Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Share Your Mistakes

    I wrote the other day about a culture of allowing mistakes. We know mistakes are going to happen, so we ought to accept them. Even stupid ones. I make them at times, my wife does, my kid does, so I have been working to not get upset and emotional about them. Instead, hold someone accountable, let them fix things, and try to do better in the future. It’s what I’d want, and what I am trying to do with my family, friends, kids I coach, and others.

    Many of us share knowledge and information. One of the reasons I love events like SQL Saturday is that others share their knowledge. I especially appreciate is when someone shares a solution and how or why they build it. Hearing their stories, the reasons for their decisions, and what works well is great. I learn in a similar way from blogs, which is why we syndicate blogs at SQL Server Central and include them in the newsletter.

    By the way, if you have a blog and want to syndicate it (full feeds, please), contact the webmaster or submit an article.

    We want to share knowledge, but we should also remember to share mistakes. We make wrong turns, and sometimes others might not take our advice because we recommend them. Instead, they might go down the same wrong path as we did previously. They might make the same mistake we did. Sharing and showing how a decision didn’t work well can be a powerful and valuable story. We all respond well when we empathize, and most of us can empathize with a mistake.

    Almost every interview I’ve been in has asked me about a mistake, misstep, or other error that I’ve corrected or learned from. Usually, there is some variation on “tell me about a difficult situation” that you need a story about. In a technical interview, this might be based on a programming or database administration problem. In other interviews, this might require you to think about interactions with others.

    In any case, I encourage you to keep stories handy for interviews or reviews. I’d certainly also suggest that you blog about them. Writing is a valuable communication skill we all need, especially in these days of mostly remote interactions. Practice writing, get better at presenting your thoughts, and learn to share stories that will help others in their journey to be a better professional.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

  • Daily Coping 22 Jul 2022

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

    Today’s tip is to challenge negative thoughts. Find an alternative interpretation.

    In general, I tend to be a positive person. Not always, but most of the time. That being said, I do get negative about conflicts and discord when I don’t get along with others. Most of the time, I do get along, which is good for my mental health.

    I’ve had some concerns lately about how I interact with a new person in my life. I will deal with this person regularly across the next year (maybe longer), and I don’t know them as well as I’d like. We had some tough interaction getting started, more about a situation than us not getting along. This lingered a bit as a decision was put off.

    However, it was easy for me to take the disagreement personally. I struggled a bit to not feel that something was my fault, or it was the other person’s fault. In either case I felt upset, a little angry, sad, and concerned. Not good emotions to hold on to.

    In talking things out with my wife, I tried to look at things from another point of view, from the other person’s, from an independent view, as if this were someone else. I could see that there might be other reasons why we hadn’t come to a quick, smooth, easy resolution.

    Finding an alternative interpretation was good for me to step back and not take things personally. It isn’t resolved as of this writing, but hopefully soon.

  • Daily Coping 21 Jul 2022

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

    Today’s tip is to write down your worries and save them for a “worry time.”

    There are plenty of things I worry about. Perhaps not as many as others, but I do have concerns and anxiety about different things in my life (work, family, friends, world, etc.).

    One of my concerns is with the data community, speakers, and diversity. I worry about this in many facets and am unsure of how to move forward or what to do.

    Rather than be concerned, I make some notes, I chat with people about ideas, and I slowly think about it over time. But, I set aside some time to worry about it and let it go most of the time.

    Most of the time that works. Not always, but most of the time.

  • A Culture That Allows Mistakes

    Building a culture that promotes teamwork, efficiency, retention, and other positive attributes can be challenging. While many organizations want accountability and responsibility, it is easy for managers to tip over into a blame-and-chastise pattern. When someone makes a mistake and a deadline is missed or a client gets upset, how do you respond?

    I saw an article that gives some examples from the cybersecurity world about how to build a culture that allows mistakes and forgives them. We all make mistakes, and we should strive to correct them while working to avoid repeating the same mistake. But we will make mistakes again in the future, so how do we deal with them?

    One of the challenges with building a strong culture that is productive is with management. Far too many people react poorly when things go wrong. I find this is a similar challenge to parenting, where we often struggle to let go of control and accept that mistakes will occur. We can also worry that we will be blamed for others’ mistakes and want to push our employees or children to avoid mistakes. Often our reactions are more fear-based, for ourselves or even for others’ safety. However, we can’t completely avoid things going wrong. It’s never worked for me, either at work or at home.

    There are plenty of articles on creating blameless cultures (one, two, and searches), most of which give reasoning why this works better and hints on what you can do. For many of us, these might feel like a dream we cannot chase. With some managers, the idea of even broaching the topic might be too scary. In those situations, I might try discussing the ideas with peers and perhaps implementing ideas with them, rather than trying to convince management.

    Ultimately culture requires support from those in charge. Management has to actually believe in a culture that tolerates and accepts mistakes, while still striving to reduce their occurrence. Everyone deserves to make mistakes and recover from them. We’d like to prevent repeat mistakes, but those will happen. My goal is to work to be better over time and expect others to do the same. While I might need to move someone to a new job or even let them go, it wouldn’t be because of making a few mistakes. It would be because of constant mistakes without making an effort to change their behavior and be better.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.