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Coaching Yourself: Career Coaching Personas for Everyday Engineers, Part Three - Shoulder Socrates

Summary

This episode introduces the third persona in the self-coaching series: the Shoulder Socrates. This persona is based on the Socratic method and the concept of counterfactuals, designed to help engineers question their own assertions, beliefs, and arguments in a productive way.

The Shoulder Socrates persona encourages self-questioning to test the validity of one’s ideas before presenting them to others. For example, if an engineer argues for improving a testing strategy, the Shoulder Socrates might ask, “Why?” or present counterfactuals like, “We’re not seeing production fall apart—why improve something that’s already meeting a necessary threshold?” This process helps engineers anticipate questions from leaders or teammates and refine their arguments.

A key insight is that it’s psychologically easier to change your own mind through self-reflection than when someone else challenges you. The continuity bias makes it hard to abandon publicly expressed beliefs, but self-coaching allows you to privately litigate your ideas and adapt without social pressure.

The episode emphasizes that this persona should be used during reflection or journaling, not during live communication. Attempting to self-litigate while talking to others can interrupt your thought process and make you appear scattered. Instead, use Shoulder Socrates in preparation to build confidence and clarity before discussions.

Recommendations

Concepts

  • De Bono’s Thinking Hats — Referenced as a similar framework for adopting different mental perspectives, used as inspiration for the self-coaching personas.
  • Socratic Method — The basis for the Shoulder Socrates persona—a teaching method focused on asking questions to stimulate critical thinking and illuminate ideas.
  • Counterfactual — The core concept behind Shoulder Socrates; considering alternative scenarios or questions that challenge assertions to test their validity.
  • Continuity Bias / Consistency Bias — A psychological tendency to maintain previously expressed beliefs even when new evidence emerges, making it hard to change opinions publicly.

Tools

  • Wix Studio — Sponsor mentioned as a developer-centric website builder with VS Code-based IDE, GitHub integration, AI code assistant, and automated infrastructure.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to self-coaching and the series — The host introduces the concept of self-coaching as adopting mental personas or ‘hats’ to prompt reflection, similar to de Bono’s thinking hats. This is the third episode in the series, following previous discussions on the ‘available manager’ and ‘hyper optimizer’ personas.
  • 00:02:02 — Introducing the Shoulder Socrates persona — The host introduces the ‘Shoulder Socrates’ persona—a self-coaching voice designed to question assertions, arguments, and positions. The name is inspired by the Socratic method, emphasizing inquiry over antagonism. The goal is to use this persona as a backdrop for self-discussion or journaling.
  • 00:04:42 — Basis in counterfactuals and practical application — The persona is based on the concept of counterfactuals. The host explains how to apply it: write down assertions or claims, then question them. For example, if you feel your contributions aren’t valuable, ask, ‘What constitutes a valuable contribution?’ This helps identify missing perspectives or redefine success, especially in role transitions like becoming a manager.
  • 00:07:30 — Example: Improving testing strategy — The host provides a concrete example: an engineer arguing to improve testing strategy. Shoulder Socrates would ask ‘Why?’ and offer counterfactuals like, ‘We’re not seeing production issues—why improve something already meeting thresholds?’ This self-questioning prepares you for similar questions from leaders or teammates and may even change your opinion.
  • 00:09:56 — Psychological benefits of self-questioning — Changing your own mind through self-reflection is easier than when someone else challenges you due to psychological biases like continuity bias. Self-coaching avoids the social pain of admitting error and allows private belief adjustment. This makes it more effective for personal growth and argument refinement.
  • 00:11:20 — Practice and learning from feedback — Using the Shoulder Socrates persona requires practice. Pay attention to unexpected questions from others—they reveal counterfactuals you missed. Analyze the thinking behind those questions and incorporate that mindset into your self-coaching. This helps you anticipate challenges and strengthen your positions.
  • 00:12:40 — When to use (and not use) Shoulder Socrates — The persona should be used during reflection, not during live communication. Self-litigating while talking to others can interrupt your thought process and reduce confidence. Reserve Shoulder Socrates for preparation time to build well-thought-out ideas, then communicate them clearly without internal interruption.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2024-11-19T08:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:16:05

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] We’re talking about self coaching.

[00:00:16] Self coaching this idea that you can adopt a mindset or you can adopt a mental state.

[00:00:24] You can put on a hat.

[00:00:27] We talked about in the first episode in the series.

[00:00:29] We’ve done three of these, including this one.

[00:00:32] We talked about in the first episode, the idea of de Bono’s thinking hats.

[00:00:37] And this is quite similar to the de Bono’s thinking hats exercise.

[00:00:42] A little bit different in that our hats might combine multiple of those kind of basic, more

[00:00:51] basic or principled lower level hats, I suppose, right?

[00:00:57] So you can see multiples of those different aspects or perspectives coming in to each

[00:01:04] of the ones that we’ve talked about here.

[00:01:06] We talked about, for example, the available manager, right?

[00:01:12] The voice of the available manager.

[00:01:13] That was the first episode.

[00:01:14] In the last episode, we talked about the voice of the hyper optimizer.

[00:01:22] a lot of different perspectives into a persona that you can take and use to try to give yourself

[00:01:30] insight.

[00:01:31] And the idea is not that you actually adopt these permanently or that you try to act like

[00:01:35] any one of these, but instead you use these as a backdrop for your, uh, your self discussion,

[00:01:44] your journaling, however you reflect.

[00:01:47] You use these voices as a way to prompt yourself, right?

[00:01:53] This is the idea of self coaching.

[00:01:55] So in today’s episode, I’m going to introduce you to a voice called the shoulder Socrates.

[00:02:02] Yes, I did make this up, but it’s not an incredibly unique concept.

[00:02:10] But hopefully, hopefully you can remember shoulder Socrates a little bit easier than

[00:02:14] just remembering the concept itself.

[00:02:16] And the idea is that any, any statement that you make, any argument that you make, any

[00:02:24] assertion or position that you take, they all can be questioned.

[00:02:32] All of these positions, all of the information, all of the requests that you bring, all of

[00:02:39] this can be questioned.

[00:02:40] And we’re going to use this particular, uh, voice to do that.

[00:02:44] Now it might sound like this is going to be a negative voice, like it’s somebody who

[00:02:51] is standing by your side, telling you to prove everything or, uh, some somehow antagonistic.

[00:02:58] And that’s actually not the case.

[00:03:00] And we’re going to talk about why right after we talk about today’s sponsor.

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[00:04:24] Work in a developer first ecosystem.

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[00:04:29] That is W I X studio dot com.

[00:04:32] Thanks again to Wix for sponsoring today’s episode of developer team.

[00:04:42] The basis for this persona, this coaching persona, the basis for it is the concept of

[00:04:53] a counterfactual.

[00:04:55] I debated calling this the counterfactual persona, but it’s not as catchy as the shoulder

[00:05:01] Socrates.

[00:05:02] Uh, the name comes from, by the way, the idea of the Socratic method, which was primarily

[00:05:08] based on asking questions in order to enlighten other people and teach them.

[00:05:13] So how does this work?

[00:05:15] Well, really in your self talk, try to write down whatever assertions or claims are the

[00:05:23] basis of what you’re saying.

[00:05:27] So let’s say for example, that you’re struggling to feel like your contributions are valuable.

[00:05:36] Shoulder Socrates might ask the question, well, what constitutes a valuable contribution?

[00:05:44] And you may go down the road of answering this question and eventually getting to the

[00:05:50] crossroads where you’re identifying what’s missing in your mind.

[00:05:56] So maybe a valuable contribution.

[00:06:00] Let’s say that you just became a brand new manager.

[00:06:02] This is a very common situation.

[00:06:04] A manager tends to feel like they’re not really sure if the work they’re doing is valuable.

[00:06:09] And so they’ll try to define what valuable really means.

[00:06:14] And part of the reason why managers tend to feel this way is because what has been valuable

[00:06:20] in the past in their role, which is delivering code or whatever other metric they’ve used

[00:06:26] to define personal success in the past, is no longer necessarily the case.

[00:06:32] So defining what is valuable can tend to be pretty productive for these people, especially

[00:06:37] because they don’t have the same feeling that they used to have.

[00:06:41] Previously, they were doing a job where they were delivering tickets and now they’re not

[00:06:45] delivering tickets.

[00:06:47] And so that muscle memory can make you feel like you’re not doing your job, so to speak.

[00:06:54] And so the shoulder Socrates in this case is helping you identify that, hey, actually,

[00:07:01] the thing that used to be your job is no longer relevant, or at least it’s not directly relevant

[00:07:07] to the work that you’re doing now.

[00:07:10] And so in this way, this persona is not necessarily always antagonistic.

[00:07:15] However, it can be antagonistic, but it should be productively antagonistic.

[00:07:22] So in other words, if you are, let’s say you’re an engineer and you are making the argument

[00:07:30] that your team needs to spend some time working on improving your testing strategy, then the

[00:07:36] shoulder Socrates would say, why?

[00:07:40] Why should we improve our testing strategy?

[00:07:43] Now interestingly, what you’re doing by engaging in this questioning or counterfactual method

[00:07:50] is you’re testing the content of your own ideas.

[00:07:55] So the question here is why?

[00:07:57] It’s not necessarily counterfactual, but you may provide your why.

[00:08:02] So you might say, our code coverage is lower than we think is necessary.

[00:08:10] And we believe that improving coverage is going to increase our reliability as we continue

[00:08:17] making changes in the future.

[00:08:20] The counterfactual might look something like, well, we’re not seeing production fall apart.

[00:08:26] We’re not actually having a negative business impact yet from not having these tests.

[00:08:32] So you’re asking to improve something that is already good enough.

[00:08:35] Can you tell me why we should improve something that’s already meeting a necessary threshold

[00:08:41] when we have other priorities to spend our time on?

[00:08:44] And so these are questions that you probably would be asked anyway.

[00:08:51] The good thing here is that in this self-coaching process, you’re asking yourself questions

[00:08:57] that your leaders or executives or your teammates might ask you anyway.

[00:09:03] And so you are preparing for those questions.

[00:09:06] You’re kind of litigating your own beliefs upfront before you present them to other people.

[00:09:13] So it helps in providing the argumentation or in kind of asserting an opinion.

[00:09:22] It may actually change your opinion as well.

[00:09:25] You may actually find yourself realizing that, you know what, actually my assertion here,

[00:09:30] when I actually test it or when I try to prove that I’m wrong, I actually can prove that

[00:09:35] I’m wrong.

[00:09:36] And so I’m not really sure why I’m holding this particular opinion or belief.

[00:09:41] And it’s much easier.

[00:09:42] This is a critical point.

[00:09:44] It’s much easier for you to do that self-reflection and change your opinion through your own

[00:09:50] processing than it is for you to change your opinion because someone else is pushing on

[00:09:55] you to do so.

[00:09:56] I want you to really kind of focus in on that particular reality.

[00:10:02] The psychological reality that we live in, it’s very difficult for us to change our opinion

[00:10:08] because someone else has provided a counterfactual.

[00:10:12] Someone else has asked us a question that we are either unable to answer or the answer

[00:10:17] to the question leads us down a different path.

[00:10:22] So if somebody else is providing that kind of questioning to us, it’s much harder for

[00:10:28] us to change our own minds because of what somebody else is saying and then much easier

[00:10:35] for us to change our own minds.

[00:10:39] This allows us to kind of avoid the social pain of some admission of incorrect.

[00:10:47] We really want to stay, you know, continue on with an expressed belief.

[00:10:53] We have this continuity bias or consistency bias.

[00:10:58] The idea is that once we say we believe one thing, even if some evidence comes into the

[00:11:04] the picture that should lead us to believe something different, it’s very hard to adopt

[00:11:10] a new belief, especially if that original belief was expressed openly to other people.

[00:11:17] Now, this particular hat takes some practice.

[00:11:20] All of the hats that we’re talking about wearing or the personas we’re talking about adopting,

[00:11:24] they take a little bit of practice and that’s because you may not necessarily know how to

[00:11:29] produce a counterfactual when you first start out in the same way that you may not necessarily

[00:11:35] know what your manager has the agency to change.

[00:11:38] And so that very first persona we talked about, it may take some practice, it may take some

[00:11:44] time kind of working with that persona when you hear a question back from an assertion

[00:11:52] that you make that you didn’t have the chance to consider beforehand.

[00:11:59] That’s good feedback for you, right?

[00:12:00] That’s good feedback for you to understand that, oh, wait a second, there was a counterfactual

[00:12:05] or there was a, you know, some kind of question that I didn’t anticipate that I didn’t necessarily

[00:12:11] know was going to come and pay attention closely to, okay, what were the incentives for that

[00:12:18] question?

[00:12:19] Where did that question come from?

[00:12:20] What was the thinking process that led that person to ask that question and then try to

[00:12:24] incorporate some of that thinking process?

[00:12:26] Try to get into their mindset the next time you are playing shoulder Socrates.

[00:12:33] One last point on shoulder Socrates, it is important to know when to take him off your

[00:12:40] shoulder and put him on the shelf.

[00:12:43] In other words, you shouldn’t be constantly trying to find counterfactuals, especially

[00:12:49] when you’re in the process of communicating with other people.

[00:12:54] This can interrupt your thought process and can make you feel a little less than confident

[00:12:59] about what you’re saying in the first place.

[00:13:01] If you’re attempting to self-litigate in the process of talking to another person, then

[00:13:09] it’s going to come across as a little bit scattered rather than what you’re actually

[00:13:13] trying to do, which is present an idea that is hard to poke holes in or present an idea

[00:13:22] that seems very well thought out.

[00:13:25] That’s what you’re trying to do most likely by engaging the shoulder Socrates, but unfortunately

[00:13:31] it’s an interruptive pattern of communication and it would be very difficult to do that,

[00:13:37] especially vocally if you’re talking to another person and you’re also considering what kinds

[00:13:43] of questions might come up here.

[00:13:46] That is a very difficult thing to do and it would be better to try to set that aside.

[00:13:52] Use that in your reflection time, but don’t use it in your communication time, you know,

[00:13:56] when you’re communicating with teammates or with your boss or whoever else.

[00:14:00] Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:14:03] Thank you again to today’s sponsor, Wix.

[00:14:05] Gone are the days of the old website builders that were limited and produced quite awful

[00:14:12] results very often.

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[00:14:30] tools you’re used to using GitHub, extend and replace a suite of powerful business solutions

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[00:14:39] All that is wrapped up in an automatically maintained infra for total peace of mind.

[00:14:44] Working a developer-first ecosystem at wixstudio.com.

[00:14:48] If you enjoyed this episode, I’m going to ask you to do something for me.

[00:14:51] We do this every once in a while.

[00:14:53] Go and leave a review on iTunes.

[00:14:55] It is the best way, the best way to help other engineers like you, other managers like you

[00:15:02] and other product managers, whatever your role is, other aspiring learning engineers

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[00:15:15] We’ve been doing this for about a decade now, and unequivocally, your voice is going

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[00:15:26] So my deal with you is if you found this episode or any other episode of Developer Tea, which

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