Reponse to ‘Dear Silver Bullet Seeker’

Written by Jamie Friday, 08 October 2010 10:33

I woke just after six this morning and, I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I checked my email, our web-stats, and our Twitter account. 

There was nothing interesting, but out the corner of my eye I saw this tweet.

RT @erwilleke: So negative and soul-draining, yet all too often accurate. *sigh* http://bit.ly/aYbSOM [makes me smile. so accurate]

I clicked on the link.  The piece was called ‘Dear Silver Bullet Seeker’.  I read on.

I enjoyed the piece.  The problem, however, and this can be elevated to the agile community as a whole, is that blogs, arguments, etc., that serve to divide really only serve to make someone feel good.  If everybody else is wrong and we are right then, whoah, what a shot in the arm that is, what a boost to our esteem.  Essentially, the community is now (largely) made up of sycophants, none of who dare question the status quo and many of who are suffering, terminally, from confirmation bias: they seek evidence that confirms their existence whilst seeking to silence the new heretics.  Like all bullies, then, they seek that confirmation by laughing, like Nelson from the Simpsons - ha ha - at anyone they perceive to be weaker or stupider than themselves.  This just won't do.

I remember my first days at university, those geeks were clever, and aggressive, and, sometimes, misogynistic.  The young men on the course, bizarrely to me at the time, looked very much like the young men I played rugby with.  The main difference, of course, was that the rugby players worked in teams, their emotional intelligence was much higher than the guys’ on the course.  Some geeks at uni laughed - ha ha - at anyone who didn’t get them.  It was them, the world, and they were right.  This attitude still haunts the software industry and we all hold our hands up in exasperation, wonder why we can’t move forward, and then conveniently blame our clients or colleagues.

There was a reason that Ron tweeted this with the proviso, ‘negative and soul-draining’.  Pieces like ‘Dear Silver Bullet Seeker’ are nihilistic in their nature, leaving no place for hope.  Yet, there is hope, and that hope lies in good old fashioned - the things the agile community was founded on, if you don’t mind - courage, compassion, patience, a dedication to practice, a dedication to tutorship and tenacity in the face of set backs.  Ron’s soul could have been easily restored if the article had included references to, for example, Weinberg's Software Quality Management, or maybe Kotter’s Leading Change, or, god forbid, Collins’ Good to Great.  The article forgot to provide a way out for its readers, does the author genuinely think there isn’t a way out?

There is a painful, very painful, irony in consultants or bloggers externalising blame on their clients who have externalised the blame on the thing the consultants or bloggers were teaching.  It’s circular.  And things that go in a circle don’t go forward, do they?  You would never attack a child, bringing them down for your own ingratiation, and so therefore we shouldn’t attack our colleagues for their incompetencies either.  What we may prefer to attack is our own style of communication and our lack of skills in the area of getting things done.  Then, and only then, will we see our ideas adopted.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (and again, and again): look inwards before you look outwards, but only if you dare.