The Costs of Emotional Immaturity

I was following the XHEO controversy recently on Ayende's blog when I happened upon a comment instructing the XHEO executive to learn something about customer service from Joel Spolsky. I find Joel to be hit and miss, especially when it comes to technical content and workspace layout. However, his entry on customer service is spot on. In particular I find the following passage very important:

“Ah. It’s my fault,” he said.
And suddenly, I wasn’t mad at all.
Mysteriously, the words “it’s my fault” completely defused me. That was all it took.

For some reason, some adults have a very difficult time admitting they are wrong, especially in front of a group. This is perplexing, all people make mistakes, to not admit when one is wrong is delusional, and therefore I would argue immature and unprofessional. Stubbornly holding a position against a group of adults who know that the offender is attempting to save face instead of arrive at the best solution is not a good way to earn the respect of those in the room, regardless of age, tenure, or rank.

Not only is it a sure way to lose respect, it is a timesink. When such an incident happens in a meeting, the offender generally must be pulled aside individually so their ego can be placated in a one-on-one environment. Then a third meeting must be called with the original group where the original solution is covered again, except the offender does not raise any objections this time, thereby demonstrating consensus. This is a waste of two entire meetings and everyone's time who has to attend. All because one person isn't comfortable publicly admitting they are human.

These timesinks add up over time. My current group doesn't experience this problem at all, and our velocity is noticeably higher than groups that refuse to mitigate the problem. The culture is to admit when one is wrong, publically if that happens to be the context at the time, as soon as one realizes it. We work on very difficult problems, leading people to be wrong frequently. This is expected, and because everyone in the group is emotionally mature enough to admit it immediately, we discard subpar solutions as quickly as possible. If anything, we all respect each other more because we readily admit when we are wrong.

Not every discipline has this luxury. Software development is a fairly objective area of study. CPU and memory footprint, testability, and maintainability are all measurable, so long as the group agrees on the definitions. Leverage the relative objectivity of software development to your advantage. Encourage a scientific culture, one where skepticism, dissent, falsifiability and correctness are emphasized above shielding everyone's inner child. Next time someone proves your stance incorrect logically or empirically, think twice before arguing from emotion. It might save the group time and increase your respectability amongst coworkers.