Navigating Difficult Conversations

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the developer podcast where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well hello and welcome back. We are Building Better Developers. We are in the middle of actually towards the end of the the sunset, the fall of the season on Building Better Habits. Getting towards the end of this episode, we are going to talk about difficult conversations. One that is not a difficult conversation is me introducing myself. So this is Building Better Developers. This is a developer podcast, which originally was developed and moved to Building Better Developers. Now that seems to be more like we're switching our headliner and our secondary title as things go on. But my title is always has been for a long time, Rob Brodhead. I am one of the founders of Develop-a-Nor, also a founder of RB Consulting, where we are a, what do they call a boutique consulting company. We go in, we help organizations utilize technology better, whether it's what they have, whether it's what is out there, you know, sort of reigning in their technology sprawl because we have too many devices, too many options, too many applications. There's an application for that becomes ad nauseum at times. And so through simplification, automation, innovation, integration, and lots of other shuns that are out there, we find ways for you to make the best use of technology. We help craft a recipe for success for you that is specific to your business. So that's why we sit down, we talk about what are your goals? What are your plans? Where are you at? Where do you want to be? And then we help you find the best tools, the best approach for that, even the best team. We can help you wherever you are at. We meet you where we're at and we help like jump in the car with you for that ride into the future. Good things, bad things. Let's see. Oh, bad. Some people think this is a good thing, bad thing. Because of temperatures and my wife was sick for a while and stuff like that, this year has started with us eating out a lot. We've done a lot more. We've gotten back into this sort of habit of like, ah, we'll just get something quick. We'll get something quick. We'll get something quick. It's really a good thing because I have like now I'm not where I was weight wise and health wise and a couple other things. The good part of that is now I am craving like, I don't know, a piece of celery or something that's not like fatty, gross type of stuff. I will still have my slice of pizza and stuff like that. But also there's a part of me that my body is like, I would love just a nice simple home cooked meal again. So that kind of stuff just tastes really good to me right now. So I think that would be the good thing. In the world of habits, I would like to say there's so many out there that have been really good and I'm just going to take them as a whole. Because last episode I talked a little bit about how the joyful one, like doing the stuff that I enjoy very much has sort of overlaps the automation and some of that kind of, the process improvement challenge. I would say like this almost like a little mini challenge is take a look back at this season and look at all the challenges that we've got and try to like combine them to roll them up to summarize them because there's a lot of that that I have done. I've taken a lot of these because we're now, you know, we've got 20 plus habits and challenges that we've talked about. But if you look at it, you can actually find a way to condense those down to a few changes here and there. And as I look at my schedule, that's what I've done. There's probably only, you know, an impact of a half hour to an hour a day that I've done that has dramatically changed up. In that hour, I've earned that back easily. It's like the ROI on that invested time is more than worth it. So I would just say like take a look at what's out there and see where you can maybe combine two or three of those into one step and just really like turbocharge your better habits and becoming a better developer. Now, I'm just going to go toss this one off to Michael, let him introduce himself. Hey, everyone, my name is Michael Mollosch. I'm one of the co-founders of Building Better Developers, otherwise known as DevOpNR. I'm also the founder of Envision QA, where we help businesses understand what they have for technology. If you find yourself looking at your business and struggling with your business because the software you're using makes your business or makes your tasks more difficult, come talk to us. We will help you figure out a better way to do things. We will help you streamline your business and make the technology work for you, not against you. Good and bad. Good. I'm actually going to combine our habits with my good and bad. So the good is because I've been able to kind of break things down a little bit and stick with kind of doing things that I enjoy. I have finally completed probably 95 percent of the books by Brandon Sanderson over the course of a year and a half. It has taken a very long time to get through it, but about an hour a day, especially the last book that came out in November, it was 65 hours for an audiobook. That is massive for when you consume books that are typical audiobooks of eight hours a book. This is eight books crammed into one. It was massive, but I couldn't stop listening to it. So all through the holidays, it's like, listen, listen, listen. Finally got through it. Almost. I've got like two books left of what he's written in and then that's kind of the bad thing. Now it's like, I got to figure out what the heck I want to listen to next because I'm running out of content because he hasn't finished the next round of books. The other bad thing was he ended the current book with, oh, by the way, this was book five, six through 10 will continue the story. It's like it took you like a year and a half, two years to write this last one. Come on, five more books. It's like Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It took forever and we almost never got the end of that. So anyway, that's my good and bad. I will follow up real quickly on that one is like, yes, I just finished. I think I talked about that. I finished the scenario series like 40 something books or whatever earlier this year. And it was really odd for me to like, OK, now I got to find another big series to get into before I started into the Shinar books. This is something that's like I think half the books are out of print, but there is a I think it was the guys, the guy and the gal. I think there was a guy and a gal that did way back in the day did the Dragonlance series of stuff. This is originally came out, I think, in the 80s and then ended in the 90s and stuff. They also did one called the Death Gate Cycle, which is an interesting. It's a seven book series, which was really interesting the way they did it, because the first four books basically set up the last three books. And so it was like it was really it's like it's four books full of like universe building stuff, world building stuff. And then the final three was the actual story. So it was like an interesting little thing, very different, a lot of little different kind of concepts of interesting characters. It was it's one of those, if you want, like a short series of seven books, go for it. Audio book wise. If you ever want to do like if you want to have like an enjoyable, but like take a couple of years is actually go through the audio books of the Harry Potter series. The guy that does that, Dale, what's his name? I can't think of his last name is the best of all the audio books. He is the best of doing non or doing fiction audio books. Does a great job with it. They are long. It is. I don't know. It's probably 200 hours of stuff or something like that. There's a lot there, but they're all in a bridge. And it really is. It's a good series. Now let's get back on track. As we've had some easy conversations, we're talking about difficult conversations this time around. What is a difficult conversation? I will say a difficult conversation is anything that gives you pause, anything that makes you feel a little stress. When we talk about getting things done and being productive, we talk about eating the frog. We talk about that thing that you don't want to do. If a conversation is that thing you don't want to do, that you're worried about, that you're not sure how it's going, all of those kinds of stressors, then that is a difficult conversation. Now, some difficult conversations are difficult for everybody. Things like having a raise or getting married or getting divorced or having children or a lot of time money. If it's like a negative kind of money conversation, if it's a like, how do I pay this bill because I can't pay that bill? It may be a conversation around like exercise because you're out of shape and you need to figure out a way to get into shape or something. We all have our things we like and the things we don't like. Difficult conversations are going to be more around what we don't like or where we assume that something is going to be, that it's going to be a difficult conversation, that it's going to be pushback, that we're going to be have some emotional aspect to it or something like that. Now, the first thing in difficult conversations that I want to say is that we assume that is a very key thing that I have found in the difficult conversations and actually even in the difficult jobs that we have on our plate is that a lot of times we think, we assume, we presuppose that it's going to go a certain way. Sometimes that is not the case. For example, you may be sitting there going, gosh, I've got to talk to my boss about getting a raise. I haven't gotten a raise. I need a raise. I need to talk to them. And you're thinking, gosh, I'm going to have to go in there. I'm going to have to like build a case for it. They're going to push back. I'm going to have to like haggle about where we get it and all this kind of stuff, it's going to take me days to go through this conversation with them. And that could be the case, or it could be the case that you go in and you say, Hey, I'd like a raise. And your boss says, you know what? You're right. I, we haven't gotten you a raise yet. We will put it in the next paycheck and it's a 10% raise or whatever it is. I have had those things go that way. I've had conversations where I'm like really worried about this. And it goes great. I, I will, I will be totally transplant. Most, uh, demo calls with a customer when I'm going to demonstrate software, when I'm showing them like, here's where we're at a status call and stuff like that. Most of those, I have some level of trepidation because I'm like, ah, they're not, cause they're going to see it like I do, I think, and they're going to be like, Oh, there's that little bug or there's that little thing or there's, I look at it as where was all these places that I could have done it better for them. And it very often, like over nine times out of 10, probably 99 times out of a hundred, we get out of it and they are very pleased. They're like, yes, this is like, this is where we want to go. We're on track. You know, all of that good stuff. And it's not that I'm freaking out or losing sleep over it, but it is the stuff where it's like, I don't think this is necessarily going to go super smooth. And usually it does. And not only does it go super smooth, a lot of times it's like, Hey, and here's some additional stuff that we want to do and here's how we're going to move forward. And so it really like it unblocks things. It frees me up to start into the next phase of stuff. And that's a key thing about difficult conversations is usually they are blockers. Usually you have to go through that conversation to get to something else. So for example, a difficult conversation, maybe selling a project to somebody or selling somebody on a side hustle or going to an interview and getting a job. Like you can't get the job without going through the interview process. And so sometimes that, you know, that's like, that's a difficult conversation. And there's things like that where it's like, I'm going to have to go change the scope of this because we miss something. I have to, I have to say that, Hey, we, we have a hole in the design. And we've got to make some adjustments to the customer. Well, we can't move forward until we've notified them and we can move forward on it. So difficult conversations while they are being stressors, they're also things like, I think this is key is the two things are realizing that you're assuming that it's not going to go bad. So it may actually not be that bad, but more importantly, these are blockers. You have to go through it. It will stop you until you have that conversation. And now I'm blocking Michael right now. So I'm going to let him talk about this for a little bit before we swing back around on the challenge. Yeah. So it's funny. This actually kind of gets back around to our, uh, anxiety, uh, and stressor conversation we had a couple of weeks ago is this is kind of what drives a lot of people's what ifs, this drives people's anxiety because you get in your head and you come into, um, conversations or you come into situations with a free assumption as to what the conversation is going to be about or how it's going to go, or you think it's going to go one way. So you plan for another way. It's very hard to kind of break out of that and have that conversation. Uh, you know, for instance, you know, what if you lose a job? How do you come home and tell your family? If you're married, that, you know, you don't have an income anymore. How are you going to handle the situation? And interestingly enough, the antidotes to a lot of these situations, like the difficult conversations are almost similar to dealing with anxiety. You want to walk into some of these difficult conversations with more of an open mind, less of a pre conception of how it's going to go, but in order to do that, you have to kind of self check yourself. It's like, Oh, make a list of what it is that is hard for you. What is it that's bugging you? What's on your mind that you can't seem to talk about? Cause a lot of times when you're dwell on these things and when you're thinking about it, it's usually one or two things, you know, it could be money. Hey, how am I going to pay the bills this month? Or, Hey, you know, it's cold. So the electric bills up a hundred or $200 because he had to run the heat more. So now it's like, where are you going to cut the, uh, the fat? Sometimes there's nothing you can do about it. It's like, okay, Hey, we just need to cut back a little bit or where can we pivot? But what you do is instead of coming in with problems, come in with solutions. It's like, Hey, I have an idea on how to solve this, but before you even try to solve it, talk about it, because maybe it's not a problem at all. Maybe it's like, Oh, Oh, we'll just do this or Hey, it's not a big deal. Or Hey, this isn't as difficult as you're making it out to be. A lot of times are difficult conversations are us. There are preconceived notions as to our blockers, you know, these are things we have problems dealing with sometimes, not necessarily the conversations themselves. So having a difficult conversation, like Rob said about, you know, going in and talking about arrays, things like that. Sometimes heck, when I go for job interviews, if I'm not sure I'm ready to change jobs or Hey, I know things are getting difficult in the job I'm in. Sometimes I will just go out, talk to a recruiter, maybe take the first job that comes along, go and have an interview. I haven't interviewed in years. So it's like, you know, let's just go see what this process is like instead of, Oh my God, I need to plan. I need to prepare. I need to overthink that just go do it. Sometimes just doing it breaks all the barriers. It's like, Oh, that wasn't so hard. Or, Oh my God, I don't remember half the stuff I'm supposed to do. Okay. Now I need to go prepare. Now you prepare for the next situation. Not sometimes it's just jump in, you know, jump in feet first, have that difficult conversation, but it is, it's a stressor, it will bother you. It'll make you think about it for a while. And if you do find yourself in that situation, pause, write it down, maybe go back to the anxiety episode and listen to some of the tips and tricks we did. They are also apply here. So if you find yourself avoiding something, cut the fat, rip the bandage off, do it first, do it now, have it as soon as you can. Now, great. If it's a divorce, he might want to play in a little bit, but in most situations, most difficult conversations are all in the person's head about it being difficult. Now that's mainly in the software world. Now in our personal lives, that could be a totally different bag of worms. I get it. But when we think business, when we think software, when we think our typical daily lives, most difficult conversations are just us afraid to talk about something because we're either afraid of being seen in a bad light that we have messed up and it's just a preconception that we need to break and just go for it. Just get it out there, have that conversation. If it does become difficult, work through it. Or if it blows up, pause, you know, see if you can say, okay, that was as bad as I thought it was, but then now you know, and now you can kind of damage control or, or work your way through the problem. Now I think, I want to dive into this as a little bit of the, yeah, is that last of it is like, sometimes there's a little bit of it is going to be bad. And so there's like, you know, you got to do your damage control and stuff like that. And so I want to give, I do want to give a couple of like recommendations of this is one, when you go into a difficult conversation is try not to dictate too much where that goes, because you've spent some time in your head, you've thought about this for a while, you have an approach. Now it may be that you need to start with your approach, but I have found a lot of times that that is not necessarily the way is that what you want to do is you actually are going to be better off opening that conversation up with something like, Hey, we need to talk about this. This is an issue. What do you think? Or what would, what's a solution for you? If you throw that to the other person, that allows them to set the table a little bit. And this is where our assumptions and our, all of the different things that we have in our head that we think is how this is going to go can actually like trip us up. They can cause us problems because we jump in this conversation with all these preconceived notions and they end up being not correct at all. And maybe along the way, we sort of, we screw ourselves up by setting the stage with stuff where people are like, well, I didn't know that. Like that's not it. It's like, as an example, I had a police buddy years ago, a detective, and he said, you would be amazed at how often we pull up to something and people basically convict themselves talking to us. He's like, they are, they're like, he's like, all we do is we sit there and listen and we'll throw like one or two things out. And it's amazing how often people will just like, they'll trip themselves up because they know there's a, like, especially guilty people. This is like, you know, you're guilty. You know that this is a difficult conversation. And so you start like making excuses when they may not have even known that that was that you were guilty. And so there's things like that, that like, don't go in with your preconceived notions, open it up and let them talk to you because that actually will help you gauge better than what you did in your head, how difficult or not the conversation is going to be. Now, if it is something where you're like, I screwed up massively and I know I've got to talk to my boss about it. Then start with just, I screwed up massively. This is what happened. This is what, and like, ideally with that kind of situation, like this is what I'm doing to resolve it. And maybe this is how I have decided I'm not going, you know, this is what I think I can do to avoid this in the future. But even then, I think you can start with just the, I screwed up. This is a resolution that I'm working on or that I'm proposing. And then just leave it at that for a second. Now you may get chewed out for a while. Take it just like, okay, because however you get chewed out, most likely is not as bad as you've chewed yourself out in your head thinking about it. Not only that, it is like, you probably have chewed yourself out on a daily basis since that thing occurred. So it's better to just like get it done, get it over with, move forward. And now you don't have to worry about it anymore because it's, it's like worry. Somebody, I don't remember. I wish I could properly, you know, give the right credit to this, but somebody referred to worrying as suffering the same pain twice because you suffer it. You worry about it and then you suffer through it then, but then when it actually occurs, you suffer through it at that point. Now, sometimes we invent worries. We invent things that are not suffering and we suffer for no reason. So that's why these difficult conversations are the things we need to go through. But also probably more importantly is that these block us from moving forward. And when we're blocked, it's just not, is not helpful. We're not going to, if we can open stuff up, then we could get a lot more done. We could be more effective. We can be better developers. We can be better human beings. So I want to dive right into the challenge for this one. The challenge for this, for the next seven days is each day, start the day. Do I have a difficult conversation ahead of me? If so schedule it as soon as possible. Now, Michael referred to, there's like, there's sometimes like you need to read the room and you need to like, you know, especially in personal stuff and things like that, there's things where it's like, you need to let emotions go through it. Like there needs to be some sort of process. But if there's something that's to that point where the next step is have a conversation, get that done sooner rather than later. If there's something you've been putting off for a while, then put it on your calendar today, tomorrow, this week, something like that. And that's, that's as simple as it is, is take the difficult conversations and pull them forward. Do them as soon as possible. Now I will be like just one warning. If you've got a lot piled up, don't do it all in one day, or if you do just like buckle up because it's going to be like, no, that at the end of the day, you're going to need an adult beverage or six to like get through it and there I have had those because sometimes, you know, you just like the schedule works out. It's like, it's been, you know, it's going to be a long day and you were right. It was a long day, but at least then you're done with it. And the next day is going to be better. I would also challenge you to send us an email just cause because, Hey, we've been asking for it for way too long and we don't get near enough emails based on how often I ask for emails. So shoot us an email at info at developer.com. Check us out on the developer channel on YouTube. You can, wherever you do podcasts, you can leave us, you know, reviews and comments there, we would love to get them there. There's just so many ways that you can reach us. There's just no excuse to not give us your thought. Give us your two cents. And if this is your difficult conversation, trust me, it's not going to be that difficult. We will send you like love and adoration and all that kind of stuff afterwards. After you've sent us some sort of feedback, even if your feedback is you guys suck, Hey, we will send you a thank you card of some sort, even if it's a virtual one. That being said, it's time for us to wrap this one up. Not the season. We've got plenty more, not so difficult conversations in our future as we wrap this one up, but until then go out there and have yourself a great day. A great week. We will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to building better developers to develop a new podcast. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success.