“Hello, nice to meet you.”
Seemingly insignificant words, but coupled with a charming smile and a firm handshake they will make a good first impression to someone you meet for the first time.
Do the exact same thing with, let’s say a police officer, which just has stopped you for a control. It will at least be super weird if it does not get you into trouble.
This is just one of a myriad of examples about why communication is circumstantial.
So why the tag DevOps?
Because communication with people is a key element of solving the complex problems we are facing each day. And adapting a DevOps mindset will demand even more communication than the agile movement already did.
Back when I started my IT career coders were mostly introverts, or in a more ugly term “basement dwellers”. This has changed a lot in the last two decades. Still, from my experience, there are some common misconceptions that IT people have about communication.
1) Emotions are distracting, facts are sacred.
Life would be so easy if a fact would always hold the same value. But the truth is that the mood of someone presenting something is extremely important. Maybe that person is distracted, because of a very bad event and as a result is even giving false statements. Or a cocky junior developer challenges a disgruntled senior, who in turn will use condescending language, diluting the truth of the statements. In any knowledge transfer of any sorts you have to really understand the involved emotions, if you want to get to the essence of the facts.
2) Truth is obvious.
The best way to present data is just the numbers, without any explanation. Any person intelligent enough to understand the data should always arrive at the same conclusions. (Sarcasm off) A scientific research paper would only consist of the results section, if it would be this easy. Of course there will be an abstract, an introduction, a methodology description, a discussion and a conclusion section. If not even more parts. You have to consider the possible audience which will receive the data and adapt the presentation of the data accordingly.
3) Manipulation is evil.
While being ethically correct, this mindset is extremely dangerous. Technically every word in a communication is controlling how the recipient will receive the information. So it is extremely complicated to present something in a true neutral manner. To be aware how to manipulate people is rewarding in multiple ways. For one you can spot more easily when people try to manipulate you, also you will understand how you are influencing others. With this knowledge you can more easily force people to look at the facts from different sides. Yes it sounds weird, but you can manipulate people into making more informed decisions. Isn’t it marvelous?
In my opinion it is part of the DevOps objective to strengthen the soft skills and the emotional intelligence. Through this we can create better functioning teams, increase inter-departmental information flow and reach company wide situation awareness.
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