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How Stagnation is Justified: Language of the Expert Beginner

So far in the “Expert Beginner” series of posts, I’ve chronicled how Expert Beginners emerge and how they wind up infecting an entire software development group. Today I’d like to turn my attention to the rhetoric of this archetype in a software group already suffering from Expert Beginner-induced rot. In other words, I’m going to discuss how Expert Beginners deeply entrenched in their lairs interact with newbies to the department.

It’s no accident that this post specifically mentions the language, rather than interpersonal interactions, of the Expert Beginner. The reason here is that the actions aren’t particularly remarkable. They resemble the actions of any tenured employee, line manager or person in a position of company trust. They delegate, call the shots, set policy, and probably engage in status posturing where they play chicken with meeting lateness or sit with their feet on the table when talking to those of lesser organizational status. Experts and Expert Beginners are pretty hard to tell apart based exclusively on how they behave. It’s the language that provides a fascinating tell.

Most people, when arguing a position, will cite some combination of facts and deductive or inductive reasoning, perhaps with the occasional logical fallacy sprinkled in by mistake. For instance, “I left the windows open because I wanted to air out the house and I didn’t realize it was supposed to rain,” describes a choice and the rationale for it with an implied mea culpa. The Expert Beginner takes a fundamentally different approach, and that’s what I’ll be exploring here.

False Tradeoffs and Empty Valuations

If you’re cynical or intelligent with a touch of arrogance, there’s an expression you’re likely to find funny. It’s a little too ubiquitous for me to be sure who originally coined the phrase, but if anyone knows, I’m happy to amend and offer an original source attribution. The phrase is, “Whenever someone says ‘I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart,’ all I hear is, ‘I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart.'” I had a bit of a chuckle the first time I read that, but it’s not actually what I, personally, think when I hear someone describe himself as “street smart” rather than “book smart.” What I think is being communicated is “I’m not book smart, and I’m sort of sensitive about that, so I’d like that particular valuation of people not to be emphasized by society.” Or, more succinctly, “I’m not book smart, and I want that not to be held against me.”

“Street smart” is, at its core, a counterfeit status currency proffered in lieu of a legitimate one. It has meaning only in the context of it being accepted as a stand-in for the real McCoy. If I get the sense that you’re considering accepting me into your club based on the quantity of “smarts” that I have, and I’m not particularly confident that I can come up with the ante, I offer you some worthless thing called “street smarts” and claim that it’s of equal replacement value. If you decide to accept this currency, then I win. And, interestingly, if enough other people decide to accept it, then it becomes a real form of currency (which I think it’d be pretty easy to argue that “street smart” has).

Whatever you may think of the “book smart vs street smart” dichotomy notwithstanding, you’d be hard pressed to argue that the transaction doesn’t follow the pattern of “I want X,” “I don’t have that, but I have Y (and I’m claiming Y is just as good).” And understanding this attempted substitution is key to understanding one of the core planks of the language of Expert Beginners. They are extremely adept at creating empty valuations as stand-ins for meaningful ones. To see this in action, consider the following:

  1. Version control isn’t really that important if you have a good architecture where two people never have to touch the same file.
  2. We don’t write unit tests because our developers spend extra time inspecting the code after they’ve written it.
  3. Yeah, we don’t do a lot of Java here, but you can do anything with Perl that you can with Java.
  4. Our build may not be automated, but it’s very scientific and there’s a lot of complicated stuff that requires an expert to do manually.
  5. We don’t need to be agile or iterative because we write requirements really well.
  6. We save a lot of money by not splurging on productivity add-ins and fancy development environments, and it makes our programmers more independent.

In all cases here, the pattern is the same. The Expert Beginner takes something that’s considered an industry standard or best practice, admits to not practicing it, and offers instead something completely unacceptable (or even nonsensical/made up) as a stand-in, implying that you should accept the switch because they say so.

Condescension and Devaluations

This language tactic is worth only a brief mention because it’s pretty obvious as a ploy, and it squanders a lot of realpolitik capital in the office if anyone is paying attention. It’s basically the domain-specific equivalent of some idiot being interviewed on the local news, just before dying of hurricane, saying something like “I’m not gonna let a buncha fancy Harvard science-guys tell me about storms–I’ve lived here for forty years and I can feel ’em comin’ in my bones. If I need to evacuate, I’ll know it!”

In his fiefdom, an Expert Beginner is obligated to have some explanation for ignoring best practices that at least rises to the level of sophistry and offers some sort of explanation, however improbable. This is where last section’s false valuations shine. Simply scoffing at best practices and new ideas has to be done sparingly or upper management will start to notice and create uncomfortable situations. And besides, this reaction is frankly beneath the average Expert Beginner–it’s how a frustrated and petulant Novice would react. Still, it will occasionally be trotted out in a pinch and can be effective in that usage scenario since it requires no brain cells and will just be interpreted as passion rather than intellectual laziness.

The Angry Driver Effect

If you ever watch a truly surly driver on the highway, you’ll notice an interesting bit of irritable cognitive bias against literally everyone else on the road. The driver will shake her fist at motorists passing her, calling them “maniacs,” while shaking the same fist at those going more slowly, calling them “putzes.” There’s simply no pleasing her.

An Expert Beginner employs this tactic with all members of the group as well, although without the anger. For example, if she has a Master’s degree, she will characterize solutions put forth by those with Bachelor’s degrees as lacking formal polish, while simultaneously characterizing those put forth by people with PhDs as overly academic or out of touch. If the solution different from hers is presented by someone that also has a Master’s, she will pivot to another subject.

Is your solution one that she understands immediately? Too simplistic. Does she not understand it? Over-engineered and convoluted. Are you younger than her? It’s full of rookie mistakes. Older? Out of touch and hackneyed. Did you take longer than it would have taken her? You’re inefficient. Did it take you less time? You’re careless. She will keep pivoting, as needed, ad infinitum.

Taken individually, any one of these characterizations makes sense and impresses. In a way, it’s like the cold-reading game that psychics play. Here the trick is to identify a personal difference and characterize it; anything produced by its owner as negative. The Expert Beginner controls the location of the goalposts via framing in the same way that the psychic rattles off a series of ‘predictions’ until one is right, as evidenced by micro-expressions. The actual subtext is, “I’m in charge and I get to define good and bad, so good is me, and some amount less good is you.”

Interestingly, the Expert Beginner’s definition of good versus bad is completely orthogonal to any external characterizations of the same. For instance, if the Expert Beginner had been a C student, then, in her group, D students would be superior to A students because of their relative proximity to the ideal C student. The D students might be “humble, but a little slow,” while A students would be “blinded by their own arrogance,” or some such thing. It’s completely irrelevant that society at large considers A students to be of the most value.

Experts are Wrong

Given that Expert Beginners are of mediocre ability by definition, the subject of expertise is a touchy one. Within the small group, this isn’t really a problem since the Expert Beginner is the designated Expert there by definition. But within a larger scope, actual Experts exist, and they do present a problem–particularly when group members are exposed to them and realize that discrepancies exist.

For instance, let’s say that an Expert Beginner in a small group has never bothered with source control for code, due to laziness and a simple lack of exposure. This decision is likely settled case-law within the group, having been justified with something like the “good architecture” canard from the Empty Valuations section. But if any group member watches a Pluralsight video or attends a conference which exposes them to industry experts and best practices, the conflict becomes immediately apparent and will be brought to the attention of the reigning Expert Beginner. In the last post, I made a brief example of an Expert Beginner reaction to such a situation: “you can’t believe everything you see on TV.”

This is the simplest and most straightforward reaction to such a situation. The Expert Beginner believes that he and his ‘fellow’ Expert have a simple difference of opinion among ‘peers.’ While it may be true that one Expert speaks at conferences about source control best practices and the other one runs the IT for Bill’s Bait Shop and has never used source control, either opinion is just as valid. But on a long enough timeline, this false relativism falls apart due to mounting disagreement between the Expert Beginner and real Experts.

When this happens, the natural bit of nuance that Expert Beginners introduce is exceptionalism. Rather than saying, “well, source control or not, either one is fine,” and risk looking like the oddball, the Expert Beginner invents a mitigating circumstance that would not apply to other Experts, effectively creating an argument that he can win by forfeit. (None of his opponents are aware of his existence and thus offer no counter-argument.) For instance, the Bait Shop’s Expert Beginner might say, “sure, those Experts are right that source control is a good idea in most cases, but they don’t understand the bait industry.”

This is a pretty effective master-stroke. The actual Experts have been dressed down for their lack of knowledge of the bait industry while the Expert Beginner is sitting pretty as the most informed one of the bunch. And, best of all, none of the actual Experts are aware of this argument, so none of them will bother to poke holes in it. Crisis averted.

All Qualitative Comparisons Lead Back to Seniority

A final arrow in the Expert Beginner debate quiver is the simple tactic of non sequitur about seniority, tenure, or company experience. On the surface this would seem like the most contrived and least credible ploy possible, but it’s surprisingly effective in corporate culture, where seniority is the default currency in the economy of developmental promotions. Most denizens of the corporate world automatically assign value and respect to “years with the company.”

Since there is no bigger beneficiary of this phenomenon than an Expert Beginner, he plows investment into it in an attempt to drive the market price as high as possible. If you ask the Expert Beginner why there is no automated build process, he might respond with something like, “you’ll understand after you’ve worked here for a while.” If you ask him this potentially embarrassing question in front of others, he’ll up the ante to “I asked that once too when I was new and naive–you have a lot to learn,” at which time anyone present is required by corporate etiquette to laugh at the newbie and nervously reaffirm that value is directly proportional to months employed by Acme Inc.

The form and delivery of this particular tactic will vary a good bit, but the pattern is the same at a meta-level. State your conclusion, invent a segue, and subtly remind everyone present that you’ve been there the longest. “We tried the whole TDD thing way back in 2005, and I think all of the senior developers and project managers know how poorly that went.” “Migrating from VB6 to something more modern definitely sounds like a good idea at first, but there are some VPs you haven’t met that aren’t going to buy that one.”

It goes beyond simple non sequitur. This tactic serves as a thinly veiled reminder as to who calls the shots. It’s a message that says, “here’s a gentle reminder that I’ve been here a long time and I don’t need to justify things to the likes of you.” Most people receive this Expert Beginner message loudly and clearly and start to join in, hopeful for the time they can point the business end at someone else as part of the “Greater Newbie Theory.”

Ab Hominem

In the beginning of this post, I talked about the standard means for making and/or defending arguments (deductive or inductive reasoning) and how Expert Beginners do something else altogether. I’ve provided a lot of examples of it, but I haven’t actually defined it. The central feature of the Expert Beginner’s influence-consolidation language is an inextricable fusing of arguer and argument, which is the polar opposite of standard argument form. For instance, it doesn’t matter who says, “if all humans have hearts, and Jim is a human, then Jim has a heart.” The argument stands on its own. But it does matter who says, “Those of us who’ve been around for a while would know why not bothering to define requirements is actually better than SCRUM.” That argument is preposterous from an outsider or a newbie but acceptable from an Expert Beginner.

A well-formed argument says, “if you think about this, you’ll find it persuasive.” The language of the Expert Beginner says, “it’s better if you don’t think about this–just remember who I am, and that’s all you need to know.” This can be overt, such as with the seniority dropping, or it can be more subtle, such as with empty valuations. It can also be stacked so that a gentle non sequitur can be followed with a nastier “get off of my lawn” type of dressing down if the first message is not received.

In the end, it all makes perfect sense. Expert Beginners arrive at their stations through default, rather than merit. As such, they have basically no practice at persuading anyone to see the value of their ideas or at demonstrating the superiority of their approach. Instead, the only thing they can offer is the evidence that they have of their qualifications–their relative position of authority. And so, during any arguments or explanations, all roads lead back to them, their position titles, their time with the company, and the fact that their opinions are inviolate.

If you find yourself frequently making arguments along the lines of the ones that I’ve described here, I’d suggest putting a little more thought and effort into them from now on. No matter who you are or how advanced you may be, having to defend your opinions and approaches is an invaluable skill that should be kept as sharp as possible. You’ll often learn just as much from justifying your approach as formulating it in the first place. If you’re reading this article, it’s pretty unlikely that you’re an Expert Beginner. And, assuming that you’re not, you probably want to make sure people don’t confuse you with one.

Next: “Up or Not: Ambition of the Expert Beginner”

Edit: The E-Book is now available. Here is the publisher website which contains links to the different media for which the book is available.

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Alexander Hartmaier
Alexander Hartmaier
10 years ago

So you’re saying that Perl is a less good programming language that can’t be used to code complex applications? That’s neither true nor fair, please reword your point!
If you look at CPAN you’ll see that Perl modules have a long history of (unit) tests to ensure stability and backward compatibility.

Erik Dietrich
10 years ago

I’m not saying anything about Perl or Java, per se. The mention is what a hypothetical expert beginner might say when asked something like “why don’t you use Java for that.” Instead of being honest and saying something like “well, I don’t know Java,” (which is actually a reasonable response to that question) he’d instead create an unsupportable valuation of Perl versus Java so as not to admit lacking knowledge. You could substitute any two programming languages you like into that statement and it’d still be the kind of thing an Expert Beginner would say. And, the bullets there are… Read more »

Anssi Lehtelä
Anssi Lehtelä
10 years ago

Food for thought there. One thing I’d like to ask on is about your line of thinking regarding best practices. You refer a few times that expert beginner does not believe in “common best practices”, but instead thinks of his own being the actual “best practices”. I kind of feel that it might often work the other way around. Reading bits about “best practices” and then referring to them as their only argument sounds like a perfect thing for an expert beginner to do? Would an actual expert instead realize that there are no “best practices”, instead only good practices… Read more »

Erik Dietrich
10 years ago
Reply to  Anssi Lehtelä

Yes, I’d say that the Expert Beginner archetype is certainly capable of reading a bit about some best practice and wielding it, or some bastardized version of it, as a golden hammer. And inverting most of the example ‘arguments’ I posted would yield the exact same result, since they’re mostly non-sequiturs anyway. The language techniques employed by an Expert Beginner are really smoke and mirrors to distract from a lack of cogent arguments. I think the idea that there are no actual best practices is a little relativistic for my taste. I mean, I take the point that one man’s… Read more »

Ray
Ray
10 years ago
Reply to  Erik Dietrich

I love the article, but the phrase “best practices” gets on my nerves. The problem is that it supposes facts that aren’t in evidence and short cuts meaningful discussion. It is coercive language that appeals to an absent and unnamed authority – who said it was a best practice? – that seems to come most often from the mouths of who cannot find any other justification for their preferred practice. It really is scoff and bluster. To seriously claim that a practice was “best” you would have to rigorously weigh it against every other practice – known and unknown. This… Read more »

Erik Dietrich
10 years ago
Reply to  Ray

Glad that you liked the article.

And I agree that “best practice” is a rather problematic term for reasons that you point out. It seems to have become accepted industry vernacular (which is why I use it without giving it much thought beyond its accepted usage), but I think we could certainly coin a better term, such as “industry standard practices.” Clearly one could still appeal to that as anonymous authority, but at least its more accurately describing what speakers generally mean (when not engaging logical fallacy, anyway).

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