If I feel the urge to make a self-deprecating comment, I ask myself: “If somebody on my team interrupted me to say, ‘Hey, no need for that. You’re doing a great job, and we respect your opinion,’ would I be relieved or annoyed?” If the answer is “relieved,” then I try to facilitate an open retrospective with my team to see if there are some other underlying issues that might be causing me to feel a lack of confidence in my work. If the answer is “annoyed,” then I ask myself what difficult question or conversation I might be trying to deflect through self-deprecation, and I try to muster the
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