Why this conversation
Inevitability and doing-more-from-within are the two arguments a team lead hears most, and both sound like strategy. The skill is to name the shape of the argument, not the motive of the person, then ask for the one thing the argument cannot supply: a checkable condition.
Dialogue
Tomasz: Everyone in the sector will be on their risk engine within two years. If we move now we get in early, and inside the design partner programme we can shape the roadmap.
Jay: I want to separate two things you just said, because I react to them differently. The first is "it is going to happen anyway". The second is "we can steer it from inside".
Tomasz: Fair. Take the first.
Jay: "Everyone will be on it" would be just as good a reason to wait as to move. If it is inevitable, the price and the API will be better in two years and we lose nothing by being late. So the argument does not actually pick a side. What would pick a side is a cost we pay now by waiting. Do we have one?
Tomasz: The partner discount, mainly. And influence.
Jay: The discount is a number, so let us put it on the slide and compare it with the migration cost. Influence is the second argument, and that one worries me more. "We can shape it from inside" is something every design partner says, and it is true regardless of whether the vendor ever changes a line for us.
Tomasz: So you think it is empty?
Jay: I think it is unfalsifiable as stated, which is different. Make it falsifiable and I am in. For example: within six months they ship the per-counterparty limit we need, or we keep our engine and the pilot ends. Written into the contract. If they will not sign that, the influence was never real.
Tomasz: That is a harder sell to them.
Jay: It is. But it turns a story into a condition, and conditions are the only thing I can defend to the risk committee. I am not against the move. I am against making it for reasons that would have worked for any move.
Key expressions
| Expression | 뜻 · 쓰이는 자리 |
|---|---|
| I react to them differently | 저는 그 둘에 다르게 반응합니다(나누어 다루겠다는 신호) |
| just as good a reason to wait as to move | 옮길 이유만큼 기다릴 이유로도 좋다 |
| does not actually pick a side | 실제로는 편을 고르지 않는다(결론을 정해 주지 않는다) |
| put it on the slide | 슬라이드에 올리다(숫자로 드러내다) |
| regardless of whether | ~인지 여부와 상관없이 |
| unfalsifiable as stated | 지금 표현으로는 반증 불가능한 |
| Make it falsifiable and I am in | 반증 가능하게 만들면 찬성합니다 |
| written into the contract | 계약에 명시된 |
| a harder sell | 팔기 더 어려운 것(설득이 더 어려운 제안) |
| turns a story into a condition | 이야기를 조건으로 바꾼다 |
| the only thing I can defend to | ~에게 지킬 수 있는 유일한 것 |
| reasons that would have worked for any move | 어떤 선택에도 통했을 이유 |