“If you stay silent as a mouse you will just stay where you are.“

This was the advice I got from a team lead at my first job, right after I’d rushed through the office to complain about a broken system that endangered a delivery to our client the next week. He praised me and didn’t want to shut me down, even if I might have overdone it. For many of us, finding that voice is the hardest part. We hold back our ideas, questions, and concerns for a number of reasons. Let’s break down the four most common ones:

• We assume that something is obvious.
• We assume that others know better.
• Deference to authority.
• Physiological: not feeling safe, fear of judgement.

Stating the Obvious

One of the biggest mistakes we make is assuming that others have the same knowledge or perspective as we do. What seems obvious to you is often the result of your unique experiences, learning, and context. But others may not have the same background.

One of my university professors used to say there are only three types of proof: by contradiction, by reasoning, and obvious. I struggled with the 3rd one because when something is somehow “obvious”, it wasn’t that obvious to me at all.

Quickly re-stating that “obvious” part often removes the ambiguity from the discussion and sets the common baseline. Without being aligned on the same baseline the entire conversation doesn’t make sense, that’s why it is super-important to simply re-state the “obvious” and explicitly list what the assumptions are.

Sometimes I notice how very senior leaders would ask very basic questions about something only to witness that not everybody in the room was on the same page about this basic truth.

Sharing the “obvious” has very little drawback. While there may be a small cost, say a bit more document space or an extra minute in a meeting, that cost is a cheap insurance policy against catastrophic misalignment. A little information overhead is always better than massive miscommunication.

Others know Better

It is oftentimes true that others know better (to state the obvious). But this shouldn’t be a blocker, rather it should be an incentive! If you speak up and you’re wrong, you become the main beneficiary: you get corrected and learn a critical piece of information. If you’re silent, you leave the meeting still misinformed. If a question is forming in your mind, it’s highly likely that several other people in the room are thinking the exact same thing but are too afraid to ask. By asking, you don’t expose your ignorance; you serve the collective need for clarity.

Deference to Authority

Sometimes it’s not fear or lack of clarity, but simple deference to authority. When senior leaders are present, people instinctively stay quiet, assuming their ideas matter less or that others will take the lead. This one is tricky as it also includes some cultural aspects of how you were raised and also cultural aspects of your company.

More often than not, however, leaders actually want more people to speak. They value a challenging question or divergent perspective far more than a room full of nodding heads. In fact, leaders sometimes speak first precisely to kick-start the conversation, and they often intentionally hold back because they don’t want their presence to silence the room. In fact, sometimes leaders don’t speak at all precisely because they want to ensure others feel there is room to contribute. Silence out of deference is perceived as alignment, which can lead to misguided decisions. Don’t assume your idea matters less. Assume your perspective is a critical puzzle piece the decision-maker needs.

Physiological Safety

This one is a tough one because it’s rooted in our fundamental human desire for psychological safety. This is a need that is not always easy to satisfy in high-pressure environments, such as the big tech corporate world.

Google has done this famous study “Project Aristotle” which concluded that psychological safety was the number one predictor of a team’s effectiveness, more so than the individual skills, intelligence, or seniority of the team members. The “how” a team worked together was more important than the “who.” Safety there means that team members are confident that no one will embarrass or punish them for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.

Being comfortable taking “interpersonal risks,” such as challenging the status quo, offering divergent ideas, or asking for help is a lot more beneficial than taking another risk of closing in and solving the problem on your own.

Conclusion

The path from “mouse” to “wolf” isn’t about aggression or volume. It’s about recognizing that your unique perspective is a crucial piece of the collective intelligence. Your job isn’t to be an expert on everything, but to ensure that the room has all the information it needs: whether that’s stating the obvious, asking the ‘dumb’ question, or challenging the senior leader. So:

Ask the ‘n00b’ question. Challenge the status quo. State the obvious. Share your ideas. You lose virtually nothing, but the collective clarity and your growth is a big win. Speak up!

I estimate I’ve been to 10k (*) meetings in my career (holy smokes) and I’ve never written a blog post on meetings, so here it is. There are tons of recommendations online on effective meetings, things like having an agenda and setting goals for the meeting, inviting only necessary attendees, etc. In this post I would like to highlight just a few things that I think I might be doing differently and I will bring them in light of what I don’t like about the meetings :)

“What are we discussing?”

Let’s start with this: I really don’t like when people call for a meeting and don’t provide even a line of context or agenda. First of all this doesn’t give me or others means to properly prepare for the meeting. Effectively by not providing context or agenda the organizer is robbing themselves of a chance that some attendees will have more to contribute to the meeting. Additionally there is a good chance the meeting will be hijacked. In my view not having an agenda shows a grain of disrespect because the organizer demonstrates that this isn’t something important to them either.

• DO: Always, always add a bit of description to the meeting invitations you send. At a minimum say that the agenda is coming if you need more time to prepare but have to book time. But most of the time target creating meeting notes documents and adding context, agenda and any relevant info to the doc.

“So what was the decision?”

Another thing I don’t like about meetings is when there is not a single output artifact. After such a meeting, I’m asking myself “What was I doing here?” Lately I started solving this problem by just starting to take notes in meetings independently of my role in the meeting. If no one is presenting their screen I will just silently start sharing mine with notes being taken. I’ve been thanked on multiple occasions for notes that appeared out of nowhere. I’ve also been complimented for keeping the best track record of 1:1 or other discussions where I play a more active role.

• DO: Always play a role in the meetings you are attending. If noone is taking notes, take them yourself, if no one prepared an agenda/context but you have context – just create that doc. Maybe request the organizer to add the notes. Just 5 min of your time could make the meeting go in the direction you want it to go. Yeap, this is because by sharing the screen and people reading the context and agenda you put they are likely to follow some of that even if they are 2-3 levels above you (you can influence without authority in such a “weird” way). For big townhall kind of meetings, always attempt to prepare one question, this will keep you engaged in the meeting, otherwise just don’t join.

“That could have been an email!”

Oh, I also don’t like long or “that could have been an email” meetings. You know, those where all the useful information has been shared and discussed in the first 5-10 minutes and then people just chat about related topics and say they need time to think about it and respond, meaning that if it was an email the course of action would have been the same.

• DO: Well if something can be shared/asked via email just do it. But if you have to have a meeting schedule just enough time for what has to be discussed. You will be pressured to arrive at a conclusion within time you have and if you really need more time just schedule a follow-up. I found that 30 minute meetings are almost always enough.

“I want out of here.”

Oh, how about the “fill the void” where you feel like there is pressure to say something? In these kinds of meetings those who like to speak a lot take pleasure in just speaking and speaking and those who don’t like speaking secretly cannot wait for the meeting to be over.

• DO: If you are leading the meeting, encourage people to speak so long as new ideas are flowing and value is being added. The moment things become repetitive, same people talk non-stop, or there is disengagement, consider concluding the meeting, no shame in that. If anything people will thank you.

Conclusion

Unquestionably we need to meet at work. The purpose of meetings is to add value, help arrive at decisions and drive progress. The things that frustrate me the most, like a lack of agenda, no clear outcomes, and unnecessarily long discussions, are often avoidable with just a bit of effort and intentionality. By always preparing an agenda, ensuring there are actionable takeaways, and taking control when needed (even as a participant), you can influence the flow and value of a meeting.

(*) 16 years x 52 weeks x [5(early career) – 20(later career)] meetings/week = [4k – 16k]

This is not a “how to” on running a book club. In fact I know next to nothing about book clubs and to run my first meet I googled what it takes to run such a thing. All of my previous stereotypes of book clubs were of bunch of super-boring people sitting in a circle and silently sipping tea (not coffee). After reading few articles I realized that I still know nothing about book clubs as apparently they could be run in myriad of different ways.

If you follow my blog you would notice that book reviews are one of very common blog posts here (55 of them), probably as common as technical blog posts and posts on success for software engineers. So no wonder I’m interested in reading and discussing books. One other aspect I’ve always been keen on is knowledge sharing. I used to share my knowledge via tech talks based on books and discussions called “design sessions”. It is not that I didn’t want to discuss books directly, but issue was that my audience in majority of cases didn’t read the book and still was interested in a given topic.

Last week I found myself in a situation when probably half of my team has already read or is reading one particular book. With a hint from my colleague, I kicked-off a book club. First meeting turned out to be a really great, fast paced discussion with a lots of engagement. I wasn’t the most active participant and this is awesome. Took notes and spoke only few times.

We went through highlights people remembered from the first chapter and then tried to analyze those, thought of practical applications, shared our related past experiences, and just had a good discussion. I would even call this to be some kind of a team building event – all virtual (in case you are reading this in future and COVID-19 is a thing of the past).

Once in 2012 I tried to organize “Code & Beer” and miserably failed with two people showing up. Arguably I just didn’t make it very clear I bought the beer for everyone :) This time people joined with no snacks but with tons of interest. So, how to run a book club? Who knows… Maybe make sure you have a “critical mass” of people interested in same book.