" The Responsibility of Influence"

Not all power is formal.
Sometimes, you're not the decision-maker, but you're the one whose opinion tips the decision.

That’s influence. And influence is power in action.

When I was a mid-level developer, I convinced my team to adopt a heavyweight mocking framework. I’d spent ages learning how to use it in my tests. I also pushed for a coding pattern that made our UI code more "testable", or so I thought.

We invested heavily in writing tests around it.

The problem?
The combination of the mocking framework and implementation of the pattern made the tests brittle.
Really brittle.

Small changes broke large swathes of the test suite. Progress slowed. Frustration mounted.
By the time I realised what a bad combination this was it was too late for me to help fix it.
I’d already moved to a different company.

I still feel bad about that.

Because even though I didn’t have authority, I had influence.
And with influence comes responsibility.

If you influence a direction, you’re responsible for the consequences, good or bad.

Influence isn’t just about getting your ideas across.
It’s about staying long enough to own the impact.

And if you’re in a position of formal authority?
That responsibility only deepens.

Until next time,
Dermot
​The Messy Middle

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