Saying my opinion at work

There is a belief that saying your opinion in a work environment can be a bit risky, because you will most likely go head to head with other people. This can also become a problem if your boss is there as well. Let me tell you a little story.

A couple of weeks ago I was attending a meeting with approx. 25 people. Some of them were C-Level executives, but most of them were coding or infrastructure grunts like myself. We were talking about security, and security related policies and the likes of it. There was a semi-consensus about how to implement a “feature” where regular users could not get broader access to services. They were afraid that they might configure access and permissions too broadly by mistake, and then letting unauthorized people access to the system. The discussions were pretty lively. While most of them were pretty much aligned with each other, I had a different opinion. I was against it basically, because I felt that users should have broader permission inside the scope of a specific account. Whatever they do in that account including misconfiguring things, should be a learning experience and also force users to verify their configurations to increase security. I put my “hand up” in Google Meet and the meeting organizer called my name. I unmuted myself and then I said that I disagreed with them all. Of course, I gave a detailed explanation why I was against it and I also gave them my inputs on how things can be implemented. After I was done, there was not any input to my suggestions as such. They were agreeing with me to a certain degree, and the discussions shifted focus on how we could implement a more secure and robust posture, but also give the users more freedom. I felt like this was a win for my beliefs that freedom is better.

Of course, this is a small victory, but the discussions did not stop there. Our conversation topics changed about other matters not relating to security. Every time there was a new topic, I was adamantly against everybody else. In this context I am not talking about sitting with your arms crossed and being negative. I am talking about saying what I believe in with regards to the subjects, coming up with alternatives and not be in any kind of conformity with the rest of the people in the meeting. This became a pattern for me. However I am not sure if this is the right path for me in the long run.

I am a firm believer in saying your opinions even if those opinions are in the very small minority. Consensus can be achieved with a small group of people, but I find consensus to be a bit challenging when you have different viewpoints, cultures, IT-cultures and backgrounds. The backgrounds part is very important, because it all depends on where you come from. If your first job is in a huge conglometarate with a lot of rules and regulations, you will most likely continue on that path in your subsequent jobs. Where I come from, we valued freedom, responsibility and learning from mistakes. We were given very broad access.

Learning from mistakes is how life is. You do something, you fail or you accomplish it. If you fail, you learn, you fix it and then you continue. This should not be construed as not admitting you are wrong. There has been many times I have had to admit that I was wrong, and admitting you are wrong is something that will make a person stronger. The other part is, if someone else makes a mistake, there is never a need to point fingers or do the “I-told-you-so”. You acknowledge the problem, you fix it and then you move on. This is how we learn and that is what makes us better.