Say "but yes", not "yes but"

When you’re agreeing with someone but you have a caveat, don’t say “yes, but”. Instead, say “but yes”. For instance, if you’re happy with a suggested approach so long as it’s only short term, don’t say “sounds good, but we’ll have to change it in a month”. Say “we’ll have to change it in a month, but sounds good”.

This seems like a trivial difference. Aren’t those two sentences equivalent? In my experience, it’s surprising how non-equivalent they are.

Positive and negative framing

The main difference is tone. The final part of a message is often the most important part, since it’s freshest in the listener’s memory. Whether you mean it that way or not, it’s often taken as a summation of the entire thing. Again, that’s particularly true for the tone of your message. Ending on a negative note and ending on a positive note leave two very different impressions.

If you’re in the “yes, but” habit, it can feel to you like you’re endorsing, but to others like you’re only reluctantly agreeing. I had this bad habit myself for a while - I came to tech from philosophy grad school, where the conversational norms were very different. Maybe the conversational norms at your company are also different! But if it’s a west-coast American tech company, I doubt it¹.

Why make the change?

If you’re accidentally giving a negative impression, very few people will tell you. Given that, I think it’s worth at least trying to say “but yes” for a while. Pay close attention to how it changes the tenor of your interactions (or just ask a colleague whether you’ve been coming across differently, if you’re comfortable with that). There’s very little downside: in the worst case you waste a little mental effort juggling grammar.

In the best case, you’ll get better at projects. Software projects² need a lot of positive energy. If you’re happy with a decision - particularly if you’re a more senior engineer - it is your responsibility to visibly endorse it. Nothing poisons the atmosphere on a software project like reluctant agreement. People know what to do about disagreement - get everyone together and talk it out - but you can’t really do anything about someone who agrees but is also complaining.

Final thoughts

Saying “but yes”, not “yes but” sounds like a silly rule. But I guarantee you that almost every single non-engineer reading this is nodding their head and wondering why I’d write down something so obvious.

It’s not a huge deal - if you’re technically strong, you can have a long and successful career saying “yes but”. Still, why leave value on the table?