Bad Days, Ownership and the Next Action

I remember standing in an office in Australia, looking out to a large team in a standup circle. One by one we were reporting key highlights and blockers. I heard an engineer reporting out that he was using an open source project (that millions of people successfully use) and It was… Terrible! The docs were bad. Nothing works!

I thought about this for a second. Millions of people seem to think this library works. They scrutinize and write about it every day. What are the chances that it is genuinely bad? It’s possible. What are the chances it’s us? More likely.

This realization wasn’t groundbreaking. Someone struggled to use a tool they were not familiar with, and blamed the tool. The problematic part, was I knew at the time, I was a serial complainer. This could have been me. It’s a reflex to reshape the truth and feel mentally protected by deflecting blame.

So what did I do with this realization? I wasn’t sure I could stop complaining. In those tired moments, we are not at our best. I thought about it differently. I committed myself to a mental tripwire. If I hear myself complain, then I will make the next action count. I might be known as someone who vents but the lasting impression I will leave will be what I plan to do about it. I practiced this with growing success for some time. The documentation sucks!… but I am going to fix it today. The library doesn’t work! Actually, I think I need to review the docs more.

When I joined big tech, I learned about a missing piece. [[Big ownership]]. For every time I felt that complaint coming on, I now wanted another mental tripwire. I wanted to stretch my ownership. How was this my fault? Did I contribute to this? With others being involved, we are partners, and what did we miss?

With this I had a more complete way of challenging complaints. Frustrations are a signal that something is wrong and shouldn’t be ignored. How we handle those next steps can be improved. Have I stopped complaining ever since? No. There are moments when I continue to let out frustrations. When I do though, I hear myself and feel those mental triggers. What is the next action that counts? How was I part of the problem, and what will I do about it?