There Are No Stupid Questions Here

My tip for a good team culture

T hree years ago I started working with a bunch of awesome and intelligent people. I know that now, but at the time they were strangers to me and with much more knowledge and experience. That, plus the fact that I was learning a new language (Ruby) and multiple technologies, was a motive for lots of questions.

Like every newcomer, I was trying to show that I knew how to do things and show how I manage to find answers to problems. That was reasonable until I realized that I’ve misunderstood things or didn’t chose the right solution because of that “stupid dumb question” I was afraid of asking.

One day a teammate understood what was happening and told me:

There are no stupid questions here. There are things you don’t understand yet, so… don’t be afraid to ask.

This was a simple act but an effective one. From that day on I became really comfortable with asking about anything that came to my mind regarding work, technologies, well.. basically everything, because that was the culture.

This was a relief for me, it was like a huge rock that was removed from my shoulders because I was afraid of asking something dumb. Now that I look back, that was one of the moments that made a big impact in my career.

Today I’m in a different position and there are two things I will always try to do:

Pass the culture to everyone
Now I’m quite comfortable with the technologies I use and I know what’s the culture I want to be part of.
I’m one of those who answers questions from newcomers and try to pass that piece of culture, not only to them but also to everyone in the company, because an environment free of fear to ask, it’s an environment propitious for learning.

Keep asking
I still ask about everything. With more experience and new technologies, even more questions rise and I’m pretty cool about asking them because that’s how I learn the most.
I will try not to be the one that shake his head even though is not understanding a bit of what is being talked about.

This is my view as a developer, if you want to have a managers view on the topic, my friend @AlexMC wrote a cool piece about onboarding teammates.

If you have any questions leave a comment or reach me via twitter @joaquimadraz ☺