How To ACTUALLY Get Your Boss To Listen

[@HealthyDev]

Are you in a situation where you need your boss to support you? Having trouble getting them to listen to reason? What are you facing? I hope these tips help.

[@chancepaladin]

fk i stopped asking years ago, I just do it now, if I wait for feedback, shit's crashed like 3 times.

[@Imab1234]

i work in a computer refurbishment company and we basically dont have all the tools for the job. One thing we need to do is open up laptops to repair them and theres either not enough tools to go around for the team, or the ones that are around are so badly worn that those tools themselves wear out the screws so we cant even open them up. We have asked so many times to get equipment but our boss never ends up getting any of the equipment. instead, people have resorted to buying their own equipment for the job like screwdrivers and ssds for auditing. I could go on about other things but the main thing is that our boss basically doesnt listen to our team

[@HealthyDev]

@@Imab1234 unfortunately buying your own tools is covering up for them. I understand the frustration to be sure. Until jobs start going out late and they connect the dots between the inefficiencies and a lack of tools, it will probably keep happening. People don’t tend to change until they feel pain. Of course your boss can still choose to blame you anyway and fire you, so it’s a risk. But if that happens they will eventually lose all their employees and it will hurt their business.

[@Imab1234]

@HealthyDev that's true it's covering up for them, unfortunately a lot of people are afraid of losing their job to speak up and so the cycle continues. Thankfully it's a part time job to fund me going to university to then get a job in software development, so it's not a forever thing. Thanks for the reply Jayme!

[@vincentmontano4518]

A key takeaway from Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss includes: Accusation Audit: Address objections before they come up. For example, "You might think I'm asking for too much here, but..." This reduces resistance by acknowledging concerns upfront. Calibrated Questions: Instead of making demands, ask open-ended questions like, "How can we improve this?" or "What would make you comfortable with this decision?" This shifts the focus to problem-solving rather than confrontation.

[@HealthyDev]

Thanks for sharing this! Voss has some excellent insights that can be highly useful in tech jobs.

[@seinfan9]

My manager is a corporate simp. They say jump, he asks how high. Unless what they're asking for is simply impossible, he tries his best to bend over backwards for them.

[@Erik_The_Viking]

Sounds like a couple of bosses I've had. Ugh.

[@edbrito-swdev]

Define impossible. I had a product manager that promised a client that the new product would be ready in 6 months, without talking to us. He was promising features that hadn't ever been discussed, not in my team at least. I left the company soon after and it took 2 years until they announced the product the PM had promised...

[@Erik_The_Viking]

@@edbrito-swdev If I had $1 for every time some clown made a promise to a customer I would be retired now. Those PMs are the worst.

[@wahoobeans]

“Future pace” is a nice way of saying “manage your managers”

[@HealthyDev]

It just means bring the person's mind to experience what the future might look like. It works equally well in friendships and marriage. At least in my experience!

[@marcotroster8247]

​@@HealthyDevSure, it works and is very important. But it's kind of silly to talk to an adult like to a child. That additional mental capacity could be spent working on actual stuff. In a pure software company, there's no place for managers without technical background. It's adding so much friction that projects can't be delivered because of it.

[@HealthyDev]

I'm not sure what managers without a technical background has to do with whether future pacing is helpful. Maybe I misunderstood your comment?

[@marcotroster8247]

@@HealthyDev A manager with technical background knows what's gonna happen from own experience. There's no need to invent a silly story about what might happen in the future because he understands right away. I mean it's on the level of talking to a child literally like "don't put your hand on the hot oven or otherwise..." For me it's intellectually intimidating to talk to adults in such a way. Ideally I don't wanna lose respect for my manager or doubt his competence. But anyways, your strategy is basically what I do all day long at my current project, so it's totally justified in case you're dealing with an incompetent person. More less the only way to get anything done at all. So it's good advice for sure.

[@HealthyDev]

@@marcotroster8247 IDK I don't consider someone incompetent who doesn't understand the implications of work I'm doing if they aren't doing it themselves. It would be amazing if we were always managed by people who knew as much about the technical details as us. But that's just not how most companies operate. I guess on this channel I try to help people (as I said in the episode) with strategies that work in a broken system. I kind of stopped suggesting things that are ideals that don't work in the real world a while ago. YMMV

[@randyriegel8553]

My teams boss is the VP of Engineering at our company. He was also a developer in the past. So when our team has a problem he understands what we are talking about and why it might not work. If we are behind on a project he understands why. He'll just says you guys are good and he would jump into the fire to protect us... He'd go let the CEO know issues and everything so no one bothered us. He always takes one for the team. It's an international company but I work in the Pittsburgh office (about 1 day a month, home otherwise) which is the headquarters. If I pass CEO in hall or something he just stops and chats LOL. It's so laid back.

[@Erik_The_Viking]

Great advice. Framing the impact is crucial - putting a $$$ value on the problem can help get their attention. You're spot on about picking your battles wisely - you can't win every battle but you need to fight the battles that are important.

[@Meritumas]

unless you dress a middle-manager in a large org. they don't give a ... about money, they care about their own asses.

[@HealthyDev]

Glad to hear this was useful! Sounds like you've had very similar experiences.

[@Erik_The_Viking]

@@HealthyDev Oh yeah - way too many of these to count! HA HA

[@maartenderie8252]

17:40 In Dutch we say; Trust arrives by foot, but departs by horse

[@HealthyDev]

Interesting! Thanks for sharing. Never heard that saying!

[@KamoriGoat]

Another well timed video. I've definitely been struggling with burnout recently. And a lot of what you said was already something I knew I needed to do. But the burnout was strong enough I kept asking myself, "is this worth it? I can always do something else because I'm frustrated not getting more wins." The way you talk about it though, I think I'm realizing I'm not picking my battle well enough and worrying about "everything." Thanks for your videos.

[@HealthyDev]

You are so very welcome. I've struggled so much with this too. When you take pride in your work, it's hard to let things go when you know with more effort, you might be able to make a difference. It took me too long to realize my limitations so I could let up and live. Sounds like you're there! Hopefully this year gets easier for you as you're easier on yourself. 🙌💪

[@brightshital]

Helpful suggestions indeed. Since I was planning to talk to my manager during my one on one meeting, I was really looking for some effective ways to communicate but I have a strategy now . Thanks.

[@HealthyDev]

Fantastic!

[@piotrszopa3356]

Great content. Solve problems one by one :). Like in programming divide and conquer!

[@Gauravmann]

At the end you perfectly described the kind of team I've been on for some time now.

[@HealthyDev]

As society has shifted more towards selfishness and narcissism in even the average person, we're only going to experience this more on teams. I try to offer suggestions that might help in this broken system. They aren't perfect, but I hope they at least reduce a bit of suffering!

[@pieflies]

Framing can also help you to understand when something you think is a problem isn’t really that big of a deal, before you get to wound up about it.

[@mikekrzych]

While I agree with most of what you're saying, I think this approach could lead to burnout in the long run if you're not seeing the desired results.

[@HealthyDev]

Interesting. That could be the case perhaps, depending on how it's applied. Could you expand a bit on how you see that happening? Thanks.

[@mikekrzych]

@@HealthyDev Sure, what I mean is that if you're consistently putting in the effort to communicate with management but not seeing them respond or adjust processes, it can start to feel like you're fighting a losing battle. Even if you're picking the right battles, when there's no visible progress, it can be demotivating. Eventually, it can lead to burnout-not because you've done anything wrong, but simply because you've hit a brick wall and your efforts don’t seem to be making a difference.

[@HealthyDev]

Ah, got you. Yes absolutely, if something isn't working probably not worth banging your head against the wall!

[@harrytsang1501]

Since moving into mt current role, I have taken the boil the frog approach and slowly introduce my methods one by one. Just ask with an open mind, what's the SOP and where's the infrastructure if there's none, suggest existing tools with fast turnaround. No CI? Ok, can I borrow a VM to set it up so my stuff has CI run tests? No tests? Well here's a tool I have used to start having integration tests. Want me to spend a day and integrate it? Someone messed up the main branch because it is not protected? Better late than never I have introduced so many of these methodologies that I package as "industry standard", one at a time, each with not a lot of time cost.

[@HealthyDev]

Nice. Sounds like you found a great incremental strategy that works for you!

[@xyzabc12342]

Really such good advice! I myself as a sw dev often detect things that others can not see or things that may go off in the future and there is this whole proccess to make the management understand these problems. In some cases it did not go very well for me explaining them what's wrong and indeed you get to look like a jerk... 😵😵I would like to point out though something which I have seen and I cannot understand why it happens and that is why nowadays often companies decide to place managers in software projects that DO NOT have any software experience, why are they doing that? what is the key reason companies decide to place in highly critical projects as heads people that do not have software experience? How these individuals persuade them that this is the right thing? And don't they feel that this is dangerous and can compromise the project? I get that often more manageriar people are considered as more loyal however I don't believe that but is this a stable reason to opperate like this?

[@HealthyDev]

It's a shortage of people willing to manage. If more developers would step up and be managers instead of staying as individual contributors so late in their career, this would start to change!

[@ruioliveira9949]

Really good advice. Keep it up!

[@novalis791]

Thank You!

[@jano12330]

I got question. As a software developer, I allways have the dilemma or bad feelings about not being productive when doing development. Sometimes I need to solve things like environment not working, my local Java install having some dependency issues, Jboss cant ked running, Connection issues, or instances in the cloud suddenly down, you can imagine... how you deal with these types of situations when as a developer you want to be productive, working on features, architecture, bugs but at the end of the day you realized you have done nothing productive?

[@HealthyDev]

First, have grace for yourself. Modern software development introduces a lot of "peripheral" knowledge with all of these tools and configuration settings that it's really hard to ever "master". Running into this doesn't mean you're doing a bad job. Second, I would simply start accounting for uncertainty when you estimate. Even if it's not a formal estimate for a manager, when you are thinking about starting a task or feature, add some extra time knowing you are going to run into stuff you can't predict. You'll get more accurate the more you do this. Hope that helps a little!

[@clintvee]

After years of being talked over at meetings, dismissed and ignored I just perform the role of magic mouse cursor and take the money. I've yet to meet anyone in over a decade in this field who actually wants to write good software or make the end user experience optimal, it's just people wanting to feel important at the expense of any logic or goodwill.

[@MissPlaced84]

I definitely struggle most at describing the impact of whatever problem I'm facing. For some reason, I tend to expect leadership to understand the impact just by hearing me explain the problem/suggested solution. That really only works when the problem is already obvious to them.

[@robt6127]

Insightful advice, thanks! I forgot I follow you for IT advice, I've been practicing guitar lately and saw you playing and just wondering what music practice you were discussing haha.

[@HealthyDev]

Nice! Do you play electric, acoustic, or both?

[@robt6127]

@@HealthyDev Kind of both but mostly electric, got a new Fender strat Ultra that's hard to put down. There is something pretty magical about a good acoustic though when I pick one up, especially this time of year with their warm, soothing tone.

[@HealthyDev]

@@robt6127 absolutely! I love both, for much of the reasons you gave. How long have you been playing for?

[@DailyFrankPeter]

Sounds like you have a good manager to start with - one that knows what an API is and that charging per call can affect the cost estimation.

[@HealthyDev]

I produced a document with my findings and presented it to their team. Some people did not know what an API was. But the document explained that, yes!

[@h.h.c466]

Charging for API calls within a CRM that probably aren't big calls to begin with (for sure bulks is but considering that front/backend belong to it to form a complete item ).. welcome anti-consumer practice for off the shelf stuff. I get that computation-heavy may include pricing for such, but normal usage such as entering customer data or enrichment services ... wow, now everything goes in this direction..

[@JohnDoe-bu3qp]

Now see, I would have stopped at "this is going to cost a lot more because they charge per request". At that point, in my eyes I'm already framing the problem from a business perspective. But producing actual numbers is interesting. It's just really hard to do most of the time as well.

[@IndieVideoGameDeveloper]

Be careful "gathering support". You may be seen as an easy target for simp management as disruptive, poisonous. It may put a target on your back.

[@AxLPeazy]

TL DR: unionize

[@tiskahar9738]

and corporate leadership is incompetent

[@witblitsfpv1265]

Just tell them what they want to hear, that's what they are paing you for, they are not interested in anything else. "Managing up...", don't like it, don't agree with it, but that is how it is. All great tips and very true. Maybe being in this game for many years, I'm tired of the corporate BS.

[@WhiteHonky-mv1eu]

I prefer the term "when the proverbial feces hits the proverbial fan..."

[@criticaloptimist]

I think this might just be good advice for anybody that’s neurodivergent. To me impacts will seem very self evident, but I can’t expect others to follow my train of thought.

[@DiogoMudo]

Finding allies has the potential to backfire as you being seen as a gossiper/toxic person. In one of my work experiences, there was a group of people that ended up being called "a terrorist cell" and they all resigned / got fired

[@HealthyDev]

Yup. Every strategy has the potential to backfire. Can you give me any more background on the situation? Maybe it will help people avoid trying to follow my advice if it's the wrong context to apply it. If it's too sensitive, don't put it here though please. Use your judgement.

[@DiogoMudo]

@@HealthyDev Jayme, to put more context, the "cell" was a group of really good friends that kinda took care one of another. The company culture was really toxic and abusive, dressed as "we are all a family". They kinda "ticked" all the toxic stuff you give us advice about. One of the group got fired under the reason of a low performance. The other two started to get "quiet fired", where they were asked unreasonable deadlines and scopes.They figured it out and resigned. The takeaway here is that acting politically behind the scenes for support on a toxic culture with a narcissistic boss, will probably be perceived as "this person wants my position", even if you hold best intent and believes you are acting for the benefit of the Company

[@HealthyDev]

@@DiogoMudo gotcha. In that situation I can totally understand why the strategies in this episode aren’t applicable. Makes sense!

[@oidpolar6302]

Putting on hold never worked. Always bring backup plan/plan B strategy when telling facts.

[@anteusify]

Quality stuff!

[@SergiiLuchko]

Hi, Jayme! I really enjoyed your video! I generally have no issues finding the right words to communicate with different people, whether it's managers, developers, QA, or other stakeholders. However, I've consistently struggled when it comes to Product (UX) Designers. In my 13-year career as a full-stack developer and team leader, I've noticed that about 90% of product designers don't want to listen to software developers at all. They often resist even minor changes that could significantly reduce development time, no matter how much I emphasize that I'm just genuinely willing to help. It feels like they see me as overstepping rather than collaborating. Do you have any advice on how to approach conversations with product designers or ways to influence them effectively? Thank you in advance!

[@HealthyDev]

Much like experienced developers can get defensive about people giving input on how they should code when they aren't in it every day, designers can get the same with their designs. I would recommend the same thing I do for any relationship first, get to know them better. Ask them questions about their philosophy of design, with general interest. Once they know you are respectful of their work, if you have a suggestion phrase it in a question. Be prepared to be shot down a couple times. This can work well. However, if it's an especially defensive person, who is emotionally attached to their work, you'll probably need to figure out better what they're motivated by. How can you phrase your suggestions to their design in a way that aligns with principles they've already said they agree with? I've found that telling a designer changing their design will save time never goes over well. They don't care about saving developers time - they care about having a great product user experience. Not sure if any of that helps, but those are just a couple quick thoughts.

[@purdysanchez]

Good advice as always.

[@oidpolar6302]

Holding creates lockup causing budget loses due to time wasted.

[@profetik777]

Great transitions ;)

[@HealthyDev]

Had a viewer suggest them, was that you?

[@cethyhnc9305]

I love how the introduction assumes you're working with reasonable people. We wouldn't be this deep in the horse manure if they were reasonable in the first place.

[@cloogshicer]

I often have the situation where management wants to do something stupid, everyone knows it's stupid, and yet the others don't speak up at all. I've often had situations like that where I thought I'm the only one with objections, yet afterwards people came up to me and said "I loved what you said during that meeting, that's exactly what management needed to hear!" Well then why didn't you support me? I know my attitude here probably doesn't help - but how exactly can I get these people to help out in the first place?

[@HealthyDev]

How much are you meeting with these people privately one on one to discuss the issue? Is the only time you connect with them in meetings with everyone else present?

[@cloogshicer]

@@HealthyDev Sometimes I have talked about it with them privately, yes. I sometimes even tried outright asking for support. But I guess people are just worried or don't want to rock the boat.

[@HealthyDev]

When you asked for support, were you able to make a case for how it benefits them?

[@cloogshicer]

@@HealthyDev You ask really good questions. Thank you. I suppose thinking back, I realize that it didn't really matter that much to them, since it didn't affect them much.

[@HealthyDev]

@@cloogshicer hey I've done the same. Definitely don't beat yourself up. This stuff can feel like way too much work - and sometimes it is. Hence the "pick your battles wisely". When it's a crucial thing though, winning support from other people by persuading them first (and then having an alliance) has helped me a lot sometimes.

[@nihorothereal]

I will list your suggestions in context of my company. 1. Put your issue in management terms. Still no reaction, shit has not hit the fan yet, we don't care. Money is still good. Future does not interest us. 2. Support around. What if potential knowing people are locked in their silos and my silo is just low level knowledge. Our people don't know, others are defensive and not sharing anything. We are theoretically firstline support, but practically way more - takes more than a year to get stable and independent in solving "first level" cases. 3. One thing at a time, yes. Have seen it so many times. And even with just one thing, but too many arguments - benefits or impacts, managers just get overwhelmed and their engine pops the other way, smoke comes out from air intake and they stop listening.

[@HealthyDev]

For #1, if you can't articulate the problem in a way that is seen as urgent to them, you're right they won't take action. It's the old saying "you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped". On the other hand, how well do you know your management team? As in, do you know how they are each measured, and what keeps them up at night? If you do, is there a way you can connect the suggestion you have with directly addressing their needs?

[@nihorothereal]

@@HealthyDev I have no idea how they are measured. I have a loose suspicion that they are measured on some easily measurable values like: profit + nomanycomplaints + KPI green. That has no connection to reality, like value chain health or fails per input amount etc. What keeps them up at night ... No idea actually. I have a belief that they sleep like babies, based on our long standing problems with solution - yes we know this. Emm and ...

[@DeepakPradhan-ABG]

I have lived the same experience umteem times over the last 15+ years as well. All because of imposters, group n ethnicity with 7 companies. Two major from Charlotte.

[@janmaker227]

I think these videos have value but they are also not very "self empowering." There are situations where you need to work with incompetence BUT this baby dada language and approach is humiliating. What is the ultimate goal here? Help morons (management) succeed? maybe? Take their place? maybe? Or just sit back and watch everything burn. maybe. In the end one needs to really define his own goals first and then look at the board. If you deaing with smart people they will figure out very fast every strategy so you back to square one. If you dealing with morons well you don't really need any advice than find another job. Money is never in the wrong hands and leadership position also not. The only person at the wrong place is yourself sometimes. Take ownership.

[@HealthyDev]

If you consider it "not self empowering" to teach people skills to deal with OTHER people. I'm not sure what to tell you. Unless you work by yourself, you need to develop the ability to influence people who are not as "smart" as you (your words). I'm frankly getting tired of this trite response that the correct answer to these problems is "get a better job". It's completely out of touch with the reality of how few jobs exist where you won't run into these situations, and thus need these skills.

[@janmaker227]

​@@HealthyDev Congratulations you officially joined the paralympics in this case just don't sugarcoat it. It's a jungle out there and you better start taking it in. But serious who said I or anyone is smarter. If some moron is your manager than he is there for a reason. Either accept total responsibility "suck him off" and send him finally into retirement or stop bitching around. The skills you mentioned are important but only 5% of the issue. 95% are self-awareness. My issue with your approach or conduct is, that you try to merge 2 worlds - at least on an "educational" level. It's like wash me but don't make me wet. Not saying it's not great for others BUT in my eyes it targets clearly people who feel misunderstood and are in some kind of victim mentality. It's a very soft way of getting them out. I prefer the hard reality.

[@florinpandele5205]

Except that programmers are programmers for this very reason: we are not good at relationships of any kind..

[@HealthyDev]

I can understand that view, but it's also a limiting belief. That's not true of all programmers. If we tell ourselves it is, we live it out.

[@jackstrouse4833]

That mindset is why the team at our company sees "devs" and "coders" as different. You can teach anyone to code, but solid devs know how to communicate the code to the business and to non-technical people.

[@NormalPerson229]

Why must programming and social skills be mutually exclusive? What evidence is there to support this belief?

[@HealthyDev]

@@NormalPerson229 it's a reinforced trope that becomes more true since we all buy into it and live it out. I don't believe there's anything actually inherent to developers that makes it not possible for them to be masters of soft skills. It's a lot easier than writing code in many ways. It just requires time, and that's one thing many companies don't want to give developers unfortunately - so we must fight for it!

[@kozlovskyi]

Why can't manager do his job? If you need to think and talk in managers terms, why do you need one?

[@maxine3978]

Gun.

[@kernelpanic5672]

Could you make a video where a company changes from ios to flutter for example, and the developers are not happy

[@HealthyDev]

Ha! No, but it sounds like you could! What happened?

[@kernelpanic5672]

@@HealthyDev I have a colleague who refuses to work on anything other than native iOS. He thinks Flutter or React Native will devalue his skills and is looking for another job. I think it will make him better because there are so many frameworks and technologies that you have to be flexible and open to it

[@guents]

Why would an engineer go above and beyond to convince a manager to do something?! If the manager doesn't understand the risks when clearly explained to them, maybe they should not be there in the first place. I would adivce engineers to take written notes of the problems, their impact, and rank them according to their priority. They should show it to the manager and explain them their reasoning. If the manager doesn't want to hear that, that's not the engineers' problem. Management nowadays is evolving more and more into a BS job for delusional extroverts with a poor understanding of any modern technology. So we are counting on engineers to collect signatures so that they make get a hearing with the manager. At which point should it be clear that people like this are not adding any value to the company, or even worse, they are a burden?

[@HealthyDev]

Try asking yourself this question: What benefits could an engineer get from convincing their manager to support them? I think you will be surprised at the answers if you spend a few minutes thinking about it.

[@guents]

@@HealthyDev based on my experience, I can't think of any great advantage. I have seen managers taking credits for other people's work where they had at best no contribution, but most commonly, were a burden the whole time. The language they use is obnoxious... "I led my team to do this and that", when what they did was being confused and wasted everybody's time trying to to understand things that they never did. I have seen other people in our company talking highly about my manager, because to them it seems like the guy is doing such a great job, just because of his eloquence (he can talk for hours about things he doesn't understand and that make no sense to people who know what he is trying to talk about). Little do they know that this guy did nothing for them, and they don't even know the names of the persons to whom they should be grateful. Not to mention here how getting their trust plunges you in a sea of things to do simultaneously, just because they don't really know what to do most of the time so they come up with plenty of things they throw on your plate, cause in their head you are the busy bee that makes them look good. So what benefits? More work where the main goal of your career is to make a useless person look good.

[@HealthyDev]

@@guents hey there. I’m really sorry to hear you’ve had such a bad experience with your manager. I would be frustrated too if my manager never gave me credit publicly for my hard work. I hope you’re able to eventually find a job where your boss is more professional. You are correct, in your situation I don’t think the effort to build trust with that particular person (hearing your side of the story) is worthwhile. You may have watched it already, but I did an earlier episode about how painful experiences can cause us (myself included) to have a hard time growing when our trust has been betrayed. If not, maybe there’s something in here that can give you some hope for the future. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jn_LhY2PocSkqa8si=T6Nh1JD3BKOT1eZB

[@001opaki]

Persuading a group of people to address an issue to a manager from my experiance is ridicolous, as every single co-worker, to make any significant effort, is only interested in exclusively personal gain

[@HealthyDev]

Exactly. You have to persuade each individual based on their own desires. See the persuasion episode I mentioned (it's in the cards of related videos). If you find this ridiculous that's fine, but it will limit your impact when you don't have this in your toolbelt as a strategy.

[@fdelduquenobre]

People don't like facts!