- Lack of sense of humor - appropriate jokes make communication more pleasant and as a result more effective. No one wants to work with a robot or worse, a person got triggered by a harmless joke.
- Being defensive - feedback is necessary to grow and defensiveness prevents from accepting & addressing the feedback and consequently from the growth.
- Vindictiveness - sometimes people do offend you but in 99% it's unintentional. Either way, going berserk after them will prevent you from the actual work, worsen the communication and overall productivity of you, the team and everyone else involved.
- Absence of self-irony - we are human and occasionally we make stupid mistakes. The presence of self-irony allows to recognize the situation, joke about it and move forward with a good mood.
- Lack of self-reflection - one who wants to grow must reflect on both what he did & what feedback he got. Going back to this in a month, 3 months, 6 months gives you a different perspective and provides helpful insights. It's like a great book - to fully grasp it you read it the second & third time.
All the great engineers I worked with have excellent sense of humor & self-irony, they never defensive and they regularly reflect on their own performance & development. They appreciate the feedback & strive to address it.
Anything I missed?
Top comments (5)
Great post. I would also add "Arrogance". I think most developers are intellectually gifted in some way and so some of them try way too hard to sound smart and to be correct every single time.
Great post ⭐️
Thanks for sharing this! It's important to not just be a good engineer, but a good person as well.
Incuriosity - blind wrote learning and unquestioning acceptance will leave you without a true understanding of how stuff actually works
More to add in my to do list on personal growth!