Issue #39

I’m The Idiot In The Room

People constantly ask me to review documents they’ve written. Sometimes, it’s within my organization, where I support over 400 engineers, or it’s from individuals within the broader Prime Video organization. This organization consists of several thousand engineers who might bring me things.

And I usually don’t know anything about what they’re bringing me before the meeting.

It’s not that I’m incompetent; it’s because there’s so much going on that I can’t possibly keep everything in my head and updated.

The best documents are ones where all terms and necessary context are spelled out at the beginning. But if the document is in its early stages, or to be honest, if it’s poorly written, critical context may be missing, which will affect how much I can help folks.

It doesn’t make sense to proceed if you don’t understand the basic concepts required to comprehend the substance of a large, likely complicated, and nuanced technical document.

If I’m reviewing a document in a one-on-one meeting or during my office hours, it’s simple to ask the author to explain themselves. These are casual conversations, and it’s not a big deal.

But when you’re in a meeting with senior individuals, whether that means senior engineers, a group of principal engineers, or perhaps directors and VPs, I’ve noticed that people are much more reluctant to speak up when they don’t understand fundamental concepts.

Nobody wants to look like an idiot in front of senior folks.

So, people remain silent during meetings. As a result, they may struggle to contribute meaningfully due to a lack of critical context. If they do speak up, their comments might not make sense or, worse, they might come across as incompetent.

How do you speak up in a way that doesn’t make you sound dumb that you don’t understand?

If you’re reviewing something and you don’t understand a term, phrase, or concept near the beginning, say this, either in the chat if you are working virtually, or out loud: “Hey Steve, what does XYZ mean? If it’s going to take a long time to explain, or I’m the only one who doesn’t know about it, can you send a link so I can understand?”

The work that documents do in a business setting is to demonstrate clarity of thought. What you will find, 9 times out of 10, is that when you speak up, other people will chime in to state that they have the same question.

Asking these questions is really good feedback for the author. When writing documents, it’s always a challenge to understand what readers know, and so they proceed with some set of assumptions. Asking basic questions early is a form of feedback.

This will be validating if the senior folks in the room, like a VP, have the same question. You will, counterintuitively, gain a reputation for giving great feedback.

Make sure to speak up early. The longer you wait, the more the conversation will have to backtrack, and the higher the likelihood that your question will be disruptive to the ongoing conversation.

The analogy I use is when you forget someone’s name whom you’ve met before. The longer you talk to them without asking, “I’m so sorry, what’s your name again? I should know this,” the more awkward it will be when you finally need to ask.

This skill is something that I’ve noticed in all high-level technical leaders.

You can’t talk about the complicated stuff until you understand the basics. And so they resist moving the conversation forward until they understand what they are talking about. In the process, they demonstrate presence, active reading comprehension, and clarity of thought, all by speaking up about their ignorance.

And so, no matter the setting, I try to be the idiot in the room. Because if you can’t explain it to this idiot, you may not be expressing your ideas as well as you could be.

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