Thank You for Your (Lack of) Cooperation

I might come off sounding like a sociopath in this post, but oh well. Here goes.

I realized today at work that I don't like when people agree with me. I'm on a new team and I've noticed a lot of problems with our processes. There seems to be a lack of automation. Other software engineers may know what I'm talking about. Too many things we do require too many manual steps. There's a lot of tribal knowledge required to perform our duties at the company. However, only a couple of people on the team really have this knowledge.

I've pointed this out a couple of times now. At first, I was pleased to find out that everyone was in agreement. Then I realized that this was a kind of problem in itself. What's worse: 1) that people agree there are problems but, for some reason, haven't done anything to correct them or 2) that people don't agree that there are any problems?

I'll take a controversial stance here and say that the latter is actually better. That's because, in that case, there's a greater chance that your observation could be seen as a new idea even if people don't agree. Accordingly, there may be a greater chance to act; to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak. The disagreement would serve to heat the iron.

On the other hand, if people are accustomed to thinking of something as a problem, but are also accustomed to just living with it, then it may be very hard to deprogram those coping strategies. There may even be a sense of hopelessness about fixing the issue. In my experience, this sense of organizational hopelessness is incredibly toxic.

So next time you find yourself disagreeing with a colleague, perhaps consider yourself lucky.