It has become difficult to be an expert with just one technology and methodology. Therefore, to become an expert, you need to practice new technologies and methodologies and experience their pros and cons.
The best way to learn and develop new technologies and methodologies is to apply new technologies and methodologies to your current company. However, when trying to apply new technologies to the company or practice with team members, it often fails. Most of the time, the reason is not that there is a problem with the new technology you propose.
When introducing something new to the team, we only consider the technical aspects and do not consider the social aspects. If team members do not like you and you do not like team members, even if you propose a good technology, it will not be accepted.
Even if you try to use new technologies or methodologies alone but your boss opposes it when he sees it, you have to persuade him. Even if you can practice alone and something you do not know arises, you should be able to ask around, but you cannot ask because other team members are not practicing. Therefore, without considering the social aspects, you cannot improve your skills by acquiring new technologies.
When introducing new technologies, you should consider social capital and social skills as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the technology.
Social capital is a resource obtained through social relationships, including trust, social networks, interactions, and social skills. The higher the social capital, the more resources you can obtain through social relationships. In other words, if you have high social capital, it is easier to introduce new technologies and acquire new technologies.
Social skills refer to the ability to act effectively in social situations. Social skills include micro-interactions such as greeting and asking questions, as well as receiving help, giving and receiving feedback, influencing, teaching and learning, and delegating.
By utilizing social skills and social capital to the fullest, you should try to introduce new technologies. If the technology you propose is accepted, you can ask questions and receive help, which will help you improve your technical skills.
In the book The Science of Trust (John Mordecai Gottman. 2011. The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples. W. W. Norton & Company.) by John Mordecai Gottman, a specialist in applied statistics, the following research results are presented.
There was a dual-income couple whose trust was broken. One day, the husband came home early. He saw the dishes piled up in the sink and did the dishes, wondering what was going on. If you secretly shoot this far and show it to a third party, most people evaluate that the husband acted with good intentions. The twist comes when the wife comes home. The wife gets angry at her husband. “Are you trying to complain that I’m not doing the housework properly?” “Are you trying to tell me to do this?” and so on.
In the book, John Gottman explains that in a situation where trust is broken, any action is seen as malicious.
We can often find such situations around us. When the trust between the team leader and the team members is broken, the team leader gives books to the team members with good intentions. Then the team members perceive the team leader’s actions as malicious and think, “Am I being asked to study because I’m lacking in this area? Even though he doesn’t know well himself…”
Trust and social networks are also a kind of social capital. Since social capital is based on social skills, people with good social capital are generally good at social skills. As mentioned in the example above, in a situation where there is no social capital, even if you propose a good technology, it is not accepted because the proposal is perceived as malicious.
Therefore, experts are not only excellent in domain knowledge but also have excellent social capital and social skills. The Bell Research Institute conducted a study on the characteristics of ‘excellent researchers,’ and excellent researchers received help from others much faster than others, even though they were asked for the same favor. In other words, experts are not only excellent in domain knowledge but also have excellent social capital, one of which is a social network.
Research in software engineering has shown similar results. Excellent software developers spend more time interacting with others and provide advice that includes social aspects to novice developers.
- Thomas R. Riedl, Julian S. Weitzenfeld, Jared T. Freeman, Gary A. Klein, & John Musa. (1991). What we have learned about software engineering expertise. In SEI conference on Software Engineering Education (pp. 1-12). Pittsburgh, PA: Software Engineering Institute.
- Gerald R. Ferris, L. A. Witt, & Wayne A. Hochwater. (2001). Interaction of social skill and general mental ability on job performance and salary. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(6), 1075-1082.
Excellent developers mention collaboration with colleagues about 70%, while developers with mediocre skills mention collaboration with colleagues less than 20%.
Then why don’t we talk about social capital and social skills when talking about experts? This is because of the wrong perception of expertise and the education system designed based on it.
Previous expertise studies usually focused on individual behavior and choices by putting individuals in a room to reduce research costs and variables. The resulting expert and non-expert differences formed the expert image, and many educational processes are still based on it.
These studies focused only on the individual expert and did not consider social capital and skills. However, recent studies say that social capital and skills are important for experts.
In the past, software development expertise and social skills were often disparaged as separate, saying, “He’s good at programming, but he lacks communication skills.” Now, we see communication skills as part of being good at programming.
However, we have not grown up with recent research-based education. The current education system does not reflect recent research. Therefore, we are still trying to become experts without social capital and social skills, focusing only on domain knowledge. And in a situation where there is no social capital and skills, even if the domain knowledge is high, it can hinder the spread and success of that knowledge.
Fortunately, social skills can be improved through training. The simplest way is to pay attention to micro-interactions that occur frequently in daily life, such as greetings, conversations, and asking questions. Record and review micro-interactions and think about how to apply them to other interactions.
If you have trained social skills through such micro-interactions, you can build social capital by performing one step higher social skills such as receiving help, giving and receiving feedback, influencing, teaching and learning, and delegating.
When introducing new technologies, ask yourself this question. “Do my team members like me?” If you answer “No” to this question, it will be difficult to introduce new technologies. On the other hand, if you answer “Yes,” it will be easier to introduce new technologies. Instead of focusing only on new technologies and methodologies to become an expert, focus on building social capital. Then the path to becoming an expert will be easier.
Was my blog helpful? Please leave a comment at the bottom. it will be a great help to me!
App promotion
Deku.Deku created the applications with Flutter.If you have interested, please try to download them for free.
