A few days ago our project manager called an urgent meeting. The motto of this meeting was to inform teammates about changes required in code to make it faster.
I was literally tired and had no motive to join the meeting as revisiting the whole code was going to make me sick. It took 4 months for my team to complete it and now the client wants some major changes.
One of my teammates who was the smartest one told me to not worry about the code. He told me we can work together and make the changes by distributing the work evenly between all. Listening to this from the smart guy whom I admire gave me some motivation to join the meeting.
I am simply referring to him as smartest because he was the one with more experience than anyone in the room.
I joined the meeting to hear what our project manager wants to tell us. We were 6 people in the meeting including the project manager. The meeting started with a presentation which had the front-page title "Changes in E9I project". E9I was the name of the project.
As the meeting continued I was shocked by observing the smartest guy. His way of handling the meeting was something else that I never observed before. Here are the 3 things he did that impressed everyone in the meeting —
You need to step back
As the meeting progressed the manager asked who can give any valuable suggestions to complete the changes in a short span of time as the next project was already knocking on our door.
As soon everyone started speaking a complete mess was created. Everyone started to cross-question each other. The meeting was converted into a debate contest. Most people were speaking at the same time which was causing huge confusion.
The manager kept yelling and told everyone to calm down. In this messy conversation, I observed that the smart programmer stayed silent and he was carefully listening to what others wanted to say.
To be precise, he had more experience than any of us and hence I am referring to him as smart. His point was very much important for us as we know experienced guys have strong points. But he preferred to stay silent until everyone placed their suggestions in front of the manager.
He was the last one to give suggestions and he also mentioned some important points which he noted down the words from the other teammates. What valuable thing I learned was to be a good listener first instead of trying to be a good speaker.
You don't need to win a conversation
After taking suggestions from all the teammates the manager proceeded further. The next point was about the distribution of the work. I was completely scared while listening to this section.
What if I ended up getting the lengthy and tough section of the program. I was eagerly waiting for my manager to call out different sections of the project to show my interest in the easiest part. I was in the belief that once my manager assigns me the easiest task, I can stay relaxed while completing it. I am one who prefers stress-free work.
Not only me but mostly all the teammates were eagerly waiting to get assigned the easiest part of the project except the smart experienced programmer.
The smart guy waited for everyone to show their interest in the easier parts. The manager assigned easy tasks to us and assigned one hard section of the project to the smart guy.
The smart guy didn't show an inch of the expression on his face and accepted to complete the hard section within the time span which was left. I was shocked by seeing how calm he was accepting the hard part of the project. What if he fails to complete his task? I think his experience gave him slightly more confidence than other teammates.
You don't need to be scared
As I already mentioned two important observations that I observed about the smart guy were that he was a good listener and not only this he also stayed calm. He was humble enough to accept the most difficult task of the project.
After we were assigned our respective sections of the project the manager asked if anyone want to end this meeting with their final words. No one was interested as everyone was scared about their respective tasks and had no guts to address the meeting. Everyone wanted to start their task as soon as they can and hence were eagerly waiting for the meeting to finish.
What I observed was a complete shocker. The smartest guy stepped up to end the meeting with his final words. He gave everyone advice that he thought would be valuable and also told everyone about different things which we need to consider while working on this project.
He called out my name and told me that "are you comfortable in doing your task in a different way which I think would be more preferable by our client" and I just nodded "yes".
He also told us that "we have already completed this project once and revisiting the different sections would be a fun task. We all can recall our memories which we made". The room was filled with positivity and motivation.
Everyone was super excited to revisit their tasks and complete the changes as soon as possible. The meeting was ended by the smart guy and we all were smiling till we started working on our task.
What I observed was the calm nature that the smart guy had. He already knew everyone's situation and acted accordingly. He gave the motivation which was needed and took the responsibility for the hardest task calmly. No doubt his experience would help us a lot in completing our project and that's it.
I hope you will tend to be a good listener first then to be a good speaker. Best of luck in your programming journey!
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