Honest Answers: When Priorities Change  🔗 **Source:** [Honest Answers: When Priorities Change](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg2KZtlFNsI) [00:00:00] Welcome to the Overcommitted podcast, your weekly dose of real engineering conversations. [music] I'm your host today, Erica, and I'm joined by >> Hey, I'm Bethany. >> We met while working on a team at GitHub [music] and quickly realized we were both obsessed with getting better at what we do. So, we decided to start this podcast to share what we've learned. We'll be talking about everything from leveling up your technical skills to navigating your professional development, all with the goal of creating a community where engineers can learn and connect. Today on Overcommitted, we are introducing a segment we're calling honest answers. This is an opportunity for us to dig into a situation that we received from one of our listeners and hopefully provide some helpful guidance on how to deal with it. Um so, if you have something that you [00:00:43] want to suggest that we talk about, there is a form submission opportunity on our website. Today's situation is described as, "Last week, we understood one project was priority number one and worked to prepare for it to start work on Monday. On Friday, the priorities changed and now we're working on something entirely different. How do I deal with this? All right, Bethany, what is your gut reaction to this situation? >> Ugh, I mean, oof. Uh who hasn't been in one of these situations, it feels like. I especially feel now with like AI, you hear a lot, "Oh, code is cheap." And in a way it is, but planning isn't cheap, brain power isn't cheap, context isn't cheap, and things like that. So, I think [00:01:26] it's just a sign of uh when different departments aren't communicating well with one another and like it leads the individual contributors to like try to figure out what the actual priorities are. >> You are spot on. So, turns out there are kind of two different camps of understanding why priorities change. There's the first group of people that say change is a part of the job, change happens because customers ask for new things, competitors move. Sometimes another team needs more help than your road map predicted. Um, and then the other group is that change is whiplash. This is kind of a term that describes [00:02:09] these quick changes that seem to come out of nowhere. And the idea is that like you mentioned, those are caused by a gap between what leadership knows, whoever's making the final decisions, and then what everyone else knows. And you know, some common causes for these changes include customer escalations, also having no single shared goal, which can sometimes be referred to as a North Star, or a set of priorities that are predetermined, or having metrics that lag. So, leaders might lose patience, they might wonder why something's taking so long, and their change is a response [00:02:53] to the metrics lagging behind, or the sort of like shiny new object syndrome, where an executive or a leader goes to a conference or an offsite and comes back um with a new idea that they want implemented now. The difference between change and whiplash can sometimes come down to communication. So, some of those sort of like systemic issues, such as like having no North Star, do take some forethought, but the forethought and the intention is really what organizational psychologists suggest as being like the real difference between how these experiences are felt by the workers, where change is communicated more like this is what has [00:03:38] changed, this is why, here's what it means for you, and then whiplash comes across more like surprise, your work doesn't matter, and we forgot to tell you. So, I guess have you felt both of those experiences and what made the difference for you between feeling some sort of logical change and this whiplash experience? >> Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think it's really communication. When communication is like top-down, things tend to feel more random or tend to feel like you're caught off guard by changes in priorities. Sometimes Sometimes leadership makes bad decisions. Sometimes they try to catch it early or like if there's a pivot in the market. [00:04:22] Like sometimes it is completely valid why priorities change and it's important to be I hate the word, but like agile to pivot with the priorities, but I find that in organizations where there is more emphasis on the bi-directional communication. So like being able to communicate up and down, it makes things feel a lot less random and more strategic. So you can reflect like the work you're doing and why or why it doesn't feel important and like it leadership listens and then leadership can communicate their strategy or why they think something is important and also be accepting of pushback. And so I think that's definitely the healthiest. [00:05:06] I mean, I know it's like easier said than done to take into account everybody's opinions, but the people who are working at the bottom are kind of the ones that are closest to the problem, closest to technology, to the users, to the customers and stuff and will probably have a better understanding of some of those like finer details as well. >> Yeah, and I think there's a lot that goes into communication. The two top things that kind of come to my mind are the audience and then the communication style. Not everybody is going to care about the same things in some sort of change. If it's coming from leadership, other leaders care because that might impact what they're doing and their [00:05:48] priorities. Managers care because it impacts their road maps, their head count, what they're going to do as far as staffing, and communicating to their direct reports. And then the ICs care because or the contributors, the engineers in an engineering organization, care because that's what they're working on. That's what they're executing on. That's what they have to do. And so the communication pattern of here's what shifted, here's why, and here's what it means for you, that last part is going to look different depending on who you're talking to. And I think that can sometimes get missed in communications. The other piece that I think of is the way that it's [00:06:31] communicated. You know, in an async first organization, a lot of communication can be written, which is fine, but are you open to feedback here? Are you like announcing and mandating something and saying, "This is the way it is. I don't care what you think. This is what we're doing." or are you saying, "Here's my proposal. I'm open for feedback." And a lot of times when it's sort of a more impactful change, I really appreciate when there is opportunities to provide feedback in person, like have an AMA or an ask me anything session. Give me the opportunity to like hear it from you in person, and then like leave room for questions and clarification because I [00:07:16] feel like that recognizes the fact that you are impacting people, and there is an emotional aspect of this, too. >> Yeah, I totally agree. I do think that a lot of these things too just require that psychological safety to give that feedback to leadership, um and that leadership will hear that those concerns, which isn't always the case, understandably. But if there are avenues of feedback, like remember this and like be sure to flag it up because I mean, if you're sent to work on one thing and then constantly pulled between different priorities, like that's not a an effective use of your time, that's not an effective like strategy, anything like that. Like priorities change once in a while, that's fine, but if it's all [00:07:59] the time, then I think that signals a really unhealthy culture. >> And I think it's also important to remember as an IC that not every change is a leadership failure. There are things that need to change for legitimate reasons, and being open to that is part of being a professional. It's also like that that bidirectional, right? It's it's not always me telling leadership like I think you're wrong. Like there are times that I also need to take the change into account and and move forward. >> I think too, if you're constantly being pulled between priorities or have to like move off of one, that it's important to document what you learned from that and from the development [00:08:41] you've done towards that priority just because that can harm career progression or like making sure you get to the next level because you might not have like concrete things that you've output if you're constantly being moved around. So, definitely collect things that you have been doing even if it's not being able to work on something in completion. >> That's a great segue to our next topic, which is how you do keep things in motion for you personally and then also for whatever team organization you're working on when there are these shifts. So, there are some considerations from researchers to take into your toolbox. One is this idea of attention residue. This is coined by a researcher named [00:09:25] Sophie Leroy, and the idea is when you switch from task to task, part of your attention is still stuck on that first thing. Um, and it's the worst when that thing is unfinished. So, when you're interrupted or when you expect that you're going to get back to it, you still have that feeling of part of your mind, part of your brain is still on that first task. So, what you mentioned about leaving notes, leaving a good stopping point, is sort of the fix to that. So, recognizing when you get this change that "Okay, I am going to have to put that thing down. Let me get it to a state where in the future, if I can pick it back up, I can do that easily." Helps [00:10:11] get rid of that residue, and it helps you really cleanly switch, knowing that there's kind of that nice stopping point. And to your point, the other benefit is be able to look back and say, "Look, this is a like a meaningful chunk of work, and and here's a little cap on it." Also, um, some researchers found that making a specific plan for an unfinished task helps stop the intrusive thoughts, even if you're not doing it. So, this is kind of that like take the 5 minutes at the end of whatever you're doing to sort of summarize it, recap it, make a plan for what's next. You're not actually doing it, you're not taking time to do the work, but having that [00:10:53] plan really helps you set it down cleanly. And recognizing the cost is bigger when you switch between larger problem areas. I have found this personally that I'm switching tasks a lot in a day now, between one thing and another. I'm like trying to manage multiple things in my brain at once, but it is manageable on a smaller scale, sort of within a problem area. But, bigger switches cost more mentally. Like, going from one PR to a different one within a project is going to be easier for my brain than going from one project to a different one and completely having to change that area. [00:11:38] So, I guess the brain research here for anyone who's considering this, recognize that your brain works this way. Your brain kind of needs to work on one thing at a time and have clean breaking points between them. And when you do have to switch, you may also need to communicate that to other people. So, work doesn't have to be lost when it's put down if it's written down and communicated and people know what you've done. So, there's at least somebody else who can recognize like, "Okay, that's a piece of work. Hopefully, we can pick that back up in the future." Yeah, and then you sort of get that like social feedback as well. Are any of these things that you [00:12:19] currently do, Bethany, or things that you might want to adopt? >> Yeah, I love the research space here because I think a lot of us have felt that sinking feeling like, "Oh, I'm not being productive or or something like that." But, a lot of times it's just it's how our brains work. It's how our brains are protecting us and we we've got to work with our brains rather than against our brains to make it better. I find that I typically work well with like two things in process. Uh but, stick with me. I know that sounds crazy. But, I like one that's like really hard and ambiguous and then one that's like super easy like I can just iterate on because when I get frustrated by the ambiguous one, I just go to the easy one. And then when I get bored of the easy one, I go back to the ambiguous one [00:13:02] and that's how my brain weirdly works and it just helps to have like two things to to go between as my my brain like has those fluctuations. I'm I almost wonder if like also if you have to context switch, if it's good to like take a walk or something. Actually remove your brain from that initial context because like sitting and then being like, "I'm doing one thing. I'm doing another thing." That's really difficult for our brains to like kind of handle, and I'm sure they're uh evolutionary not typical, so I almost wonder if like just taking a lap, getting a coffee or something helps with that that switch. Totally. I definitely have been under-selling recently the cost of that context [00:13:44] switching. And like you say, I get to the end of the day and I feel like I maybe have done nothing or my brain is exhausted from all this different work and I don't get into that deep flow state because I'm trying to do multiple different things. And I think reminding myself, like you said, work with your brain and not against it in both the smaller and the larger larger context switching. How do you tend to park the old work so it's cheap to pick up? >> So, I have a lot of like AI automations to remind me what I'm doing at any given point, to be honest, because I am terrible at parking work um and reminding myself what I need to do. So, I have like a good morning routine that [00:14:27] will scan like my Slack and my like work from yesterday and uh give me pointers where to pick up, which is really nice because I mean like I struggle with the starting problem a lot of like I sit down and like okay, where do I begin? Um and so that's that makes it really nice. But I think like being able to prepare documents as though you won't be working on it uh in the future is always helpful, like just for your future self and also if you ever have to hand it off. Um it's nice to be able to have like that documentation to say, "Here, next person, here's how you do this." Or if you're like collaborating with someone in the future, like bringing them on and having that documentation is always going to be worthwhile and uh and make [00:15:10] your team better. And if not your team, make yourself better. >> That's true, and that's a different way of thinking about things where you almost default expect to be interrupted. And then if you get to finish something, it's great. >> [laughter and gasps] >> But if you operate like every day there's an opportunity, you might not finish this, that is kind of a way to prepare yourself for that possibility in a way that can set you or whoever picks it up next for success. I always think about like what would somebody else need to know to pick this up because it's also helpful when you need to take time or something personal happens, right? Like [00:15:53] it might not even be leadership saying you need to stop this. It might be something that happens in your own life where you have to take a step away and the last thing you want in that situation is to have to spend a bunch of time providing context for somebody else to pick it up. >> Yeah, I think it's like for me it's important to not um hold any work too tightly or to seek my identity in any piece of work just because at the end of the day it's not really mine. It's like the company's and they get to decide who does that, who like gets allocated for what. And so I found it's good to have opinions on where the business is going, but like at the end of the day if it's causing you a lot of stress and like heartache, [00:16:36] I think it's it's good to kind of take a step back and be like, "Okay, I want everyone to be successful and sometimes that means I'm not doing this work or someone else will get better experience doing this work rather than me or like maybe there's other stuff. So I think it's just just beneficial to have like a degree of separation between like a company's work that you're getting assigned and like what you're doing. Again, great to like have opinions and express them towards like the strategy, but it's always healthy to to touch grass sometimes. >> Well, let's talk about feelings. So the number one feeling I hear expressed in this situation is the feeling of being a pawn. And this is backed by research. [00:17:20] Steve Meyer is a a researcher who has done work investigating stress. And he found that it's uncontrollable stress that does damage. So stress can feel much lighter when you have some say. Some examples he gave was he looked at stress levels of executives versus like people within the organization and found that at least one example I know is like stress as expressed by like heart health or like drinking patterns. And when people were higher up on the ladder, even if they had longer working hours or higher loads of [00:18:04] responsibilities, their stress level was less because they had more say or autonomy in what happened versus the people who were lower and may have had like less hours overall, felt higher levels of stress because they didn't have any say in what they were doing. And he says a lot of times this is the same for people when they start their own companies. We kind of talked about this a little bit with the Stack Overflow survey last week of there's more people starting their own companies and why is that? And one observation from those researcher is that people can feel less stressed when they're owning their own company because they get to make the [00:18:48] decisions. A quote from this article is a perception of reduced autonomy, for example, because of being micromanaged can easily generate a threat response. When an employee experiences a lack of control or agency, his or her perception of uncertainty is also aroused, furthering raising stress levels. By contrast, the perception of greater autonomy increases the feeling of certainty and reduces stress. So, if leaders who want to support their people's need for autonomy must give them latitude to make choices, especially when they are part of a team or working with a supervisor. There is a catch here where um if people are already feeling insecure at work, insisting you control everything does [00:19:31] lead to higher distress, not less. So, you also need to be honest with your employees um and not force positivity in these situations, but also recognizing, like we talked about earlier, that there is a real loss when it comes to lost work. So, the research I found on this was from NASA um where you can imagine it, NASA, they have long-running projects, you know, people are working really hard, and they found that canceled projects can compare to a family breaking up. And an engineer who spent seven years on a canceled project for a spacecraft called it a major [00:20:13] grieving process. So, what do we do if we can't necessarily force autonomy in whatever organization, but something that we all have the opportunity to do is something called disagree and commit. So, this comes from Amazon, often credited to Andy Grove from Intel um and the idea is that you push back respecta- respectfully, and then you commit once a decision is made. So, there's two components. The first part is to disagree, and this happens before the decision, if that's possible. Speak up honestly, share concerns, present data, argue your position, if you have reservations, voice them, and basically the goal in this stuff is to [00:20:59] stress test ideas and um surface blind spots. But then, after you've done that, then the step is to commit. So, even if you don't agree with everything, you execute wholeheartedly, don't hold on to this passive resistance, don't say I told you so if things go wrong, and like you said, give your energy, your creativity to this this path ahead. And the catch here is that it only works when there is psychological safety. So, if you keep getting overruled when you disagree or you're never given the opportunity to disagree, um it's just compliance with a nicer name. So, there are some prerequisites for that system to work. But, that is [00:21:43] the main way that we can deal with this feeling of being a pawn in the larger system. Which of these rings true for you? The sort of feeling of being a pawn, helpless, confused, annoyed. Do you find that you've had those experiences, and what do you do when you when you're seeking control? Yeah, it's funny because I feel like most most issues kind of stem from that loss of control or that loss of feeling of control, and I think that's so important to recognize, um because it's important to like have a feeling of autonomy, but um in your situation, it might not be doable. At like a previous job, I I did have this experience of I was on a team [00:22:27] I really liked. We were doing work that I strongly believed in, and then I got reorged into another team, and I was really upset about this. The team was not a great situation. I didn't have that psychological safety, but to my leadership and like the the folks that I had connections with, I did say, "Hey, look, I really want to be part of this team." Or, "Hey, I see an opening on this team. Can I can I be part of this?" Um and and things like that. And I got denied both of those, and so, um I think it would have been easy to hold that resentment and keep that, but um rather than that, I realized that since it didn't feel like I was being valued or my opinions were being valued, and so [00:23:11] it was a signal to me that it wasn't a good fit anymore. And so that's when I looked for new jobs and um got a new position and then was happy with that. And so I think if you're truly in a position where you do feel like a pawn, you feel helpless or confused or annoyed about everything, um I think it's good to pause and like evaluate the situation. Are there things in your control that you can change? Like is it truly like this lost worker stuff is good to pivot or can you collect data on that and like return that? If so, there's great, then that's like some things you can do to make the situation better. But if it is a situation where you have done all you can do to change that situation and you're still kind of at a loss for things, then I think um [00:23:55] the things in your control are to look for a new situation. And I know it's easier said than done, but um a lot of times if you're just truly unhappy and having those constant feelings, it is time to to look for something else. >> Yeah, I I feel like I've been pretty lucky as far as landing on teams where like I have some kind of a manager or leader who cares about my psychological safety, at least in my developer life. I feel like at least having somebody I can communicate to, even if that person doesn't even really have the agency to do anything, helps me a lot. So even if I have a manager who will listen to me and like escalate my concerns, even if nothing changes, that helps me a [00:24:40] lot to feel like I've at least done something, you know? The worst is when you are silently suffering and there's no one you can talk to you that will do anything or say anything. And I agree with you, the only thing to do in that situation is to find a new position. But yeah, this idea of disagree and commit, I do think it's a a a helpful tool. Um I think I also feel more impacted by changes that affect other people than things that affect me. That's just my personality. I care a lot about people on my team. And so, I I have to stop myself sometimes for [00:25:25] going to bat for other people when it's not my place. But, I have had the privilege and opportunity to be the person who speaks up when I know other people are feeling a certain way. I've had people tell me in the past that that's really valuable for them. If there's some kind of change and you know, there is the opportunity to provide feedback and I provide some honest disagreement. I've had other people say like, "I'm so glad you said that. I was thinking the same thing, but I didn't want to speak up." So, I I think that it's it's a way to build that trust even within your team, with your colleagues, in addition to maybe making some change for the decision itself. Well, [00:26:08] thanks for diving into this with me. I feel like this is something that is very relevant to a lot of people right now. Again, in the developer surveys last week, this seemed to be a a big concern for a lot of people. So, hopefully these ideas and tools can help anyone who might be going through this. But, with that, we are going to go on to a fun segment. So, I think maybe a trope for these organizational changes is that you get a memo with a subject line that things are changing and then you're expected to do it. And so, our game today is translate from the corporate speak to what each of these memo lines [00:26:53] actually means. All right, I'll go first. We want to sharpen our bias for action. What does that mean to you? >> To me, it means we're reorging and slimming down teams but increasing the amount of work we we have to do. >> Yeah, that's that's basically my read on it, too, is like work harder, people. Work harder, work faster. >> Ooh, I like this one. We're right-sizing our road map for the quarter. I think my first response to this would be that we're actually cutting work. Like, I would see this as a good thing. Uh potentially where like we've readjusted the scope and [00:27:38] realized that whatever we planned is not actually realistic for the quarter. How would you interpret this one? >> Yeah, I'd agree with that. I'd be happier to hear this one than a lot of others. Um it's painful when you have to put down work, especially work that you think is important, but you also have to be realistic with um not burning your team out or yourself. So, it's it's not the worst thing to hear, for sure. >> Okay, to be clear, this is not a reorg. >> It's a reorg. >> I don't think there's any other way to read that one. >> If there's reorganizing of people, it's a reorg. >> [laughter] >> Oh, that's funny. [00:28:21] >> Um okay. This work isn't canceled, it's paused indefinitely. >> I mean, again, this is one where it's like it's canceled. Like >> Yeah. >> Yeah, by the time the indefinite pause has resumed, like there's new priorities and nobody cares. Like, it's not going to look the same. Okay, let's do one more. Leadership has a new North Star. >> Um Uh we're being absorbed by another company and they have a North Star that that we need to go to. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, to me this is like either like shiny new object like somebody went to a conference or like [00:29:04] had some kind of meeting with somebody and have decided like this is the new thing that we're going to focus on because I said so. Cool. Well, uh next time we hear one of these novel, we we now will know what it actually say. Listeners, thank you so much for tuning in to Overcommitted. If you like what you hear, please do follow, subscribe, or do whatever it is you like to do on [music] the podcast app of your choice. Check us out on Blue Sky and share with your friends. 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