, preferably not the senior one. So, you said it's gonna be 25 weeks, sort of, yeah. You sure? I see. No, I totally respect what you do, but you know we promise we're gonna go out in 17 weeks, right? And like, we, I mean, we launched the marketing campaign about that. So, would you mind revising, like checking the calculation if it's really like 25 weeks? You feel that? You've been there, you relate? Yeah, I already feel like my guts are clenching already. I know I'm a yes person, and sometimes I had to, I realize that was like personality test and all, and sometimes I tell the client once, look, if you ask me enough, I'm gonna tell you yes. I know there's something in me that I wanna please you. I won't like, keep pushing. I wanna give you the answer you want, but is it really what you want? A pleasant answer, or real answer? So, that's the thing. We're not very good at that. But the truth is, you some do some kind of agile poker planning. Yes, no, you're familiar? Okay, so basically the whole point is to organize a debate about a blank vote about how much would that feature be complicated? How difficult is that? And here's the thing. I'll actually, with friends, we've been wiping out and rebuilding something else in poker planning because it doesn't change the fact that one, you have the technical leader who vote for, yeah, this is a point of complexity. And you have the junior in the room who's like, I've put 21 and by protocol they should talk, but basically the tech senior is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, and the junior is like, yeah, you're probably right. Yeah, I must be an eight. Wrong. No element, no rational, no light cast on a new outcome. The junior is wrong. The junior has no reason to change her mind. The junior should stick to her gun. That's the law that goes beside that. And it's kind of difficult. And I have a friend actually, one of these guys I interviewed, he went, look, it's hard to exercise again that, but he has a fantastic exercise. I'll tell you later, it's one slide later. First, we talk about peer pressure. What time do I have? I will accelerate on that. There's so many reasons we're wrong. You know expertise bias, typical case. You got a performance problem on your app, the website not answering. The front end GS guy will tell you we must optimize the front end loading. The API design guy say we must optimize the dialogue with the API, because it's not optimized. And the database guys will tell you, look, I know my stuff about database. We got, I don't know, an indexing problem or we don't do it the right way. This is the bias. We focus on what we know. There's a joke about it that says like, it's the guy that is looking for his car keys at night under a lamp post. And if somebody asks, why are you looking your car keys over there? You lost them over here? No, but there is light over here. And it's a known thing and a measured thing that this is how our brain works. When we become expert, we learn to recognize some problems. So we become biased. Not easy. There's so many others, the engagement bias. Basically, you go out shopping for something that should take you 20 minutes. It's not very important. You don't find it, but there's another shop who's just five minutes later, so you check it. That's still not there. But then there's another one. And there's another one. And suddenly you are 45 minutes in it and you won't give up anymore. But if at the beginning, I would have told you, hey, it's gonna be 45 minutes looking, you'll laugh. Doesn't matter. But after that, if I tell you half an hour away, that's another shop. You're gonna go half an hour even more because you already spent 45 minutes. And in game theory, this is bad behavior. If you don't think it's worth 20 minutes, why suddenly you're ready to spend 30 more? So we wanna justify our past judgments. You can Google all that. My point is we're wrong because we're not perfect. We're not machines, social buyers, peer pressure. You mentioned that. There's many studies about it. Now, here's the thing interesting I heard about these people. How long does it take you to change your mind if you had one fact that changes one analysis or one outcome? Is it two minutes? Does it take you a weekend? Sometime it can take months. And that's the other thing that go with the absolute discipline of logic before. If suddenly the fact change, you should change your mind. Like that. And we suck at that. But what we do with that, I heard one single crazy thing. One tip I heard. I never saw that. I will tell you to keep your attention. So here's the thing. That guy was a senior developer and he had two junior in his teams. So every day he gave them one exercise. You find in my code two mistakes that are made and you tell me how they should change. So at first I was like, wow, he's training the younglings to actually speak up. And I just realized what I was looking at my notes. No, that's not only a training for them. That's a training for him. Every single day he's keeping himself accustomed to being contradicted by two people against all say, social peer pressure. All the things he may have to think that no less than him, he has ten times more experience than them. Anyhow, he learns and we learn to hear about his mistakes from anyone. That's blue maman. That's the only one I heard that came up with something to actually, how to train yourself to be wrong. There are other ways to be like, how to train yourself in a team. Moving on. So you went to that and now positions are blocked. So what do you do when positions are blocked? Because there's only so many arguments and all. And there's a moment when you say, look, make me change my mind. Nope. But at the same time I see your point, I can't make you change your mind. So what do we do now? And the one that comes from one of the most stubborn born, stubborn guy in the world Steve Jobs, just at some point, you knew that if you stand your gun with him and say, look, I trust your passion. You seem to have something. We try. Try it out. And that's what we do as engineers. When we stick, we try and we learn. We have these things like spikes, for example, in a jar and stuff like this. So when to stick to your guns, when to change your mind and you gotta be as good as that as discipline on the other way. And then learn to move forward. Yeah, Google this. Assertivity, how to stay in your own story when you're debating with someone. You'll Google that. This is Google Assertivity. You'll find a lot of things about that in a more broader context. Oh, I have four minutes, 29 seconds. Oh, you guys have questions? Okay. All right. One advice though. If you saw one of these movies when somebody writes something underground, he writes a super report. He's about to be fired. The big boss read the report because it went through the internet mail. And the big boss is like, this is, is that real? My God, send me the guy who did that. We must change everything. Yeah, it never happened. That's how it works. If people don't agree on the problem with you, they don't agree on the solution with you. I had even like guys who had, who were the senior in their team, tech leaders, official presenting prototypes of a new thing they wanted to try. They did it on their own and then they show up to the team. The answer is always, as far as I heard, like, thank you for your R&D. That was nice. And then they go their own way. You got to get the people with you, even though it's going to be for symbol. You got to start with them by something like, hey, Mary is a counterpoint. You got to ask permission. Mary is a counterpoint. Sometimes you just go like, okay, can I be blunt? And people will actually say yes, but the point is they're prepared to accept. And then you point, I'd like to try this. What do you think about that? Then you can try something new. But blurping out something already made for them without a discussion of it, never worked. You're going down against everyone. Remember, they're on their side. They're one fact. They're one outcome. They're one analysis. They want to be part of that. And you wait for the yes, of course. When you ask for something. Because you know silence doesn't mean yes. Yes? Sound like a no. All right, quick one to finish it off. One thing that helps is to go with self-awareness. That comes. You got to know your bias. You got to know your preferences. I told you one of mine. I know I'm kind of a yes person. By default, I want to say yes to things. Some people are the other way. By default, they will refuse. Here's the point. You got many personality tests, but my secret is just pick one. What will happen with you is, you're going to learn about yourself. That's one. It doesn't matter what the test says. It's going to make you think about yourself. But the one, two thing that will come is, it will teach you simply put that you will realize everybody's different and you're different. And knowing this usually solves must of the arguments and misunderstanding between people. All the thing, all the way you have the preconception, the belief, the reflex, the bias, that's your combination. But not everybody share it. And just that makes you cool down and realize, okay, it's not against you. It's not personal. It's just we all come from where we come from. And if you understand that confrontation actually is the source of progress, that means to me the power of the team comes from its diversity. Thank you. And now comes the fun part. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, that was awesome. So thanks a lot for raising up this topic. So we're going to open the floor for a Q&A. In case you guys don't have questions yet, we also prepared some things for you. Are you ready for this? Yeah, but if you don't, I have exercise for the room, so shoot first. Well, okay. You talked about, I agree with your feedback and the language that you use when you're actually confronting an opinion. But I don't believe that it's a right and a wrong answer or right and a wrong opinion. Most confrontations are a negotiation. Meet me halfway, especially when it comes to estimates. What is it right? I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, especially when you talk about architectures, probably yes, technology selections, probably yes. But it comes to team dynamics, how teams should be structured, estimates. I don't think it's a right or wrong answer. What I care more about is, meet me halfway means give me an answer you don't trust. That's when I'm afraid. I've been in the inestimate hell, right? When you look back and you say, I knew it, why did I just say that? I knew it. I saw my margin of error. I gave it my best shot. And my best shot is my best shot. And without any new element, I just met with the halfway. And here we are, working late or having calls from the boss because it's a nightmare. So what I learned from that, let me say, is to treat that less as a negotiation and more a debate and a discussion. The problem is, I mean, negotiations actually use a lot of things like this. A lot of these codes are found in books that never split the difference or getting to yes and things like this. Getting people with your problems, deconstructing what actually are the thinking behind them, but then meet me halfway. Actually, if I go to negotiation, there's a book called Never Split the Difference. It's a fantasy. It's been written by people who deal with hostage negotiation. So this is where they don't want to like just kill half of the hostages and give us the other one. And I think it goes back to that also, is meet me halfway. Yes, but in the end, there are going to be facts and things. So why would you go halfway if you did give your best thinking at the beginning? So I don't say it's wrong and social dynamic doesn't matter. It's more about, yeah, but if you had a reason to think so, why made you change your mind? If suddenly you give me half the thing and I'm a smart boss pressuring you, I should hear that, wait, wait, wait, wait. What changed your mind? Just because I pressured you, but it doesn't make it more real. You're not going to code faster. The feature is not going to be better. Like, unless you tell me, yeah, if we do this and that and we remove half of your scope and I don't know your reason. But without the thinking behind it, in the end, the universe will go on and go with like gravity will apply. That's more my thinking. And then I never split the difference, which is a good, actually a good thinking book, yeah. I'm going to go around giving the mic. So actually the exercise is going to make people talk, but it depends how many minutes you've got. Give me a number. Oh my God, that's a plenty. All right, here's the thing. As I say, my point is to start a conversation. So what I would like is like you guys going back up free examples of the moments, you actually, one of these case like you backed out. You didn't say what you mean. You didn't follow or eventually turn bad. And examine with the group actually, how? Okay. How could you do differently? Maybe not about something that you had in the talk. Maybe an advice that people also pick one case. So one, go by group of three. Two, share a couple of case. We're going to give us two minutes for that. And then pick one case and try to figure out you guys how to do differently, right? You would make my day. So, gathering group of three. It's better if you don't know each other, by the way. Oh, I'm pretty sure you guys can figure that out. Just move your ass. All right, I give you two minutes. Pick a case. I want to see all the people talking. I want to see all the people talking. Video. Be shy with me. Yeah, be shy with me. No, but your face is... It's all good. All right. So, did you start exchanging about your cases? Part two. Pick one of the case. And now the thing for the last three minutes is how could you do differently? What would you do differently? Pick one of the case and the two other person actually say, helping consulting the best. Talk about the code, not about the person. By the way, you're not your behavior either. So, you can talk about maybe you should do that, maybe that doesn't mean you suck, right? Maybe when you did that, it made this. These are still just actions of the person. So, pick one of the case and the two other one try to figure out, hey, how could it be done differently? I will phrase myself. How could it be done differently? Right? Okay. And if you find your answer quickly, switch to another case. Three minutes. So, that's the balance. So, the exercise was, what do you think should be done? What institute might be? What do you think should be done in this case? I think it's okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. That doesn't work. Thank you. On the interest of the night, I will keep moving. I hope that was useful. Honestly, this is what I want. You don't need me to have this conversation. That's my whole point. What I love the most about Meetup usually is the third time. You know, the drinks afterward. This is where you can have that. If you don't feel comfortable talking about it in large crowd, it's okay to just be a couple of guys or pick a stranger and you feel less of the judgment sometime. But this is all I want. These are skills. We can work on that. You can get better over time. That's all I want. Thank you very much. I'm Gio. I'm an agile coach. I provide transformation strategy, agile coaching for teams and trainings for regular companies and for startups. Thank you very much.