SIPA STORIES: Why won’t anyone rubber duck with me?

By: Kate Champion

For the uninitiated, ‘rubber ducking’ is the process of talking out your ideas with someone else. While the other person may provide feedback, the real value comes from having to organize your thoughts for another person. In theory, any listener would be acceptable—even a rubber duck. I have learned in practice, though, that having another human being to offer encouragement and ask questions is best – or at least marginally more useful than a rubber bath toy.

I’ve always been better at speaking than writing. Saying the words out loud allowed the ideas to flow better. When I was in school, having to sit down and write an essay was torture. I was bursting with insightful comments all day long in class, but faced with a blank page and silent room, nothing came to me. 

Early in my career I would often hit the same wall with my work. At the time, I was working for my software-engineer father, and he would always ask if I wanted to talk it out. In the process of explaining my problem to him, I would suddenly see the solution. Having to organize my thoughts for another person allowed me to see the connection I had previously missed.

My father explained that what we were doing had a name: rubber ducking. The practice is fairly common among engineers, where collaborative problem-solving is the norm. It was comforting to learn that my need to talk with someone to solve a problem wasn’t my insecurities getting the better of me, but a normal part of the process.

Unfortunately, not everyone saw it that way. My next boss didn’t understand my need to talk. To him, his time was only worthwhile if I needed him to act—the fact that all I needed was his ears simply represented a waste.

After several exasperating interactions with him, I quickly learned to stop asking for his time. The impression he left me with was that I needed to be more self-sufficient and take initiative. What irony.I was leading a team, but I had no collaborators of my own.

During my undergraduate years, I remember being afraid to ask my classmates for help. I felt morally obligated to work alone. My work was supposed to be my own. If I bounced ideas off of someone it felt like I was using their thoughts instead of my own. 

When I enrolled in grad school, however, I was armed with the knowledge of rubber ducking, and I was determined to get feedback. But my fellow students were just as confused as my boss had been—staring at me with puzzlement when I needed to discuss my research.

This isn’t surprising. Schools preach the ideals of teamwork, but don’t seem to know what teamwork actually looks like. In school there are only two types of work: individual assignments, or everyone-contributes-equally group projects. However, having worked in professional environments, I know collaboration is more nuanced than that. It’s helping; it’s sharing ideas and expertise; it’s being a sounding board. Soliciting feedback doesn’t make you a free rider.

And then one day, it happened. A group member messaged the team saying she was feeling lost with our presentation. I knew that feeling. She needed a rubber duck. I told her, she could call me to talk it out. The whole call she apologized for being so confused and wasting my time. Nothing I said reassured her that what we were doing was valuable, despite the fact that our presentation was in better shape after the meeting. Why do so few people seem to understand the value of talking through a problem?

There is something unnerving about having to ask that someone sit there and listen to you. It feels selfish, like you are taking time away from the team as a whole. Schools and workplaces both seem to constantly send messages that you must be contributing something tangible, otherwise you’re just a free rider. Yet, I’ve seen time and again that I perform better when I can rubber duck. And, if I’m better, so is my team. 

I want people to recognize the value of rubber ducks, so here I am: actively bringing it into your lexicon. By actively naming and defining the practice, it makes it easier for the “duck” to recognize the value they are providing. Can I be your rubber duck? I can’t wait.