I’m a big fan of Scott Ginsberg, the guy who wears a name tag 24/7 to make people friendlier. His ideas about maximizing your approachability and thus improving your odds of getting to know people, find new business opportunities and to make a name for yourself resonate very well with me.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how I could improve my work as a software developer by being more approachable. It’s still an ongoing process and I’m slowly learning more and more about the topic, but in this post I’m sharing some of the key points I have found so far.

A big question when combining approachability and software development is: “how approachable can a software developer be?” After all, we’re in the business of making software and as we know, it’s the kind of work that requires quiet moments of concentration. I have found some clues for balancing between the two extremes, but I’d be happy to hear your thoughts as well.

So, how do you make yourself more approachable?

1. Be positive: Nothing turns people away from you more efficiently than a negative attitude.
2. Say yes: Or say yes more often than no. But make sure that you explain what yes means, for example “Yes, I can start working on this new project tomorrow, but that means that the previous project will be delayed by three months. Should I finish the previous one first?”
3. Be friendly: Make the people around you feel appreciated. Clients, colleagues, subcontractors – friends and strangers alike.
4. Listening is the key: Listen for real and leave your work aside while talking with people.
5. Concentrate in one person at the time: If you have a queue of people waiting for your attention, finish with one person before starting to talk to the next one. The person waiting will appreciate it because she knows that when you talk to her, she gets your undivided attention as well.
6. Smile: Show that you enjoy being you and doing your work. A smile is a really powerful thing.
7. Be trustworthy: Show people that you really want to help solve their problems and not just try to find an excuse for them. If you want to portray yourself as a lazy corner cutter, that’s fine. But for the rest of us, I would suggest that you concentrate on the question and work hard to find a solution.
8. Be brave: if necessary, break some rules. Show some leadership by taking action. But take this with a word of caution: You should be open with your rule breaking (and have a good reason for it) so that people don’t think you’re sneaking before their backs.
9. Keep people aware of what you’re doing: Your boss, clients, team mates or even the whole world. But don’t overwhelm them with information: find out how much information they want and deliver that – nothing less, nothing more.
10. Help people get to know you: use different forums like blogs, discussion forums, presentations, discussions over lunch. Make sure people know who you are and how you can help them.
11. The door is a bit problematic: A closed door helps you concentrate, but it also makes you seem harder to reach. What do you think? Should your door be open or closed (assuming you have one – I don’t)?
12. Be honest: If you’re working on something with a tight schedule, people can probably wait for you to get back to them without getting mad if you’re honest and precise. Instead of saying “Just a sec, I’ll get this thing done and then we can talk”, you should say: “I’m really busy right now, but let’s talk in an hour” or “Let’s talk tomorrow” or maybe you can say “I have five minutes now, let’s keep it short”.
13. You don’t always need to solve the whole problem: Being approachable doesn’t mean that you should spend your whole working time helping out other people. Usually if your colleagues come to you for help, they are more than happy already if you just point them to the right direction.
14. Answer your e-mail: I think it’s OK to batch process and not reply immediately. But you should still reply in 24 hours.
15. Say thanks: Thanks. You’re welcome. Please. These small words make a huge difference.

This was just the tip of the iceberg and in future posts I’ll be digging deeper to the questions of combining approachability and software development. To end this blog post, I would like to ask you a few questions:

1. How well have you been able to balance your work between approachability and actual development?
2. Do you have any everyday examples about approachability at your work place? Who’s the most approachable person you know?