How others impact us, sometimes without us even realizing it

In the testing line of work, we are often brought in to be the light-bringers, the presenters of information, those who help to uncover problems that may or may not be issues that need to be resolved before we ship. We are those who help uncover the potential problems before they become real and significant problems for our business partners and our customers.

We may form an internal context around the people that we work with that might impact the way in which we present that information or question solutions. We can be impacted though by our own internal context of those around us and not even know it.

• Have you found yourself doing some self-editing inside your head based on who you are talking to?
• Have you found yourself holding back some of the information that you could be presenting that might influence their decision?
• Have you felt invigorated by simply having someone present?
• Have you even felt the weight of your team to “just go with it” or support you when making that tough decision?

Here is one such case that happened to me.

Dinner: and you thought it was just a meal

I attended the STAREast 2010 conference in Orlando back in April. It was a great time, and I really learned a lot. I would even go so far as to say I probably learned just as much outside of the tutorials and sessions as I did in them. Yes, I feel that my experiences hanging out with people, trying out some testing problems, and simply sharing thoughts and ideas might have been just as provocative to my mind as the scheduled events.

One of the things I did outside the normal courses was sit down and have dinner with James Bach. He asked on Twitter if anyone wanted to play some testing games and have a bite. I was so excited and nervous at the same time. In case you don't know, James is a respected member of the testing community, a published author, and the list goes on. So naturally, I took him up on the offer.

So here I am, sitting across for dinner with James, and he starts to tell me about this testing game that he has for us to play, and that his brother Jon Bach would be joining us soon. Even better! How cool is this? So James teaches me the dice game, and runs me through the initial exercise that he teaches most people with. Described briefly, the object is to determine the pattern by which the person is totaling up the value of the dice they are presented with.  They can apply different methods by which they approach the dice which add variation to the game from one to the next.

As I work through the scenario, I can practically feel the gears turning in my head. James asks series of questions during my testing. After we get done, James debriefs me a little on what he could observe from my process.

Jon joins us, Justin Hunter sits down with us as well, and James begins to work through the dice game with Justin. As he’s doing this, he poses a lateral thinking question to me as another game to play. I start asking questions to better understand the context of the issue. I get stuck a few times, step back through the problem and what I know or don’t know. Eventually I got stuck, and found myself trying to logic out some questions in my own head based on what I already knew but I wasn’t really vocalizing anything when James would look over at me and ask, “Any questions?”

After a little while of this, Dawn Cannan joins us at the table, and I immediately enlist her help with the lateral thinking puzzle. To give a little background, Dawn is another person who I admire in the testing industry and I had hung out the previous night, so we had already established a relationship. I explain to her what I know of the lateral thinking puzzle story, and we begin to alternate back and forth with different ideas. This helps me retrace some of my previous thoughts, find a new entry point, and we were able to solve the problem by working through it together.

So, that’s great right? We were able to work through the problem, ya? Well sure, but I didn’t feel right about something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time exactly what was bugging me about the situation, but I had already learned a lot about myself and my problem solving.

Inhibition and comfort based on our perception of others

Over the next few days, I continued to spend time with a variety of people at the conference, and I found that the longer I was with them, the more I was “myself”. This is not an uncommon phenomenon, this happens all the time with a wide variety of people. Even the most forward people can approach situations with some hesitation from time to time. 

So how does this apply back to my experience? There was actually multiple factors at play, when initially I thought there was only one.

1. I realized I had been intimidated by simply working with James and Jon. I let it inhibit my natural processes that I would normally follow when I approach problems. 
2. I also loosened up a little bit when Dawn entered the mix because I had an established relationship with her, as short as it may have been.
3. Something I have learned about myself is that I feel I work better with others, especially when I can bounce ideas off them, listen to their ideas, reshape ideas and test them again.

What might this mean for our work lives?

So I thought about this for a little bit. I thought to myself, “Well, that’s not like me… or is it?” I tried to reflect back some of the meetings I have had over the last few months with business partners, team members, and tried to remember if there was ever something that I was going to say and didn't because of who was present. From what I could remember, there wasn’t a time where I didn't raise concern where I felt that I should have.

So I felt better at this point, however it made me realize that it is something to be aware of the influence people can have on what we say or don’t say depending on how we view them. It’s an internal context in which we put these individuals or potentially even groups of people, and that may have an impact on how we interact with them.

 What's the liability is if we don’t say something?


Think about your context:

• What if there is something and you don’t bring it to the attention of your business partner or your decision maker?
• What if something you didn’t bring up but could have lets a critical bug ship or move into production?

What can we do to manage it, handle it?

From what I can see, awareness is the first step. Be aware of the fact that it is possible for you to be influenced by those around you based on the internal context you place around them in your own mind. Also, think about the impact if you don't say something and they find out you knew about it later when a problem does arise.  Think of how will they feel then when they might have avoided the problem if you shared your question or thought. Remember that you are acting on behalf of those that hired you, and you (hopefully) are doing so in their best interest, as well as your own.

The reality is...

Lately in conversations or interviews on radio or TV, I have been hearing the statement "The reality is..." then followed by a statement about a particular viewpoint or situation. This is usually NOT followed up with backing statements or examples.

As soon as I hear this statement, my skeptic's ears go on.


When someone is trying to tell me about the way things are in the world, it is based on their perceptions. Do I trust their perceptions? Not always because their view and my view differ. They aren't trying to lead you astray in most cases, they are simply trying to relay to you the way that things are from their point of view.

A couple things to keep in mind when you hear this preceding a statement:

1 - This is reality to them, as they perceive it, and perhaps not as everyone else receives it.
Ask yourself, "Is this how everyone sees it?"

2 - Without examples to back up claims, there is no evidence that everyone can evaluate the same way.
Ask yourself, "What shows their statement to be true or false?"

3 - Just because that is the reality does not it mean it has to remain or keep being the reality.
Ask yourself, "Is there a better approach we could take?"

So when you hear:

"The reality is..."

try replacing it with:

"The way things are today is..." or "The way I see it..."

You just may find that it changes your point of view on what was said.

(cannot find the original place I got that image to give credit, if it's yours I'm happy to credit you for it or remove if you so wish.)

Learning: How do you know where you next step is to?

Isn't it great when life just throws something at you and it lands in your lap? I was just thinking the other day," boy, I need to put a new blog entry out there, else I'm not keeping up with one of my goals for this year." And I realized...

I need help!

(This is how I feel sometimes and I am not above appealing to you with cuteness!)

So I have this issue that came to me a few nights ago as I was thinking about learning new things, exploring things. Those of you that follow me on twitter can see the updates that came out of that train of thoughts; check my posts about #flow.

So in my self-exploration, I realized that it's not that I have a lack of interest in things. I start lots of things and get interested in lots of things, but I don't necessarily stick with them. Last night, after reading about this, I think I might have found out why.

"Auto-whatic response?"

When we do things, there is a sweet spot that we can hit, where the task is not too hard or too easy, it's just challenging enough (yes, it's sometimes referred to as the Goldilocks condition). If done properly, you can hit what is called autotelic experience, latin word for things self directed experience, I however like the term "flow". If you have ever experienced it, you know exactly what it is. It's when the world disappears and you "do". Everyone has experienced it at one point or another. This is where we learn really really well.

Tipping the scales

If you go one way or the other, you get frustrated because you haven't properly prepared yourself for what you are trying to do or you get bored because the task isn't challenging enough. This is where I have my problem.

When go big or go home leads to going home too often

I believe I have a tendency to go too big when I take on the next task. This makes the next task in the learning too hard, and then I get frustrated with it, give up and find the new shiny to catch my attention. The fact that I have been identified as ENFP/ENTP doesn't help. It's either this or I'm way off base, however my instinct tells me this is one of the root causes of my lack of direction, or lack of focus on a direction.

Getting by with a little help from my friends

So I am going to ask you, dear reader who has already bothered to give a few minutes of their life to listen to my plight, for a little help. Basically, I want help in finding that next step so I get the sweet spot more often than not. Clearly, I am not a good judge of where my next steps should be (probably due to that innate optimism I have... dang optimism)

• How do you know where your next step is?


• What do you do when you stepped too far IE how do you adjust back?

Would mentor/apprenticeship help?

I bet mentorship helps widen the gap of the sweet spot for the apprentice because they know they have a life line helping direct their learning, answering questions, and the mentor would help in determining when the person is ready to move on and when they might need a little more work or have bitten off more than they can chew...

Thoughts?