What was the last time that you outright lied? This is kind of an uncomfortable question for us, but for most people, an outright lie is not something that we do regularly. Now, I'm not talking about the kind of lie that we often brush off as no big deal. I'm talking about bald-faced, directly lying to someone for your own interest. This isn't a common practice. Culturally, it's not really acceptable. We burn bridges, especially when we're found out in lies, and most moral systems don't really support lying as a common good practice. And there's plenty of reasons why. But in today's episode, I don't want to talk about this kind of lying. Instead, I want to talk about the kind of lying that we do all of the time. The kind of lying that I've probably done countless times on this show. The kind of lying that is often unintentional and very rarely condemned in any format. My name is Jonathan Cottrell, and you're listening to Developer Tea. My goal on this show is to help driven developers connect to their careers. And do better work so they can have a positive influence on the people around them. A lot of what we talk about on this show comes down to having a higher degree of self-awareness. Being able to recognize your own faults. And even when you can't see them, because there's going to be plenty of faults that you can't see very well, you realize that there are plenty of faults that you can't see very well. And so this means that you're vulnerable. You have to be vulnerable. You have weaknesses. You have places to improve. You have places where other people can speak into whatever you're doing. And that will improve the outcomes that you're seeking. When you're more self-aware, two things happen. And they're kind of juxtaposed. The first thing that happens is your weaknesses, your faults, the things that you're bad at, become more apparent to you. The second thing that happens is the things that you're good at, you're able to focus on and hone much better. Why is this? What is this effect that's happening when you become more self-aware? Of course, this is a blanket statement. And I don't want to say that everybody who has a higher degree of self-awareness just naturally becomes better. That's not, there's no magic pill to becoming better, to improving. But when you know what things you're not very good at, and you know what things you are pretty good at, then you can kind of focus your energy towards the things that you are pretty good at, right? So the self-improvement process starts kind of at a foundation of becoming more self-aware. And this seeking for self-awareness is actually a part of a bigger seeking for better versions of the truth, better versions of reality from your own vantage point, and trying to understand the truth. And trying to understand reality from others' vantage points. So what does this have to do with lying? We'll start with a very common thing that happens with developers. When you're talking to another developer, and you have an opinion, you have an opinion about how something is done. Often, the opinions that we have are based not in some well-established experience, but rather they're based on, what we enjoy. What we think based on our own experiences, or based on what we thought before. Perhaps we adopted these beliefs from someone that we trust. Maybe we adopted these beliefs by using these tools or going through a few processes. But if it really came down to it, most of us have not thoroughly vetted all of the options that are on the table. Most of us have not thoroughly vetted all of the options that are on the table. Most of us have not thoroughly vetted all of the options that are on the table. Most of us have not thoroughly vetted all of the options that are on the table. in a given conversation. However, very few times do we validate and discuss that reality. That the reason that we are presenting one solution over another, and advocating for one solution over another, is not because of some shallow reasoning, or because of some heuristics that we use. We like to present as though this is somehow objectively, the better way. And this isn't an unreasonable thing. It's not unreasonable to default to this position. Because if you were to tell people that the reason that you want to continue using, for example, JavaScript on a project, is because you like JavaScript, this is often not going to be received as a valid reason. This kind of lying is one form, and there's plenty more, of intellectual dishonesty. We're going to take a break, and then we're going to come back and talk about other forms of intellectual dishonesty that we participate in every day as developers. Today's episode is sponsored by Clubhouse. Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone on every team together to build better products. Clubhouse provides the perfect balance of simplicity and structure for better software development. Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development for better software development. For better cross-functional collaboration. Its fast, intuitive interface makes it easy for people on any team to focus in on their work, on a specific task or project, while also being able to zoom out and see how that work is contributing towards the bigger picture. If you're like me as a developer, one of the first questions that you ask is whether a given service has an API. This is because I like to create my own little integrations and tools and utilities, and sometimes, I like to add a display to my, for example, my terminal. When I open a new tab, maybe I have a to-do list that prints out in my terminal. And the only way that that's possible, at least in a sustainable way, is if there's an API. And Clubhouse has a simple API and robust set of integrations. Clubhouse seamlessly integrates with all the tools that you already use getting out of your way so that you can deliver quality software on time. Listeners of DeveloperTea, get two months of Clubhouse by heading over to clubhouse.io slash developertea. That's all one word. clubhouse.io slash developertea. Thanks again to Clubhouse for sponsoring today's episode of DeveloperTea. So how does intellectual dishonesty work? What exactly is it? Intellectual dishonesty is kind of a loose term. There's not any exact definition. And the idea here is that you're lying in some way that isn't directly detectable. You're deceiving someone, perhaps using rhetoric, or somehow you're dodging questions, or you're making yourself out to be smart in some particular way. Maybe you're using a logical fallacy that makes your point seem more applicable. This happens. This happens in all kinds of ways as developers. And often, this is the result not just of us trying to get the upper hand in a conversation, which itself is a pretty natural thing to do, but it also happens when we convince ourselves of things that are not necessarily true. For example, many of us have best practices that are ingrained in our heads. Now, if we traced where those best practices come from and why we believe them, if we were totally honest, most of us would end up either saying we don't know why we believe that particular thing, or because someone who had some level of authority in our lives told us that it was true. Now, that can come from a book, it can come from a professor, but often we are not developing our beliefs based on direct evidence, based on direct experience, usually we develop our beliefs second, third, fifth hand. We do similar things when trying to, for example, make estimates about the work that we do. Humans are not evidence-driven, at least naturally, when we estimate things. We're pretty bad at estimation. We've talked about this countless times on the show. These beliefs that we have often cause us to be intellectually dishonest in ways that protect us, these are our automatic ways of thinking, our automatic ways of behaving, especially in some kind of social context. And when I say social here, I'm including work as a social context, any context where we have to cooperate with other people. This is sort of a prisoner's dilemma as well. If you have a group of friends, a group of coworkers, whoever is the first to be intellectually honest about the things they do, or the things they don't know, or the source of their beliefs, the person who is seeking that intellectual honesty runs a risk. They run the risk of the other people in their group continuing their facades, continuing their intellectual dishonesty. And that one person who seeks that intellectual honesty may be ostracized. Perhaps their beliefs are not necessarily well-founded. And so, their ideas are, even if that person is not totally, you know, separated from the group, their ideas are not going to be as respected necessarily as the supposedly well-intentioned or well-thought-out ideas of the other members of the group. And so, the prisoner's dilemma applies because really for a pursuit of intellectual honesty, it seems that everyone in the group has to pursue intellectual honesty together. The prisoner's dilemma applies because this is one of the major reasons why leaders of groups, managers, or founders of companies, they have a big responsibility when it comes to culture. Because the way that we form and share beliefs is so fundamental to the work that we do. If we can't be honest about the source of our beliefs, if we can't seek greater clarity, if we can't pursue self-awareness, then it's going to be difficult to improve together. It'll be difficult to see what other people's weaknesses are. It'll be difficult to rely on others to help us find our own weaknesses. I encourage you to try today and this week and as you move forward in your career, try to turn up your sensitivity level for yourself. Trying to identify moments in your life where you are being intellectually dishonest is often comes on the heels of some kind of fear, some bit of anxiety. And the way that you deal with that anxiety is through some intellectual dishonesty. For example, imagine that you are in your stand-up meeting or whatever your check-in is with the person. Maybe it's a co-worker or maybe it's a product manager that you work with. maybe it's a manager, whoever it is, and they ask you how things went last week. And you know that things didn't go so well. Maybe you moved slower than you expected to. Maybe there was some kind of technical hang-up. But you feel wrong or somehow afraid to tell them the truth. This is a moment where you have an opportunity to grow and to learn how to be intellectually honest. It's important to preface your answer because we're all conditioned to hear these intellectually dishonest versions that are wrapped in some kind of explanation that makes sense to us. But if you're intellectually honest, sometimes that can sound abrasive. So, for example, saying, I'm not really sure what happened last week, but we didn't get as much done as we wanted to get done. This is a very common scenario for developers. To not really have great information about why you didn't proceed as planned. But we don't often say it in those terms. So if someone hears you say it in those terms, it might catch them off guard. It may be a little bit alarming. So preface it by saying, I want to be totally clear and honest about this so that we can improve. Not because this is the new status quo, but instead because I can recognize, recognize the weaknesses in our own execution, our own behaviors. Once you set this precedent and you continue to operate from that place of pure honesty, the sticker shock, the feeling that, wow, that was unexpected, that feeling hopefully will fade. And other people hopefully will catch on to the fact that you indeed are improving. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Developer Tea. I encourage you to, again, turn up that knob, that sensitivity to your own intellectual dishonesty, the moments where you feel like you're making something up to get by. And to take the time to find out how you can be more intellectually honest. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you again to Clubhouse for sponsoring today's episode of Developer Tea. Head over to clubhouse.io. To get two months for free on Clubhouse. Developer Tea is a part of the Spec Network. The Spec Network is for designers and developers looking to level up. There are other podcasts and other content on spec.fm. Go and check it out. Thank you again to today's producer and editor, Sarah Jackson. I'm Jonathan Cottrell. And until next time, enjoy your tea.