Don’t Repeat Yourself. The DRY principle. Write code one time and use it over and over again. While this is great for software development, it doesn’t work so well with people. In my experience, we need a different acronym…FRY: Frequently Repeat Yourself.
A good portion of my career has revolved around building the platforms and systems that other development teams use to build the customer products. Whenever I’d roll out some new feature or update an existing framework, I’d get frustrated by the slow rate of adoption or the repeated questions. After all, I clearly spelled out everything there was to know in the single email I sent out. Surely that should be enough, right?
Turns out the DRY principle doesn’t really work when you’re talking to other human beings.
Personality Differences
News flash, people are different from one another! Everyone learns and processes information differently. Most of the personality profiling tests out there, such as Myers-Briggs or DISC, are designed to help people to understand one another better and the communication styles we prefer.
If you want your message to be heard, make sure you’re presenting the information in a way that resonates with your audience:
- Visual. For many, a picture, diagram or video is much more useful than a page full of text.
- Audio. Some do much better if they hear something, rather than read it or see it. Getting up and talking about your idea is much more effective with these people.
- Text. I’m one of these people who want to have the text in front of me to look at and study. Hearing or seeing something one time isn’t enough.
- Model. “Be the change you which to see in the world”, as Ghandi said. Actions do speak louder than words in many cases.
But it’s not just the way information is presented. It’s also what information is provided. Some people just want the bottom line: do this, use that, follow these best practices. Others want all the background information and detail. They want to know the why before they’re willing to follow the what.
Frequently Repeat Yourself
What does this mean to you? If you are trying to persuade, inform, or influence you’ll need to repeat yourself. That doesn’t mean you should just send the same email out every day or week. Just as people are different, you’ll need to use different forms of communication to get people’s attention.
You might start with an email, but then follow up with an overview in a meeting. Maybe you’ll need to put together a presentation with some visuals (slides, diagrams, videos, etc.) to help get your point across.
For some people, you just need the summary. Provide just the tactical details needed to understand and implement your idea. Others will require you to step back and go into the details of the problem and how you came to the solution you’re proposing.
Even if you do all these things, you’ll need to repeat yourself. Some people may not be ready to hear your message. They may be otherwise occupied, or maybe they don’t see how it applies to them at this moment.
In advertising circles, it’s commonly said that you must repeat something at least seven times before someone actually “hears” the message. Presenting your ideas to another is just a form of advertising, even if we don’t call it that.
Consider this: how many times did you hear the DRY principle repeated until it finally sunk in?
It’s About People
Ultimately, building software is about solving problems for people. If you’re like me, it’s easy to hide behind the screen and keyboard, avoiding human interactions. For those of us who identify as introverts, it can be hard to get out in front of people.
If you want to have influence, if you want others to understand and accept your ideas, you’ll have to learn to meet people in their comfort zone, not yours. Understand the personality types of those you work with. Use the forums and formats which are most comfortable to the people you work with. Repeat yourself frequently, but not when you write code.