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ready for takeoff
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hello my name is Mike topa and I'll tell
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you a bit about my bit more about myself
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in a minute but first I want to make a
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comment that's directed to the rubyconf
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attendees who are not in the room right
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now and are watching the recording of
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this talk later
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I don't blame you for going to Aaron
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Patterson's talk instead of mine
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um
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Aaron's has been one of the most popular
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rubyconf speakers over the years and
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when I saw the schedule I said oh no
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we're at the same time
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um but I appreciate you watching the
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recording later and for everyone here in
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the room now I appreciate you being here
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with me today my talk is called from
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beginner to expert and back again and
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I'll give you a quick overview so you
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can decide if you want to stay for the
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whole thing
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the Japanese term shoshin translates as
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beginner's mind and refers to a paradox
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the more you know about a subject the
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more likely you are to close your mind
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to further learning
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the teaching of Zen monk shunri Suzuki
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are collected in the book Zen mind
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beginner's mind
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and the most well-known quote from it is
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in The Beginner's mind there are many
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possibilities in the expert's mind there
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are a few
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he goes on to say that once we decide we
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know everything we shut down
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opportunities to learn
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in contrast the beginner State of Mind
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is Judgment free it's open Curious
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available in present
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Suzuki says it's like a small child full
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of curiosity and wonder and amazement
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The Beginner's mind embodies the
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emotional qualities of enthusiasm
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creativity and optimism
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these qualities are important for
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Creative problem solving and for
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innovation
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I'll share a simple example of
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beginner's mind from a previous work
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experience
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we had a scheduled job that ran nightly
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that did a variety of financial
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transactions and there was an automatic
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summary that was sent to a slack Channel
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every morning and it included various
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statistics
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this summary report had been in place
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for years and we routinely checked it
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every morning
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but a little while after we hired a new
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team member he said hey
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I think one of these numbers isn't right
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so we took a look and sure enough the
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math was pretty obviously wrong for an
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important part of the report it took a
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new person to notice this fairly obvious
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problem
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the rest of us never noticed it because
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it was familiar and had been around a
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long time
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so we were confident in it
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and no longer we're curious about it or
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questioned it we had an expert's mind
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but he saw the error because he was new
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and everything was unfamiliar to him so
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he was curious and wasn't shy about
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asking questions he had a beginner's
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mind
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so that's it that's the end of my talk I
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hope you enjoyed it
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no I'm just kidding
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um we have a lot to talk about we're
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going to talk about the benefits of
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having a beginner's mind and the
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pitfalls of sustaining it as we gain
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expertise
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we'll look at some examples outside the
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world of software development like how
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it took decades in an entire generation
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of expert geologists to die before the
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theory of continental drift was taken
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seriously
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and why plane crashes happen more often
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when the senior pilot is flying not the
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junior pilot
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then we'll draw lessons from all of this
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for our work in software development and
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in particular how you can apply some
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specific strategies with pair
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programming to sustain a beginner's mind
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in your work
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so that should give you a general sense
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of where we're going I'm a Believer in
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What's called the law of two feet at
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conferences it's perfectly okay to head
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to another talk if this one isn't for
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you also as I just mentioned I will be
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discussing plane crashes and part of the
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talk nothing too intense or anything I
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want to mention it in case it's a topic
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that might not be comfortable for anyone
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so before we dive in I'll say a little
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bit more about me
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um this picture is from my childhood
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copy of Dr Seuss's my book about me and
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to dispel any confusion I did not grow
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up to be a policeman like it says here
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instead I've been developing for the web
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for over 25 years since the days won the
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first web pages were painted on Cave
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walls
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uh over the years I've worked at Ask
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Jeeves E-Trade act blue Stanford
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University Georgetown and the University
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of Pennsylvania and others as well
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I'm currently a senior engineering
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manager at on boo Labs we're a small
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software agency that helps Enterprises
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build and scale products designed for
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growth and we're best known for our fast
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Ruby rails upgrade service uh here are
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some links where you can find me online
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and as well as links to the slides and
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I'll share these links again at the end
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of The Talk
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so let's look at some of the benefits of
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beginner's mind
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one is deeper gratitude
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it's easy to lose sight of the many good
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things in life that lift you up by
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seeing your life from a fresh
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perspective you can appreciate what you
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might otherwise take for granted
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more creativity
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as a developer you see a similar set of
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problems time and time again and habits
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of thinking become ingrained but
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deliberately experiencing a problem with
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the mind of a beginner can provide a
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fresh perspective on existing challenges
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you might even Explore opportunities
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that you didn't previously consider
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greater intention
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when you're familiar with something it's
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easy to go into autopilot beginner's
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mind helps you slow down to see what
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you're doing with greater Clarity and
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avoid the drawbacks of mindlessly you
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know just going through the motions
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and more fun
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beginner's mind helps you reacquaint
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yourself with the interesting aspects of
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everything you do it can remind you of
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the reasons why you wanted to be a
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developer in the first place
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so how do we get there how do we
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cultivate a beginner's mind
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um one is letting go of preconceptions
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about how things are going to work and
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what will happen
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then always starting with curiosity not
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assumptions to understand things more
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deeply
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opening yourself to new possibilities
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and asking simple questions
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are natural at these things because
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they're always beginners at something
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but as you get older it's easy to lose
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touch with these qualities of mine that
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once came so naturally
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but let's dig into this a little further
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by looking at some of the obstacles that
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beginners have with cultivating
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beginner's mind
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the first note we'll talk about is
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deference to Authority
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you may be hesitant to speak up with a
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concern or an idea with your boss or
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someone senior to you
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there's a relevant chapter on this in
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Malcolm gladwell's book outliers the
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story of success
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a key theme of the book is that outcomes
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we often attribute to the abilities or
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mistakes of individual people are often
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better explained by looking at systemic
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or environmental factors
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now before I go any further you're
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probably having one of three possible
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reactions to hearing cladwell's name
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if you haven't heard of him you're
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probably just curious to hear more
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if you know his work and like it then
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you're probably intrigued that I
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mentioned him
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or if you're familiar with some of the
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critiques of his work you may be rolling
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your eyes those critiques are important
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and I promise I will come back to them
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later in the talk
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but getting back to the book for now
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Gladwell has a chapter examining why
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planes crash
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there are of course many possible
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reasons the one he focuses on is poor
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communication among the cockpit crew
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there's typically a captain and a first
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officer who is the co-pilot and then
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during a flight the first officer is
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flying the plane and sometimes the
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captain's flying the plane
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typically the captain has more
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experience and a common communication
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problem when there are different level
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levels of seniority between the two
00:07:20.340
pilots is that the junior pilot uses
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what's called mitigated speech in
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addressing the senior pilot
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what happens is that the junior pilot is
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being deferential to the authority of
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the senior pilot this happens with
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developers too the junior person will
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typically communicate using hints if
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they think the senior person is doing
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something wrong overlooking something
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they worry that using a more direct
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approach might be seen as
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confrontational or insubordinate or that
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they'll embarrass themselves if they're
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wrong
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but the problem is it is the hardest
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kind of request to decode and the
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easiest to refuse
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let's take an example take a look at an
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example from the book
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and the 1982 crash of air Florida flight
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90 the plane had a problem with wing ice
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before takeoff this is a serious problem
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they can affect the lift force of the
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Wings and lead to loss of control of the
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plane
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the quote shown here are from the Black
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Box recordings recovered after the crash
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and this is the first officer talking
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before takeoff he doesn't speak in a
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direct manner to the captain who is
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serving as the pilot for takeoff
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instead he drops hints that he's seeing
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a serious problem with ice on the wings
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this is literally a life and death
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situation yet he does not come out and
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say something really direct like I
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strongly advise against takeoff I'm
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concerned the wing ice will make us lose
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control and crash instead he's just
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dropping these these hints
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and right after takeoff the plane
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crashed into Washington DC's 14th Street
00:08:45.180
bridge and fell into the Potomac River
00:08:47.940
cloudwell presents numerous examples
00:08:49.740
very similar to this where the junior
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pilot and other crew members noticed a
00:08:52.980
very serious problem but don't speak
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clearly or directly to the captain about
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it and then the plane crashes
00:09:01.080
plane crashes are always thoroughly
00:09:02.820
investigated and what's been found is
00:09:04.380
that crashes are more common with the
00:09:06.480
captain in the flying seat
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this may seem counter-intuitive but
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planes are safer when the least
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experienced pilot is flying because it
00:09:14.820
means the second more experienced pilot
00:09:16.620
isn't going to be afraid to speak up if
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there's a problem
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so a lesson here for senior developers
00:09:23.160
is that you can counteract this problem
00:09:24.779
by being good mentors you can be kind
00:09:28.339
solicitous and active listener patient
00:09:32.760
humble and encouraging
00:09:35.640
our great way to start is pair
00:09:37.019
programming but let the junior developer
00:09:39.120
drive and you can get the same benefits
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as Pilots the junior person learns and
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the senior person provides guidance
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I realize the words on the slide here
00:09:47.040
are just platitudes if you're at Kelly
00:09:48.720
Ryan's talk this morning on pair
00:09:50.220
programming she provided a lot of
00:09:52.019
specific advice on how to act on these
00:09:53.640
intentions if you weren't there I
00:09:55.740
recommend checking out the recording
00:09:57.000
when it's online and I'll also have more
00:09:59.100
to say about pair programming towards
00:10:00.839
the end of the talk
00:10:03.240
foreign
00:10:04.459
developers a lesson is that you have an
00:10:08.220
asset no one else has The Beginner's
00:10:10.620
mind
00:10:11.700
when you see something that looks like a
00:10:13.320
problem in the code in your workflow or
00:10:16.260
something else or you have a new idea I
00:10:18.300
encourage you to communicate clearly but
00:10:20.220
of course politely
00:10:21.480
doing so can be intimidating for the
00:10:23.220
reasons I just mentioned and other
00:10:24.480
reasons I'll get to in a moment but as a
00:10:26.760
new person in an organization you
00:10:28.440
haven't yet become acculturated into
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this is how we've always done things
00:10:31.680
which can cause senior people in your
00:10:33.839
organization to develop blind spots like
00:10:35.820
the example I gave at the start of the
00:10:37.200
talk
00:10:38.100
you may see problems no one else will
00:10:39.720
see or have insights that will not occur
00:10:41.519
to anyone else
00:10:44.519
so that all sounds nice but let's also
00:10:46.380
talk about some other beginners
00:10:48.060
obstacles to beginner's mind
00:10:50.480
the encouragement I just provided about
00:10:52.800
speaking up is easy to say but not
00:10:55.019
always easy to do
00:10:57.000
speaking up when you see a problem or
00:10:58.740
asking simple questions like I mentioned
00:11:00.540
earlier can be intimidating if you're
00:11:02.940
new and trying to find your place in a
00:11:04.440
team or organization you may worry a
00:11:06.779
simple question might sound like a dumb
00:11:08.220
question
00:11:09.060
and not just because of deference to
00:11:10.680
Authority
00:11:11.760
personally I can feel comfortable
00:11:13.260
speaking up in a group and asking what
00:11:14.760
might seem like a dumb question and not
00:11:16.680
feel too much like I'll be judged by it
00:11:18.600
I was a little nervous about this when I
00:11:20.339
was younger but you know I would still
00:11:21.660
speak up and that Comfort level I've
00:11:23.459
always had is more reflection more a
00:11:25.320
reflection of my privilege than anything
00:11:27.120
else
00:11:29.940
another challenge is just how hard it
00:11:31.680
can be when you're starting out and a
00:11:33.480
blog post titled what beginner's mind is
00:11:35.040
really like by Robert Heaton he offers a
00:11:37.440
valid critique of all this beginner's
00:11:38.880
mind stuff he says
00:11:40.980
I have no idea what to do next
00:11:43.079
I don't think that anyone who encourages
00:11:44.880
the cultivation of a beginner's mind has
00:11:46.620
ever actually met a beginner
00:11:48.480
am I good yet
00:11:49.920
when will I know if I'm good
00:11:51.839
I need to be good by tomorrow at the
00:11:53.519
latest
00:11:54.480
I don't think I'm good yet
00:11:57.180
the example I gave earlier of a new
00:11:59.040
co-worker pointing out a reporting
00:12:00.480
problem was someone who was new to the
00:12:02.399
organization but already had the
00:12:04.079
experience and confidence to speak up
00:12:05.640
about a problem he saw What If instead
00:12:08.040
this is your first job and you see the
00:12:09.720
problem but think there's maybe another
00:12:11.040
aspect of it you're not aware of and
00:12:13.200
you'll worry you'll embarrass yourselves
00:12:14.519
if you say something
00:12:17.399
really the only answer here is that it's
00:12:19.620
not you it's them
00:12:21.720
when you're starting out your employer
00:12:23.339
should be giving you clear goals and the
00:12:24.959
support you need to achieve them
00:12:26.880
if you're starting a job and don't know
00:12:28.380
what you're supposed to do next who to
00:12:30.120
ask for help or how you'll know if
00:12:31.800
you're doing well that's not your fault
00:12:34.019
it means you're experiencing a poor
00:12:35.700
onboarding process
00:12:37.079
it also means you probably don't have a
00:12:38.640
capable mentor
00:12:39.959
like I was describing a moment ago
00:12:42.240
I'm not going to read through the
00:12:43.500
details in the slide but it's showing
00:12:45.000
data on how much more successful
00:12:46.380
dedicated and happy employees are when
00:12:48.420
they have a good onboarding experience
00:12:50.639
when you're a beginner you need that
00:12:52.500
supportive environment with clear and
00:12:54.300
achievable goals to be successful and
00:12:56.519
when you have that it's a win-win for
00:12:58.560
you and for your employer
00:13:01.620
and this segues nicely to talking about
00:13:03.380
experts obstacles to beginner's mind
00:13:06.300
the experts are the people who are
00:13:07.800
responsible for your onboarding
00:13:09.060
experience in shaping the organization's
00:13:10.740
culture
00:13:13.139
a business leader who Fosters a culture
00:13:15.000
that is unsupportive closed-minded and
00:13:16.800
hostile to inquisitiveness or alternate
00:13:18.779
alternative points of view is leading a
00:13:20.579
business that may not last very long
00:13:22.860
it strategy consultant Eric Dietrich
00:13:25.440
calls these kinds of leaders expert
00:13:27.180
beginners they think they're experts but
00:13:29.700
they're actually beginners in the case
00:13:31.620
of Mr musk here he's not seeing that his
00:13:33.839
success running one type of business
00:13:35.100
doesn't necessarily translate very well
00:13:36.899
to a different kind of business
00:13:39.959
Dietrich says the common thread in a
00:13:42.600
stagnant or toxic work culture is that
00:13:44.459
you have a person or people in positions
00:13:46.019
of authority that have the culturally
00:13:47.700
lethal combination of not knowing much
00:13:49.560
not knowing what they don't know and
00:13:51.959
assuming that due to their ex their own
00:13:53.760
expertise anything they don't know isn't
00:13:55.680
worth knowing
00:13:57.720
there's no better example of this kind
00:14:00.300
of hubris than the geological
00:14:02.100
communities decades-long rejection of
00:14:03.839
Alfred Wegener's theory of continental
00:14:05.639
drift
00:14:06.600
geologists are scientists right we
00:14:08.700
expect them to dispassionately examine
00:14:10.500
examine evidence and reach logical
00:14:12.180
conclusions right
00:14:13.860
but like the rest of us they are human
00:14:15.420
which means pride and ego also play a
00:14:17.760
role
00:14:18.779
and a key trap of expertise is getting
00:14:20.760
stuck looking at things a certain way
00:14:22.200
and not being open to New Perspectives
00:14:25.459
Wegener was not a geologist he was an
00:14:27.839
Arctic Explorer a record-setting
00:14:29.519
balloonist and a specialist in
00:14:30.899
meteorology and astronomy
00:14:32.880
in developing his theory he cut out maps
00:14:35.220
of the continents stretching them to
00:14:37.079
show how they might have looked before
00:14:38.100
the landscape crumpled up into mountain
00:14:39.720
ranges
00:14:40.740
then he fit them together on a globe
00:14:42.240
like jigsaw puzzle pieces to form the
00:14:44.160
supercontinent he called Pangea
00:14:46.500
he pointed out how layered geological
00:14:48.300
formations often dropped off on one side
00:14:50.279
of an ocean and picked up again on the
00:14:51.959
other
00:14:53.880
just as importantly he looked beyond
00:14:55.860
just geology he approached the problem
00:14:58.019
with The Beginner's mind not constrained
00:15:00.360
by the traditional divisions between
00:15:01.800
scientific disciplines
00:15:03.720
he assembled evidence that plants and
00:15:05.519
animals on opposite sides of the oceans
00:15:07.079
were often strikingly similar
00:15:09.120
it wasn't just that the marsupials in
00:15:10.920
Australia and South America looked alike
00:15:12.779
so did the flatworms that parasitized
00:15:15.060
them
00:15:17.399
when his research was translated to
00:15:19.079
English in 1922 the brutal attacks began
00:15:21.959
his work was rejected as delirious
00:15:24.600
ravings
00:15:25.680
Germanic pseudoscience this was right
00:15:28.260
after World War one so why not you know
00:15:30.300
attack the Germans
00:15:32.639
um a fairy tale
00:15:34.380
and worst of all if we were to believe
00:15:36.420
wagoner's hypothesis we must forget
00:15:38.699
everything which we have learned in the
00:15:40.380
last 70 years and start all over again
00:15:43.740
but Wagoner took every criticism as an
00:15:45.899
opportunity to refine his theory he
00:15:48.000
presented several ideas to explain
00:15:49.440
continental drift and he corrected
00:15:51.600
issues with the initial timeline he
00:15:53.160
presented but it was only in the 1960s
00:15:55.800
as older geologists died off that the
00:15:58.380
Next Generation took a fresh look at his
00:16:00.120
ideas which ultimately proved to be
00:16:01.980
correct
00:16:02.820
so think about that for a second a whole
00:16:04.680
generation of experts had to die in
00:16:07.199
order for science to advance
00:16:10.680
there is a missing piece to the puzzle
00:16:12.420
here though I just mentioned that vegan
00:16:14.639
represented ideas to explain
00:16:15.899
specifically how continental drift
00:16:17.699
happened he actually came up with six
00:16:19.680
different ideas and one turned out to be
00:16:21.779
very similar to plate tectonics which we
00:16:23.699
now know as the mechanism for
00:16:24.899
continental drift
00:16:26.399
but at the time we had no direct
00:16:27.899
evidence for it or for any of the other
00:16:29.880
explanations you proposed
00:16:31.860
so while the reactions to his theory
00:16:33.420
were extreme and damaging to the
00:16:34.920
advancement of geology this particular
00:16:36.959
Gap in the evidence for his theory was
00:16:38.579
of valid criticism
00:16:40.920
so I mentioned earlier that with The
00:16:43.680
Beginner's mind you see the world like a
00:16:45.360
small child full of curiosity and wonder
00:16:47.339
and amazement
00:16:48.540
while that is a good thing in and of
00:16:50.220
itself and we can see it in wagoner's
00:16:52.320
creative and multi-disciplinary approach
00:16:54.480
it's also true that children can be
00:16:56.519
easily fooled
00:16:58.500
our critical thinking skills are also
00:17:00.420
important but how do we find the right
00:17:02.579
balance how do we harness the Knowledge
00:17:04.439
and Skills we gain from our experience
00:17:06.000
and apply it to our work and lives
00:17:07.860
without also getting set in our ways and
00:17:10.199
closing off ourselves to new ideas
00:17:13.980
this brings us back to Malcolm
00:17:15.540
gladwell's book outliers and the
00:17:17.160
criticisms of it that I mentioned
00:17:18.480
earlier
00:17:19.319
the book was a number one bestseller for
00:17:21.299
11 consecutive weeks on the New York
00:17:23.040
Times bestseller list I read it a few
00:17:25.260
years after it came out I enjoyed it and
00:17:27.059
felt like I learned some things from it
00:17:28.980
and there were even teaching materials
00:17:30.600
developed based on the book
00:17:33.600
but then in preparing this talk I came
00:17:35.820
across a bunch of scaling reviews of it
00:17:37.740
with critics saying one of these smart
00:17:40.260
thinking airport books that are super
00:17:42.000
spreader events of American stupidity
00:17:44.520
a vessel for pseudoscience and fake
00:17:46.740
history
00:17:47.700
the reasoning in outliers which consists
00:17:49.799
of cherry-picked anecdotes post-hoc
00:17:51.480
sophistry and false dichotomies had me
00:17:53.460
gnawing on my Kindle
00:17:55.620
it's high time for Gladwell to produce
00:17:57.480
something more challenging that has
00:17:58.919
beautifully executed tomb robberies of
00:18:00.780
old sociology papers
00:18:04.799
so Gladwell is an Eclectic and original
00:18:07.380
thinker so what makes these criticisms
00:18:09.539
of his work any different than the
00:18:11.100
attacks we just reviewed on veganer's
00:18:12.780
continental drift theory are these
00:18:14.820
critics also just experts to set in
00:18:16.559
their ways to appreciate gladwell's
00:18:18.120
novel ideas
00:18:19.440
let's take another look at the chapter
00:18:21.299
on plane crashes
00:18:23.280
the title of that chapter is the ethnic
00:18:25.919
theory of plane crashes
00:18:27.960
the example I gave earlier was from an
00:18:29.760
airline based in the U.S well Gladwell
00:18:32.039
specifically focuses on Korean pilots in
00:18:34.140
most of the chapter and the higher than
00:18:36.000
typical number of crashes that have
00:18:37.620
happened with Korean Airlines over over
00:18:39.240
the years
00:18:40.380
his argument is that Korean culture is
00:18:42.299
especially deferential to Authority and
00:18:44.520
that the nature of the Korean language
00:18:45.840
makes it much more prone to mitigated
00:18:47.640
speech
00:18:48.780
this post from the ask a Korean site
00:18:51.299
makes an important point
00:18:53.100
but Gladwell must not have discussed his
00:18:55.140
theory with any actual Koreans
00:18:58.380
he reviewed the actual transcripts from
00:19:00.240
the black boxes which are publicly
00:19:01.860
available and found that gladwell's
00:19:03.780
argument relied on a highly selective
00:19:05.520
and manipulative use of the evidence
00:19:07.860
leaving out facts that directly
00:19:09.240
undermined his argument about Korean
00:19:10.860
culture and language
00:19:12.600
here's a simple example from the black
00:19:14.280
box of Korean Airlines flight 801
00:19:16.799
Gladwell leaves out a quote of the first
00:19:18.720
officer speaking pretty directly about
00:19:20.460
the very poor weather so on the on the
00:19:22.980
left is the transcript as Gladwell
00:19:25.020
presented it and on the right is the
00:19:27.419
more complete transcript and the Bold
00:19:29.400
text is what uh
00:19:31.440
I'm Gladwell left out what the first
00:19:33.480
officer saying Captain Guam condition is
00:19:35.700
no good which is pretty direct
00:19:38.580
um his analysis has many other examples
00:19:40.980
of Gladwell using information
00:19:42.120
selectively or demonstrating a poor
00:19:44.340
understanding of Korean culture
00:19:48.299
so a key difference between vegan or and
00:19:50.220
Gladwell is that although there were
00:19:51.660
gaps in the evidence for wagoner's
00:19:53.340
theory he approached those problems
00:19:55.020
scientifically systematically and
00:19:57.240
diligently refining and adjusting his
00:19:59.280
theory numerous times in response to
00:20:01.080
valid criticisms
00:20:02.580
in contrast Gladwell is an artist
00:20:04.620
careful careful or thorough in his
00:20:06.600
research
00:20:07.500
so where does that leave us
00:20:09.240
after reading this and the other
00:20:10.860
critiques why did I still include this
00:20:12.600
chapter from outliers in my talk as a
00:20:14.580
related concept to beginner's mind
00:20:18.539
the reason is that all Gladwell
00:20:19.980
gladwell's analysis was sloppy
00:20:21.840
especially concerning Korean culture the
00:20:24.240
core of his argument has since been more
00:20:25.860
rigorously analyzed and it turns out to
00:20:28.380
be accurate
00:20:30.840
the study I put up on the board here
00:20:33.740
examined plane crashes from 68 countries
00:20:36.419
over 42-year period
00:20:38.520
the author is statistically controlled
00:20:40.320
for a wide variety of factors such as
00:20:41.940
weather aircraft maintenance and so
00:20:43.559
forth and they found that cultures that
00:20:45.539
had a greater deference to Authority
00:20:46.980
were in fact at more risk of plane
00:20:49.020
crashes
00:20:50.640
I'm discussing this in detail because I
00:20:52.919
want to encourage you to engage in a
00:20:54.480
careful Balancing Act
00:20:56.100
to embrace the ideal of The Beginner's
00:20:57.840
mind and at the same time continue to
00:20:59.880
hone your critical thinking skills the
00:21:02.220
vegan story about continental drift is a
00:21:04.440
straightforward one this beginner's mind
00:21:06.419
eclectic approach and rigorous thinking
00:21:08.340
led to his insights and the resistance
00:21:10.320
to his ideas came from experts who were
00:21:12.059
closed-minded
00:21:14.039
in contrast the gladwell's story is a
00:21:16.080
more subtle one he's an out of the box
00:21:17.940
thinker with The Beginner's mind but his
00:21:19.799
approach is not as rigorous and critics
00:21:21.539
often justifiably pick apart his
00:21:23.280
arguments yet the debates about his work
00:21:25.740
drive discussions and knowledge forward
00:21:27.299
the research article I just cited likely
00:21:29.820
never would have been written if
00:21:30.840
Gladwell hadn't sparked the debate
00:21:34.559
so whether you're talking with a
00:21:35.760
co-worker about which design pattern to
00:21:37.559
use to solve a problem in your code are
00:21:39.840
you talking with a friend or relative
00:21:41.159
about politics you'll find yourself in
00:21:43.559
situations where knowledge experience
00:21:45.480
emotion opinion logic Authority and new
00:21:49.440
ideas are all Dynamic factors with a
00:21:51.419
continual interplay between them as the
00:21:53.100
conversation unfolds
00:21:55.200
we want to be open to new ideas but not
00:21:57.480
get sucked in by bad ideas
00:21:59.340
we don't want to be fooled by ideas that
00:22:01.260
may suit what we already believe but
00:22:03.179
actually don't hold up to scrutiny or
00:22:05.520
close us off to considering new
00:22:06.840
approaches
00:22:08.820
we want evidence to support those new
00:22:10.620
approaches and we should always be
00:22:12.059
poking and prodding to see just how good
00:22:13.679
the evidence is
00:22:16.919
so with all of that in mind let's take a
00:22:18.780
look at a compelling evidence-based
00:22:20.340
approach to achieving the benefits of
00:22:21.840
beginner's mind in software engineering
00:22:24.299
our Lobel she conducted a series of pair
00:22:26.640
programming experiments with the support
00:22:28.200
of a software engineering team
00:22:30.240
belcy's been active in the agile
00:22:31.980
software engineering community for many
00:22:33.539
years
00:22:34.559
they analyze the results of each
00:22:36.059
variation in their approach to pairing
00:22:37.620
and publish the results in a paper
00:22:39.120
titled promiscuous pairing in beginner's
00:22:41.520
mind Embrace an experience
00:22:45.960
whether you're working alone or in a
00:22:47.400
pair the usual goal is to enter a state
00:22:49.740
of flow however the flow state is
00:22:52.080
fragile it's easily easily disrupted by
00:22:54.539
outside distractions or task rotation
00:22:57.059
and with pairing there's the additional
00:22:58.740
challenge that it can take days for a
00:23:00.419
new pair to be comfortable enough with
00:23:02.280
each other to achieve flow at all
00:23:06.480
a common difficulty with beginner's mind
00:23:08.520
is that it's a transitory State like the
00:23:10.740
example I gave at the beginning of this
00:23:12.179
talk the insights gained from the Fresh
00:23:14.159
perspective of a new team member fade as
00:23:16.140
that person becomes familiar and
00:23:17.940
comfortable with the environment and
00:23:19.500
loses their beginner's perspective
00:23:21.960
as belshi puts it whereas flow depends
00:23:24.659
on stability beginner's mind depends on
00:23:26.880
instability
00:23:28.080
we found that beginner's mind can be
00:23:29.760
maintained as a stable state by simply
00:23:31.740
changing things around frequently enough
00:23:34.080
by surfing the edge of Chaos
00:23:37.559
let's look at their overall approach
00:23:39.960
first it's important to note that this
00:23:41.580
is a team with stable membership
00:23:42.900
developing and supporting a product long
00:23:44.760
term so these experiments were limited
00:23:46.980
to that kind of software development
00:23:48.480
environment
00:23:49.860
they tried several different ways of
00:23:51.360
doing their work varying how tasks were
00:23:52.919
assigned how they were scheduled and who
00:23:54.720
was responsible for them
00:23:56.820
with an individually owned task the
00:23:58.500
person responsible for it would still
00:24:00.000
pair but would never rotate off the task
00:24:03.059
with a team owned task the team as a
00:24:05.039
whole was responsible for completing it
00:24:06.720
anyone could work on it at any time
00:24:09.539
the key takeaway from this slide is that
00:24:11.580
the greatest productivity was achieved
00:24:13.080
with the team-based approach combined
00:24:14.880
with a pull-based system where the team
00:24:16.500
decided what to work on next
00:24:20.280
they also found they achieved their
00:24:21.840
greatest productivity working in pairs
00:24:23.640
and by swapping in a new member pairing
00:24:26.220
on a task every 90 minutes with no one
00:24:28.740
staying on the task for more than two
00:24:30.179
consecutive sessions
00:24:32.100
a key Insight here is they actually did
00:24:33.780
better by not keeping the person with
00:24:35.640
the most relevant expertise on the task
00:24:37.320
for every session
00:24:40.340
why was swapping like this so effective
00:24:42.720
to quote the article when people are in
00:24:45.179
beginner's mind they learn faster and
00:24:46.799
achieve more
00:24:47.820
similarly people tend to be more
00:24:49.559
creative when they only partially
00:24:50.820
understand the situation because they
00:24:52.980
don't know all the limits yet they don't
00:24:54.600
have as much difficulty seeing past them
00:24:57.179
pair churn ensured that every pair had a
00:24:59.220
member in beginner's mind at all times
00:25:03.299
in the team retrospectives at first the
00:25:05.340
team members felt like the 90-minute
00:25:06.840
swaps were too frequent they felt they
00:25:09.059
were getting swapped away just as they
00:25:10.679
were finally getting up to speed on a
00:25:12.539
new problem and it felt like constantly
00:25:14.820
drinking from a fire hose
00:25:16.679
and it turns out that's actually the
00:25:18.600
reason they were so productive as belshi
00:25:21.480
puts it in the article after a couple of
00:25:23.460
weeks everyone saw how much more they
00:25:25.140
were learning they had ever learned in
00:25:26.520
any situation in their lives the fire
00:25:28.679
hose became a Thrill Ride it became a
00:25:30.960
challenge
00:25:33.779
an important additional note is how they
00:25:35.700
applied people's skills efficiently in
00:25:37.500
the pairing sessions as the team members
00:25:39.720
worked together they became familiar
00:25:41.400
with each other's talents so if a task
00:25:43.500
called for a certain skill like
00:25:44.880
debugging or writing a complex database
00:25:47.220
query the team would make sure to
00:25:48.900
include their best Bug Hunter or their
00:25:50.460
database database Guru in the pair swaps
00:25:53.520
over time this had the added benefit of
00:25:55.679
enhancing the skills of all the team
00:25:57.419
members as they work together frequently
00:25:59.120
accelerating how much and how quickly
00:26:01.260
they learn from each other
00:26:04.559
belsey notes that alternating 90-minute
00:26:06.539
swaps cause each pair to contain one
00:26:08.400
person in beginner's mind and another
00:26:10.260
who was teaching the subject
00:26:12.240
the data show that we were more
00:26:13.679
productive the more promiscuous we were
00:26:15.720
in swapping pairs frequently like this
00:26:18.059
as long as you remained with each
00:26:19.559
partner long enough to exchange
00:26:20.880
knowledge
00:26:22.380
what the data don't show is that we also
00:26:24.779
had a lot more fun
00:26:26.640
it took the team a little time to adjust
00:26:28.380
to the more rapid Pace but working with
00:26:30.720
that team was a career high point for
00:26:32.279
every person involved
00:26:36.840
a last thought I'll add from my own
00:26:38.940
experience is pair programming and as a
00:26:41.039
manager as a compassion and empathy are
00:26:43.260
also important components of maintaining
00:26:44.940
a beginner's mind
00:26:46.559
every person has their strengths and
00:26:48.240
weaknesses none of us are perfect
00:26:51.000
making the effort to understand not only
00:26:52.740
your co-workers abilities but to also
00:26:54.720
relate to their perspective and put
00:26:56.100
yourself in their shoes will not only
00:26:57.600
help give them a good experience working
00:26:59.159
with you but will help you grow as well
00:27:01.320
and experience another aspect of the
00:27:03.419
many possibilities of The Beginner's
00:27:05.039
mind
00:27:06.840
thank you
00:27:16.020
here are those links again how you can
00:27:17.460
find me online and a link to the slides
00:27:19.140
I'm available for questions if you want
00:27:20.940
to come up after the talk or you can
00:27:22.380
find me around the conference anytime
00:27:23.640
today or tomorrow I have some swag up
00:27:25.860
here also I have some fast Ruby bottle
00:27:28.020
opener keychains and thank you again