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Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

I speak up fairly often. I offer my opinion on things and offer my own ideas.

I'm still trying to learn to keep my mouth shut. Speaking up is detrimental unless it conforms to the existing group (really leader) sentiment.

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I think it's great that you speak up. Your ideas may be incongruous with the current conversation or too black and white when there is a lot of grey beneath the surface. Work on reducing your general level of stress and people will likely be more receptive to your ideas.

"too black and white when there is a lot of grey"

Actually, I tend to be the one advocating for the grey area solutions. I think in the West we have too much emphasis on one of two opposing solutions being the complete and correct answer, when the best option is probably some amalgamation of the best parts of both ideas.

I've done it often enough and had things work out well, but you do have to know your audience and pick your battles. If no amount of reasonable conversation is going to change something, even if it is very obviously wrong, you have to let it go.

It may help to put yourself in the mindset of your group leader, and figure out how to present your feedback as assisting with their problems and priorities. I’ve heard “junior engineers bring me problems, senior engineers bring me solutions.”

I understand that. The impression I've gotten is that the managers got where they were by going with the flow. They don't care about ideas that come from below unless they align with an existing mandate from above. I mean, if you're making that kind of money, it pays not to rock the boat, even if it's beneficial, when the person above you holds all the power.

The other issue is how do I tell if it aligns with what they want? There's so much salesmanship in the leadership talks at large companies. I've brought in suggestions that clearly aligned with stuff stated in those sorts of meetings, only to have it basically ignored. With some of it I was able to find out from friends that the real goal behind the scenes was completely different.

I generally only bring up problems if there is a solution for it. Otherwise it's just complaining, which I still do but not to my boss.

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