What’s your “duh” score?
Years ago, I worked with a start-up company that was full of scary smart geek guys. One of my many “herd the cats” tasks was to facilitate product planning and development meetings. As you might imagine this was a challenge. Each thought they were the smartest person in the room. We were neck deep in testosterone (several ex military in the group contributed significantly - HOOAH!) And, they were all afraid to look stupid in front of the others.
This meant important questions went unasked and a lot of broken things didn’t get fixed. So, I decided to take the geek by the propellers and started the “duh” scoring system.
I deliberately asked “stupid” questions such as, “But will that interface work with X?” or “Is that compatible with the current version of _________?” “What was the QA test result on ________?” I did this knowing full well that the new hire working on the interface was sweating blood ‘cuz he couldn’t get it to work; that there was indeed a compatibility problem; and that they hadn’t even run any QA processes. I’d start by saying “Duh point to the blonde! I’ve got a question.”
I ran up quite an impressive duh score over time, but I got everyone to focus on the question and talking about the answers. Sure, they were showing off for each other (and fluffy blonde moi) but they were also problem solving, which was the whole point. And, some of them even started playing the “duh” game with each other. (Get people to laugh and they’ll probably forget to stab each other.)
I was recently reminded of this when a smart friend said, “I’m stupid about technology.” Well, hey, join the club! I know just enough to be dangerous about an ever-growing list of tech stuff, including all the wonders of Web 2.0. But, I also know it’s okay to have a high duh score. I can’t let the fear of looking stupid keep me from getting smarter.
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