Denise Yu’s great thread covers a fundamental yet often overlooked ability, and provides practical ways to deploy it:

i saw a tweet a while back (will link it if i find it again) that the single most useful skill of any senior++ IC or engineering leader can be stated in simple terms:

In every conversation you're part of, create clarity and reduce chaos.

[thread]

— @deniseyu@ruby.social (@deniseyu21) February 5, 2021

Create clarity and reduce chaos

Ways to do this (expanded in thread) include:

• “The art of the rollup”
  • When there’s a long discussion ongoing, take the time to occasionally summarise the state and decisions - hugely valuable whether you’re coming to the conversation fresh, or have been immersed in it but might have lost sight of where things got to
• Call out scope expansion
• Have meta-chats about who will contribute to a decision and how
• Have a place to record decisions and use it
• Write down verbal agreements
• Err towards brevity

A great thread with great advice.