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JD Jamison Dance Jamison Dance Works as a software engineer and has led engineering teams, drawing on that experience to answer listener questions about the people side of the job: career mov...

“I also learned that you can just win by writing it down. If you write down, here is the decision, we are all doing it, that can get this ball rolling faster.”

Soft Skills Engineering · Hands-On Engineering Podcasts · November 2026

“I also learned that you can just win by writing it down. If you write down, here is the decision, we are all doing it, that can get this ball rolling faster.” — Jamison Dance, Soft Skills Engineering

Context

A listener asked how to keep startup speed after their company was acquired and a pivot stalled despite broad agreement. Jamison Dance offers his practical trick for getting a big-company decision to actually happen.

Listen to the episode → More from Jamison Dance → More Hands-On Engineering Podcasts quotes →

Transcript

Soft Skills Engineering Around 26:25 into the episode
Jamison Dance

Yeah.

Dave Smith

But if anyone else says that, it's kind of like, but are we really doing this?

Jamison Dance

Yeah. I also learned that you can just win by writing it down. If you say, if you write down, here is the decision. We are all doing it. That's that can get. this ball rolling faster

Dave Smith

yeah that's the common knowledge principle at play

Jamison Dance

yeah wait what do

Dave Smith

you remember common knowledge we talked about this a few weeks ago where it's like oh

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

More from Soft Skills Engineering

“The less I know the code, the more I say, yeah, it's probably fine. And the more I know it, the more I have that interaction of, no, this will be bad for us. We do not want it that way.” — Jamison Dance, Soft Skills Engineering “Throughout my career, the things that fall into the category of things I shouldn't have to do are actually where I've found the most success. And I think it's because most people won't do things they shouldn't have to do. They'll look at it and be like, I shouldn't have to do that. And then they don't. And then they don't get the benefits.” — Dave Smith, Soft Skills Engineering