[HN Gopher] When your coworker does great work, tell their manag...
___________________________________________________________________
When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)
Author : vikrum
Score : 485 points
Date : 2023-08-31 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jvns.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (jvns.ca)
| nmstoker wrote:
| This is good, but better yet is to then remind the manager again
| at the key point in the year/cycle right before performance
| reviews are being filled in.
|
| This has the most chance of having an impact plus it adds weight
| to the compliment (ie if you remembered how good they were
| perhaps five months later it's not just a throw away comment)
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| The comments here really demonstrate how this is a culturally-
| nuanced topic.
|
| FWIW, the author comes from a North-American background.
| camdenlock wrote:
| Would be interested to hear anecdotes from your culture.
|
| In the NA culture, we've reached a "kindergarten" sort of
| stage, where the prime directive is to protect feelings and
| reduce "harm". I suspect this may be due the growing influence
| of academia on the private sector.
| [deleted]
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| The comments here show they need to get a job that doesn't
| abuse them. You shouldn't be so scared of a compliment because
| it will be used against you by your boss or coworkers. You'll
| never get work done if you spend all your time looking over
| your back.
|
| EDIT: looking through the 2020 thread, it's intersting how
| different the conversation went, especially wrt stack rankging.
| It felt like it was focusing more on process at companies.
| Here, it feels a lot more "personal". More about "well I just
| want it straight" or "compliments can inadvertently hurt
| people".
|
| Can't call it better or worse objectively, but one feels a bit
| more surface level than the other.
| mulmen wrote:
| The issue here is that you are making a decision for someone
| else.
| alex_lav wrote:
| Only in the abstract, I guess. If you drop 5 dollars and I
| pick it up and tell you that you dropped it, I also made a
| decision for you, no? That you'd want to be informed of
| such things?
|
| I believe that consent is good, and I believe that
| voluntarily crossing a person's boundaries is bad, but I
| also believe that participating in a society means we
| cannot entirely control all aspects of how we're engaged
| with and perceived. An employee talking to a vested party
| about an experience they had is a perfectly normal, healthy
| and expected behavior. The example we're talking about is
| even a positive! So some amount of "making a decision for
| someone else" (even though I reject that concept as
| existing here) is normal, healthy and expected.
| whats_a_quasar wrote:
| No, you're not, you're making a decision to talk about your
| work experience with the other manager. Coworkers can talk
| to each other about work, what people work on is not secret
| information
| mulmen wrote:
| You're talking about _someone else_ to _their_ manager.
| That is the person you are making a decision for.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I can see how it comes off that way, fair enough. But I'll
| clarify:
|
| Abuse can be subjective and you shouldn't be abused based
| on your personal lines of abuse, which I of course cannot
| decide. If you are not comfortable in your work environment
| and have the capacity to leave, I hope it isn't a
| controversial take to suggest leaving. full time work is a
| good chunk of your life after all, and abuse will bleed
| into the other parts of your life even after you leave for
| the day.
|
| If you have intrinsic reasons to stay despite having that
| capacity to leave, then I suppose you value those reasons
| above your personal mental health. Which is unfortuante,
| but your call.
|
| ----
|
| This goes a bit beyond the topic of compliments. But such a
| topic seem to bring so many experiences of office politics
| out in this iteration of discussion, so I felt it be worth
| mentioning. As I edited in my above post, this post feels a
| lot more "personal" than the discussion 3 years ago.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Am not one of those people that likes getting noticed too much
| but have learned praise can be a very soft power when needed.
| Some people really do put a lot of value on what others think of
| them and that isn't a weakness. It can be a great strength to
| them.
|
| Additionally, it's a soft power. Managers talk. When I've
| intervened in organizational resource actions, there was always
| one manager/exec who would jump for me. One of those saves became
| a VP and another achieved the highest technical rank at a Fortune
| 200. I did it for them but I also did it for the company.
| mulmen wrote:
| Asking is _CRITICAL_. Do _not_ praise me without consent. I have
| had too many abusive managers in my career to ever desire
| unsolicited praise. All information is a weapon in the hands of
| an abuser.
|
| I may have helped you complete your task but my manager could
| interpret that as wasting time not delivering my own task.
|
| In other words going over someone's head (direct to their
| manager) is an aggressive and rude action. It is never kind or
| helpful, regardless of intent.
| palata wrote:
| I had this team where during the retrospective we would each list
| good and bad points of the sprint (yes, it was agile, and that
| part of the whole religious process was the only one that I found
| useful).
|
| After a while, we would all start the sentences with "I am happy
| because ..." and "I am not so happy because...", and it became
| customary to have some "happy" points to compensate for the
| complaints. And there we all started thanking colleagues of the
| team. "I am happy because Alexia helped me doing this", or simply
| "I am happy because Bernard is back from holiday". It was a post-
| it thing, so when coming back from holiday, you would usually get
| a post-it from everyone.
|
| We were not collecting them, counting them or showing them to a
| manager, it was just internal to the team. We would quickly
| ignore them and move to the bad points (group them, vote for the
| 3 most important ones, and define actions to solve them). It just
| felt nice, and I think it was a nice (small but regular) team
| building moment.
|
| I don't believe in managers: I imagine that they would probably
| just start counting the reviews, creating some bullshit metrics
| and ranking the employees. I don't want that. I thank my
| coworkers when I can to make them feel good, not to make them
| look good to the manager.
| baby wrote:
| Ah the manager game
| 5cott0 wrote:
| It is a fun exercise to think of all the interesting ways the 2nd
| order effects of these feedback hacks can be weaponized in office
| politicks.
| blastro wrote:
| If you're playing that game, well have fun!
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Is this a justification for keeping complimentary feedback to
| yourself? Seems like a recipe for a continually worsening
| world. We gotta rise above that shit.
|
| If you have something nice to say, you should say it. Any
| workplace that penalizes you for that, you should leave--maybe
| with a parting act of sabotage.
| palata wrote:
| > Any workplace that penalizes you for that, you should leave
|
| I don't think that's necessarily what the parent means. I can
| totally imagine that the workplace will penalize those who
| get less praise (because if they don't get spontaneous
| complimentary feedback (or less), they are probably not as
| good, right?).
|
| What happens for people who are less social, or more isolated
| (e.g. in a smaller team)?
|
| Not saying that we should not compliment coworkers. Just that
| it is important to think that there are ways to do it wrong
| ("Let's have a white board collecting the nice feedback
| everybody gets, so that we all enjoy it! What do you mean
| this creates a public ranking in the office?").
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I do this a lot with various service-people... I've missed a few
| flights here or there, and then contacted the airline, "hey I
| missed my flight, Janet Buttersworth helped me fix it up for a
| flight an hour later, she was super cool and I really appreciate
| it.
|
| Or a cable installer, I'll just ask for the name of their boss so
| I can put in a good word for them.
|
| Quite sure this has been responsible for a few bonuses here and
| there, pay it forward, etc.
| tdiff wrote:
| ... and they will get promoted instead of you.
|
| Unless your honesty is noticed.
| johndhi wrote:
| I disagree with the "ask first" suggestion. That's adding
| friction to the process that makes it less organic and will
| disincentivize actually doing it.
|
| Instead I will give feedback that I know won't hurt the employee
| I'm praising. There is an art to writing this stuff - usually
| making it more about yourself and how your problems are easier.
| sethammons wrote:
| I let managers know about great interactions with their direct
| reports. It never occurred to me to ask. I may start doing so.
| But this reason for not doing it boils my blood:
|
| > One person mentioned that they got reprimanded by their
| manager for getting a spot peer bonus for helping someone on
| another team.
|
| This is a hill I will die on: people at $this_company are a
| team and helping one another is critical in building healthy
| teams and organizations. Slack in the schedule must exist and
| helping each other should fill that slack. Balance of course,
| but "sorry, I can't help for an hour to unblock you until
| [checks calendar] next quarter... maybe" type responses hurt
| organizations more than they know.
| johndhi wrote:
| To me, the text you quoted is a separate issue/topic.
|
| If a manager is that horrible, then it's time to give
| negative feedback to THEIR manager. Just like I don't ask
| before I send a Slack message to someone about a work-related
| topic, I also don't ask before I send HR-related praise.
| mulmen wrote:
| The phrase is "I won't die on that hill". It references the
| pointless meat grinders of the Vietnam war. There is no
| corollary hill _worth_ dying on.
|
| If you still want to throw your life away on a meaningless
| endeavor do _not_ bring me along with you. Talking to
| management can and will hurt people. Do not make decisions
| for others without their consent.
| pertique wrote:
| If there was no corollary hill worth dying on then there'd
| be no reason to specify that the hill in question wasn't
| worth dying on. Thus, we can assume there are hills worth
| dying on.
|
| Anecdotally, I think I hear the "I will die on this hill"
| variant more than the converse.
| mulmen wrote:
| > If there was no corollary hill worth dying on then
| there'd be no reason to specify that the hill in question
| wasn't worth dying on.
|
| This does not hold. The hills in question were numbered
| arbitrarily. They had no value. We threw away lives to
| capture them only to give them up immediately. It was a
| pointless exercise. The phrase references this
| pointlessness. Attempting to assign meaning to the hill
| betrays a complete misunderstanding of both the history
| and the lesson.
| pertique wrote:
| I'd probably take the more charitable view that usage of
| the phrase in the negative is a willingness to embrace
| the spirit of the saying rather than attribute it to a
| misunderstanding.
|
| If it is a misunderstanding, that is. While all sources
| I've seen sdo agree the phrase is of military origin, the
| Ngram shows usage as early as 1908 [1], with usage
| between 1930 and 1955 in English fiction [2]. Maybe the
| origin of the phrase predates the pointless numbered
| hills of the Vietnam War, and perhaps those hills had
| value and were worth dying on.
|
| Not that this is a hill I'm willing to die on, though.
| All I wanted to point out is that the opposite phrase is
| used often per past experience, and Google Trends [3]. I
| can't actually find any trend data for the "original,"
| but it is used.
|
| [1] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hill+to
| +die+on...
|
| [2] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hill+to
| +die+on...
|
| [3] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo
| =US&q=w...
| handoflixue wrote:
| > There is no corollary hill worth dying on.
|
| A quick Google search would reveal that "This is a hill I
| will die on" is in fact an extremely common saying.
| mulmen wrote:
| Yes, it is common. I would even call it cliche. Being
| common doesn't make it interesting or valuable.
| maxbond wrote:
| You can't control the vocabulary of others. Don't push
| the river.
| conro1108 wrote:
| Sounds like this is a hill you're willing to die on
| Zetice wrote:
| Same, and if you have a manager like that, just recognize
| that they're not going to be able to do much about it if you
| do help others. Just kind of ignore them if they suggest
| doing otherwise.
| rescripting wrote:
| Asking first makes sense because they may have been told by
| their manager to deprioritize or stop working on whatever your
| problem was, but they used their judgement and helped you
| anyway. Praising them in front of others undermines that
| directive, and even if their manager was ok with them helping
| you in this one off situation they may not want to advertise
| "Go to John for help with X".
|
| You hear stories of employees getting fired after a positive
| review is posted online "Our server Marie was amazing! She went
| above and beyond by giving our son a free ice cream on his
| birthday!"
| johndhi wrote:
| If the manager told the IC to deprioritize what I'm asking
| for, the IC should tell me that. If the IC tells me that,
| I'll consider that in what I write about the IC.
|
| Also - I'm not necessarily advocating for praising in front
| of others in every case. In some cases that makes sense, in
| some cases it makes sense just to send a message to the
| manager directly.
| mulmen wrote:
| This is a ridiculously entitled position. You have your
| perception and are acting on it without considering the
| consequences to anyone else. Your risk-reward calculation
| is wrong in the worst way because it hurts someone else and
| you never feel the consequence so you never correct.
| johndhi wrote:
| No, this is personal responsibility in action.
| madrox wrote:
| I understand where you're coming from; I've never thought to
| ask permission before. However, I think it's a good idea to
| honor the intent of this section and "read the room" before
| doing something that will affect someone else.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> I disagree with the "ask first" suggestion.
|
| I've found two types of organizations.
|
| 1. Organizations where folks doing great work are given more
| work.
|
| 2. Organizations where folks doing great work are given more
| responsibility, coached, and put on a path to promotion or
| tangible recognition.
|
| For workers in type-1 organizations, they may fear they will
| just get assigned more work with no added benefit. Sometimes
| the work assigned should be done by others who arent doing
| their own share.
| mulmen wrote:
| You can't possibly know what will cause harm. Just ask them, it
| isn't complicated.
| nittanymount wrote:
| this is a good thing to do in a team.
| AceyMan wrote:
| Since I started in technology I've always kept my eyes open for
| chances to do this.
|
| I'm a "career-switcher" who came from commercial aviation
| operations. In the airlines one of the big fears was to get a
| 'write-up' in your file, either from a teammate, or manager, or
| customer.
|
| But, on the flip side, there was nothing better than to get an
| "atta-boy" letter from any of those same people. (Within the
| company the same form could be used: ours was called an "Unusual
| Occurrence Report", and it could be submitted for good
| outcomes/performances as well as mishaps/poor performances.
|
| I brought this same idea with me when I started in technology. I
| probably should have sent more of these messages than I have, but
| still, it's nice to know that you're helping a colleague get some
| positive attention from their managers. We all know that in the
| corporate world praise is hard to come by, and it only takes a
| few minutes to write a email retelling how someone saved the day.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Yes. This helps build the type of organization YOU WANT TO WORK
| FOR.
|
| Reinforce it. You can't provide material motivation to the
| business (unless you're also the company's biggest customer ..
| heh.) You CAN provide reinforcing feedback to management.
|
| Quantify why XYZ coworker helped.
|
| And if Management does NOT listen, f'em. Notice when mgmt
| responds in a truly incorrect manner. And vote next with your
| feet.
| mulmen wrote:
| Don't throw your coworkers under the bus. You may feel this
| cause is worthy but don't force others into your crusade.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Would an example be to celebrate someone who is doing
| something I think is great, and overlook celebrating others
| whose work is less my crusade?
|
| Or is the point to avoid critiquing coworkers TO management,
| bypassing seeking feedback of the person first?
| mulmen wrote:
| [delayed]
| gabereiser wrote:
| >Ask if it's ok first...
|
| This is very astute. Not everyone likes getting praise in public
| settings or they might not want their micromanaging manager to
| know they helped you outside the scope of their work. You should
| be cognizant of when praise should be given (i.e. when is it
| appropriate) and in what context as mentioned in the article.
|
| That said, if you aren't thanking and praising your colleagues
| for doing good work - YTA of the team. If you are calling out
| your colleagues for doing bad work, or not the way you would do
| it work, you should try to rephrase into praise w/ direction. "I
| really liked how you tackled this, have you thought about this
| approach?" Instead of "Why didn't you do it this way?"
|
| *edit* There's a whole bunch of interesting information on why
| behavioral praise is better than outcome praise. Here's a video
| about it I find sums it up perfectly (though it's geared towards
| how it relates to children) https://youtu.be/59gx55bNunU
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| > or they might not want their micromanaging manager to know
| they helped you outside the scope of their work
|
| This is me. My boss lays so much on my plate that I legit get
| talked to when I help other people. I tell them not to tell
| anyone I helped them
| samstave wrote:
| >> _they might not want their micromanaging manager to know
| they helped you outside the scope of their work_
| So, Yeah, im going to have to ask you to do more given you have
| received so much praise from your colleagues... Yeah....
| Thankssssss....
|
| -
|
| This is a valid concern.
|
| There are some many unaware wolves that think they are good
| managers because they have info on their staff, as opposed to a
| relationship understanding their staff....
| thenose wrote:
| The other (depressing) situation is that newcomers often want
| to praise someone for their work, not realizing they work in a
| company whose managers are focused on playing games and forming
| alliances. In such environments, praising someone can actually
| work against you. I've heard the finance tech industry tends to
| suffer from this.
|
| Thankfully this seems rarer than the one you're mentioning,
| where everyone is happy to build a nice company they want to
| work for. It's an odd situation, where the natural incentives
| align to reward the opposite. Is there a way to guard against
| those?
| gabereiser wrote:
| I've seen things...
|
| Unfortunately the only way to win at office politics is to
| either not play, or play to win. Pick. If you find yourself
| in an organization where upper management is vying for
| control playing politics and alliances, I think it might be
| time to reach out to your network.
| ori_b wrote:
| > _If you are calling out your colleagues for doing bad work,
| or not the way you would do it work, you should try to rephrase
| into praise w / direction. "I really liked how you tackled
| this, have you thought about this approach?" Instead of "Why
| didn't you do it this way?"_
|
| I don't want to work with people that communicate this way.
| esafak wrote:
| That's a cultural and personal thing. Consider the
| recipient's preferences.
|
| If you would like to learn about these cultural preferences,
| read Erin Meyer's _The Culture Map_.
| https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/
| ori_b wrote:
| Yes. If you like that kind of culture, feel free to seek it
| out.
|
| I would not enjoy that kind of workplace, and if I
| accidentally join a place that leaned very heavily on that
| communication style, I would likely leave quickly.
| bumby wrote:
| There's something to be said to adapting to the
| environment rather than expecting the environment to fit
| your whims. Sometimes you should change your approach in
| the vein of being more effective at your job. Most
| reasonably sized organizations are going to have a mixed
| of people with different preferences; jumping ship every
| time the culture doesn't meet your ideal seems like you
| may end up switching jobs often enough to not have much
| of an impact. (I know job-hopping is a discussion all its
| own)
| ori_b wrote:
| There's also something to be said for not working in
| environments you dislike if you don't need to. Especially
| since cultural mismatches grate and lead to
| underperformance.
|
| Given that I have consistently gotten thanked for how I
| give and take feedback from colleagues, I think I will be
| fine on finding organizations that work for me
| culturally.
|
| (Edit: And no, that praise didn't contain "but I
| wish..."es.)
| bumby wrote:
| If you can find something fulfilling that is a good
| cultural fit, great. But lots of people get caught up in
| the "grass is always greener somewhere else" mentality
| and end up job swapping constantly to find some mythical
| culture that perfectly aligns with them. And maybe that
| works if your primary goal is what's in it for you. But
| it can also have the effect of minimizing your impact,
| which is counter-productive for a goal of contributing to
| something beyond yourself.
|
| The point that may have gone missed in my original
| comment was the perspective was focused on "being
| effective" and not "working somewhere I like". One is
| somewhat selfish, the other is not.
|
| FWIW, I'm not saying anyone should have to care about
| their impact. It's just ironic when I see people
| constantly job-hopping with the stated goal of finding a
| cultural fit so they can have said impact.
| conception wrote:
| This is why the Golden Rule is wrong. Not "Do unto others
| as you would have them to do to you." but instead "Do unto
| others how they uhh want to be done unto." Different folks,
| different strokes.
| esafak wrote:
| Some call that the Platinum Rule.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Problem is that you don't know what others want and it
| takes time to establish that. Even then they may not
| necessarily know what they want. People change their
| minds.
|
| It's a rule of thumb regardless. not an ironclad rule.
| generally, people want to be treated respectfully, so
| treat them respectfully and course correct if
| cultural/social lines demand it.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > I don't want to work with people that communicate this way.
|
| "I don't want to work with people efficiently, and would
| rather cling to inefficient ways."
| stcroixx wrote:
| It's not efficient to send 3 messages when only one is
| needed.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Are you saying you don't want to work with the people who use
| praise w/ direction? That is my assumption about what you
| meant given that it seems like the contrary opinion and thus
| the reason for replying. If that's the case, care to
| elaborate why you don't like that style?
| camhart wrote:
| Because its confusing. Don't say that you like something
| when you don't. It's a failure to communicate.
| function_seven wrote:
| I'll share my reason. It's phony as hell. If someone is
| legitimately angry or disappointed with my performance,
| just say it. Don't construct a "compliment sandwich" and
| patronize me with that.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Considering this is about how you communicate with
| others, you are saying people should consider the way you
| want to be communicated with, but you should be able to
| ignore how others want to be communicated with?
|
| That just makes you a disappointing, inefficient
| hypocrite.
| function_seven wrote:
| No, I didn't say any of that. I would like people to be
| straight with me. I try to be straight with them. Golden
| Rule and all of that, right?
| gretch wrote:
| > I would like people to be straight with me
|
| But you understand that people can genuinely like you
| right?
|
| Perhaps that person is trying to not throw the baby out
| with the bath water.
|
| "Hey I'm glad you patched the bug, but can you give the
| SREs a heads up next time? They p0'ed on an expected
| traffic spike"
|
| The person is actually happy with you for fixing a bug.
| They don't want to you take away that in the future, to
| not take initiative and fix bugs.
| function_seven wrote:
| > _But you understand that people can genuinely like you
| right?_
|
| Yeah, I do. And when I get genuine compliments, I like
| them!
|
| But it's obvious when someone consistently prefaces their
| statements with "softening" compliments. When they're
| "deploying" a "communications strategy."
|
| Talk to me like a real person, please. It will make it
| easier for those compliments to land when recipients know
| they're real. But if you're the type to always lead with
| one, then they're all worthless. You're just a happy-
| talker. Your praise is empty.
| trifurcate wrote:
| I always have doubts about others' work and suggestions
| on how they could do it better. To avoid constantly
| dominating others, I either have to shut my mouth or try
| to be more accommodating in how I deliver my feedback. I
| do a mix of both, but if you tell me to be straight with
| you, then I'll be straight with you.
|
| Especially in large corporate organizations where there
| are vast differences in how people communicate and take
| input, and you talk to too many people in a given day to
| really get close with any of them, it requires a
| handshake to know that I can always indicate my roughly
| unfiltered technical opinion to you and that you'll take
| it in stride, and if you feel strongly about it, you'll
| have the confidence to shoot my idea down without me
| having to give you an opening by posing my suggestion as
| a question.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| This should just be the default. Many organizations do in
| fact write this down in their internal communication
| guides, where it's known as the ABCs (accuracy, brevity,
| clarity) of professional communication.
|
| > _I always have doubts about others ' work and
| suggestions on how they could do it better_
|
| If you're right, they should listen to you (gratefully),
| if you're not they should tell you why so you can learn.
| There is no good reason to react emotionally to
| professional criticism, it is a worst-practice which no
| measures ought be taken to accommodate.
| trifurcate wrote:
| > There is no good reason to react emotionally to
| professional criticism.
|
| And yet when it happens (not a rare event), it can be
| quite unproductive for both parties. I would hope that
| you deal with other worst-practices in your domain with
| greater grace than a total refusal to deal with and
| prevent pathological outcomes.
|
| Additionally, if you truly believe what you stated, then
| so long as I avoid sacrificing significant
| efficiency/productivity to keep my words from bothering
| people, then I do not see why it should bother you
| either. If I had to self-judge, I really don't think that
| the added conversational padding pans out to more than 15
| minutes per day. That's worth spending to make sure that
| the people you work with are engaged with you and the
| task at hand in an accommodating way, rather than fearing
| being rebuked at each turn.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _And yet when it happens_
|
| When it does happen, like any other mistake, it should
| _be corrected_. Just like if someone put secrets into
| git, it should be explained to them why they shouldn 't
| do that, and an expectation should be set not to do it
| again. If the individual fails to meet that expectation,
| disciplinary action should be taken, up to and including
| termination.
|
| I've in fact had this happen to a developer who took PR
| comments personally. The rest of the team was very glad
| to see them terminated. Fifteen minutes per day adds up
| to a lot, and I'm quite sure it's more for staff whose
| roles are heavier on communication or those for whom
| anticipating people's feelings comes less naturally.
|
| > _rather than fearing being rebuked at each turn_
|
| My point is that a fear of professional criticism is a
| fundamental flaw in a professional, one that should be
| corrected to the benefit of the individual and the
| organization. A leader who refuses to correct this flaw
| in their reports is holding back their professional
| development and failing in their role as mentor. One
| should experience nothing but sublime gratitude that
| one's mistakes were found and corrected before they
| caused any damage.
| qwytw wrote:
| "Hey I'm glad you patched the bug, but.."
|
| To me that just sounds passive aggressive and sort of
| like "you should mind your own business".
|
| I'd feel better you if someone just told me: "I saw you
| patched a bug, could you do X"
|
| or even just "can you give the SREs a heads up next
| time?" alone.
|
| Then again I'm used to a culture where any praise is
| ussually implicit and criticism tends to be quite
| explicit so it's easy to interpret words like "glad" etc.
| as insincere by default without even wanting too..
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Because the example is oversimplified for the sake of HN
| commentary. In the real world it goes more like this:
|
| "Hey, I saw you patched that bug that was causing
| traffics spikes. That's awesome work and I appreciate
| your proactivity! The Ops team thought we had to work
| late tonight to implement mitigations for the problem.
|
| In fact, it looks like we had a communication breakdown
| and they didn't realize you had fixed the issue until 6
| hours later. In the future do you think you could let
| them know when this sort of problem is fixed, just to
| make sure we're all on the same page? We'll have to look
| at a solution for automated alerts too -- maybe an
| integration with the ticket system or build system. Do
| you have any ideas for that so we don't have to rely on
| manual communication? We're moving so fast that it's hard
| for everyone to keep up! Thanks again for the great
| work."
| allarm wrote:
| > Hey I'm glad you patched the bug, but can you give the
| SREs a heads up next time?
|
| I read it as passive aggressive. Pretty much everyone in
| my culture would read it this way. If you think it is a
| good example, please reconsider.
| gretch wrote:
| Okay, if we worked with each other in real life, I would
| accept that and I guess never speak to you that way.
|
| Since this is a discussion of communication theory, I
| have to say, it's crazy to me that you read it as passive
| aggressive.
|
| Like when I say bad things about you, you can just accept
| those things in a straightforward fashion. However when I
| say good things about you, that cannot be accept in just
| as straightforward a way, and instead it is viewed as
| passive aggressive.
|
| You don't see the asymmetry there?
| skrebbel wrote:
| Im not the GP but it hides all clarity wrt how important
| the colleague thinks the "directions" that the praise came
| along with are. If I accept the praise but dismiss the
| directions, am I being an asshole? Or am I being
| subordinate? Am I ignoring a direct order? The boss was in
| the room and they didn't object to the directions! What
| does it all _mean_?
|
| All this is a level of 4D interpersonal chess that you're
| forcing me to play that could simply be avoided if you said
| that you think its worth changing it like so and so because
| such and such.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Fair point. I think it comes down to knowing your
| audience, which is always the most fundamental and
| important part. Coworkers with lots of rapport can be
| very direct with each other. Or a neurodivergent person
| who struggles with social/verbal cues may be much better
| served with succinct direct feedback (and likewise not
| feel the sting and demotivation that the initial strategy
| is intended to avoid)
| edgarvaldes wrote:
| >I really liked how you tackled this
|
| Because you open the communication with a lie.
| koliber wrote:
| Such communication style can work well, but only if it is
| genuine. When people do mess up, there is often something
| good in the mix. It's possible to lead with a compliment
| to point out what was done well, and follow up with
| constructive criticism. It's about style. When done well,
| you don't notice it and you like it. If done awkwardly or
| stiffly, it feels fake, patronizing, and disingenuous.
| qwytw wrote:
| The shit sandwich approach...
|
| But yeah if you're a person who's only capable of
| complaining and criticizing others (assuming it's
| perfectly legitimate/reasonable) you might struggle
| communicating with most people who don't know you really
| well/are used to different culture.
| [deleted]
| gretch wrote:
| Well, only if it is a lie. The example is a hypothetical
| story so we can read into it whatever we want.
|
| There are ways to like someone's work, even if you don't
| think it's complete or optimal.
|
| For example, I think a huge part of getting a job done is
| just having someone take initiative and at least try, as
| opposed to waiting for someone else to start them off.
|
| The line might mean "I'm glad you started us down this
| road..."
| stcroixx wrote:
| Me either. Prefer honest direct communication in a business
| setting.
| borroka wrote:
| It is the HR-motivated eternal infantilization of the people.
| In fact, to the person who went through mental and physical
| developments with no blockages or traumas, it comes across as
| a quite paternalistic way of communicating, but it is a style
| liked and embraced by corporate coaches, HR, and the informal
| CYA policies.
| gabereiser wrote:
| I disagree. Rather strongly actually. I've had bad managers
| that couldn't communicate. I've been that manager. I've
| learned how to communicate to be more effective with
| others. Everyone has blockages and traumas (especially
| now). It's important to use those in context and draw from
| that experience. It's not HR motivated, it's a style of
| empathetic communication.
| borroka wrote:
| It is important not to think of black-white alternatives.
| The style "good job, kid!", "great effort, little
| man/woman!" is undoubtedly paternalistic.
|
| There are people who like this style on both sides of the
| conversation, but in my experience, these are not high
| performers who make a difference in an initiative, a
| company, or a group of friends.
|
| Now, the alternative to paternalism is not rudeness, or
| brutality, but, as I see it, a clear communication that
| does not infantilize people, but treat them seriously,
| like serious adult people, and not kids who have to be
| coddled or paid excessive attention too, or, even worse,
| as "damaged goods".
|
| A few years ago, I received a message from someone I had
| a date with, and they used the sandwich, paternalistic
| style of communication that most adults dislike. "Hi, it
| was great to meet you and we had such a great time.
| Unfortunately, I don't think it would work etc. I wish
| you the very best/you are a great guy/see you around".
| Unsurprisingly, they were working in corporate. It is
| annoying to be treated like kids when there are white
| hairs on semi-bald heads.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I don't think it has to be that deep. The world is a big
| place, full of many cultures that operate - especially with
| giving criticism - very differently. You don't need to
| master the tone of every culture, but it's important to at
| least be cognisant that even these difference exist.
| borroka wrote:
| I don't see my comment as particularly profound.
|
| I have lived for a few decades at this point and have
| noticed, like anyone else I imagine, a desire in (some,
| but a nontrivial percentage of) people to maintain
| lifelong ways of thinking and behaving that have been
| historically associated with early life.
|
| For example, a desire to be praised and not challenged,
| to dress like a teenager even as one nears retirement, to
| show a degree of enthusiasm for pedestrian events that
| was once reserved for major accomplishments.
| pbourke wrote:
| > to dress like a teenager even as one nears retirement
|
| For some of us this is a KPI of our life/job
| satisfaction.
|
| I can tell you that if I was in some job that did not
| allow me to schlep around in hoodies and cargo pants I
| would be much, much less happy than I am today.
| borroka wrote:
| I don't like to judge the appearance of others and prefer
| just to maintain high standards for myself. My comment
| was descriptive and not normative.
|
| I like working out and being in shape, but if others
| prefer to do some side project at night instead of
| hitting weights, it is fine with me. I enjoy reading and
| thinking, but if others prefer to watch reality tv, who
| am I to judge them?
|
| Admittedly, seeing some of my middle-aged colleagues who
| are complete slobs, from their worn-out clothes to their
| prominent bellies to their unkempt hair and beards and
| some fun smell coming out of them, is a stress-test for
| the fortitude of my beliefs.
| dahwolf wrote:
| Me neither. I would reply with:
|
| "Thanks that you liked it, I'm always happy with positive
| feedback so will share it widely within the team and towards
| my manager. When I get home I'll also tell my wife and put it
| in the family's group chat. Grandma's FB post should be up
| soon".
|
| Don't lie to my face. I'm not a moron nor a child. You didn't
| like how I tackled it at all. You can just say that and point
| to tangible things where I went wrong. Any working
| professional should be able to handle that. And not just
| that, embrace it, it's a learning experience.
| eweise wrote:
| I do. Having worked with so many engineers with almost no
| social skills, I think there's a lot of room for improvement
| in their communication style. "Why didn't you do it this
| way?" is aggressive and critical. "have you thought about
| this approach?" makes them feel like you have their back and
| are trying to help. I agree there's not a huge need to the "I
| really liked how you tackled this" part but even never
| praising your coworkers is a an issue.
| pxc wrote:
| > "Why didn't you do it this way?" is aggressive and
| critical.
|
| 'Why didn't you do it this way?' reveals an expectation
| that you would have done whatever it was 'this way', but it
| doesn't indicate that that expectation is _normative_. A
| junior might well ask that just because 'this way' is the
| only way they know how to do it, and they're curious about
| whether the developer they're asking chose a different
| route for stylistic reasons, performance reasons, or out of
| some entirely different consideration. Nothing critical
| about it.
|
| Inferring criticism from mere surprise may be
| uncomfortable, but it also seems a kind of misapprehension
| that will very quickly sort itself out as the conversation
| goes on.
|
| In contrast to the case above, by the way, 'have you
| thought about this [other] approach?' _does_ imply that the
| asker knows better because it very directly and explicitly
| raises the possibility that the one being asked hasn 't
| even considered alternative implementations.
| eweise wrote:
| "Aggressive and critical" I couldn't find the right words
| initially but a better word might be accusatory. To me,
| it sounds like they should have but didn't. A lot of
| other posters don't get that flavor from it and see it as
| just a genuine curiosity which makes sense.
| pxc wrote:
| > To me, it sounds like they should have but didn't. A
| lot of other posters don't get that flavor from it and
| see it as just a genuine curiosity which makes sense.
|
| Imo a lot of the difficulty with things like this comes
| from high turnover and/or siloing. When you're working
| with someone who is basically a stranger, that means
| you've hardly had a chance to build up a real sense of
| rapport/trust/comfort with that person. So it's easier to
| doubt yourself and harder to know what the other person
| really intends.
|
| Most differences in communication style or preferences
| about how to approach criticism are at least _somewhat_
| easier to deal with between people who know each other
| and understand what their particular differences are.
| ori_b wrote:
| I don't think I've seen this style of communication
| generally work as a viable substitute for social skills and
| good will towards colleagues.
|
| Wrapping of criticism in praise is a poor substitute for
| genuinely praising good work, and being empathetic and
| helpful with direct, unambiguous feedback when someone can
| improve. Mistakes are inevitable. They're not a problem.
| It's ok to discuss them directly.
| RobRivera wrote:
| I dont think it is good faith to label different
| communication styles as poor social skills. Many a DnD nerd
| have no problems communicating, but simply have a different
| communication style than johhny the quarterback. Part of
| diversity is understanding cultural differences as much as
| style.
|
| I love being told short, crisp, critical feedbacj that is
| data dense. Any overly verbose communication adds a layer
| of parsing and interpretation which may be unnecessarily
| ambiguous, which is more costly and for the benefit of
| what? a subjective opinion that it is 'more social'?
|
| As with most things, it depends and knowing your audience
| goes miles.
| ska wrote:
| The social skill is having different communication
| styles, and applying them appropriately.
|
| Only having one _is_ a form of poor social skills.
| dahwolf wrote:
| It's not aggressive and being critical of work deliverables
| is the very point of quality assurance.
|
| It doesn't mean you have to be mean about it, but you can
| just spit it out.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| It depends on context, but I have found the opposite.
|
| "Have you thought about this approach" can come across as
| condcending. Of course I thought about that, it was the
| first thing I tried before the much more complicated
| solution that actually works.
|
| "Why didn't you do it this way" invites them to share the
| war story of what happened when they tried doing that.
| pluijzer wrote:
| But your example are cases where you feel strong because
| you have this war story. How about the cases where you
| just made a mistake?
|
| That said, I never liked the 'sandwhich' method, saying;
| "Great effort. The result is horrible, like your
| indentation though."
| gizmo686 wrote:
| "war story" is a bit strong, but most of the time I don't
| go with the obvious solution, there was some
| investigating done that led to the conclusion that the
| obvious solution wouldn't work.
|
| The trick is to know who you are talking to. If they did
| think of your idea, accusing them of having missed it is
| offensive. If they didn't consider it, asking them to
| justify their reasoning puts them on the spot.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Then you should be glad someone pointed out your mistake,
| improved the work, and gave you an opportunity to learn.
| You should be thanking them.
| gabereiser wrote:
| >"Have you thought about this approach" can come across
| as condcending. Of course I thought about that, it was
| the first thing I tried before the much more complicated
| solution that actually works.
|
| This is what I want to hear. Tell me you first considered
| it and ruled it out because of XYZ. No where am I saying
| "I think you're incompetent and I would have done it this
| way". On the contrary, I think you're the right person
| for the job and I want to hear the assessment of the
| various other approaches (if any) and why yours fits the
| bill. It could be as simple as "well, mine does Y, others
| don't". Next time someone asks you about your approach,
| try not to assume they are trying to belittle you or get
| you into a "gotcha" situation.
|
| I'm sorry that you had bad managers in the past and are
| hurt by someone asking about your methods. I genuinely
| want to know so I can defend the choice to the higher ups
| on your behalf.
| jahsome wrote:
| I personally prefer earnest over disingenuous. There are
| fewer opportunities to misunderstand.
|
| A question by it's nature isn't aggressive. The words
| "should" and "we" are the real cancers IMO, as in "we
| should have done..."
|
| I think your example of have you thought about, vs. Why did
| you is potentially better but I personally don't have an
| issue answering either question or feel attacked in either
| case.
|
| I would on the other hand be concerned about working with
| someone immature enough to read in so far to perfectly
| innocuous curiosity.
| jcuenod wrote:
| There are intelligent people who are great at ingenuous
| praise. I'm not one of them, but often in striving for
| the former, I fail at the latter. Smart people are able
| to find things that are praiseworthy, which gives greater
| credibility to questions and critique.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| That's different though. I don't think your parent meant
| the "have you tried this approach" part but the very very
| fake and passive aggressive praise that then is turned into
| "actually I don't think you did great, please try this
| other approach". That's so fake and irritating.
| eweise wrote:
| Yeah I agree that comes across as fake, especially if
| done constantly. But its still good to recognize your
| peers effort even if sometimes it results in the wrong
| outcome.
| pxc wrote:
| Fake praise isn't recognition, though. It verges on (and
| sometimes is quite intentionally) mockery.
| camel_gopher wrote:
| My goto is "can you help me understand x?"
| eweise wrote:
| I guess any style could be interpreted many ways. If
| something was hard to understand, it sounds sincere but
| if you actually do understand then it could sound
| condescending. I guess with all this, context matters.
| graypegg wrote:
| I kind of agree, I don't want to work with a HR robot. I know
| someone that talks like this to non-coworker friends and it's
| honestly just... offputting.
|
| I'm more into "ehhh honestly not how I would do it. The
| {problem} will cause issues down the road". And that opens up
| a two ended respectful conversation. Someone telling that to
| me, I'm not going to think they're being an asshole.
|
| I've learned a lot from people stopping me from firing a
| footgun directly into my... foot.
| neilv wrote:
| > _"ehhh honestly not how I would do it. The {problem} will
| cause issues down the road"_
|
| If the context is that someone is speaking about something
| they think they know, and which would be acted upon, what
| about phrasing the concern as a question, like "How does
| that approach handle {problem}?"?
|
| (Not that I always practice this, because I don't. But
| probably it's generally best if I don't assume I'm right.
| Risks include people who misinterpret question-asking.)
| gabereiser wrote:
| >"How does that approach handle {problem}?"
|
| This is good so long as it's framed in a use-case. Like,
| we need to handle sending emails (simple example), How
| does your approach solve the need to send emails?
| Demonstrate it.
|
| It's important that we remember we are talking about
| praise, not criticism here. Something often lost on the
| rest of the commenters here.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| thats even more patronizing imo.
| neilv wrote:
| Are you assuming that you're right?
| graypegg wrote:
| I think it's about tone; it feels patronizing to me as
| well. "How does this approach handle {problem}?" is very
| socratic. You're asking a question meant to make them
| reconsider their idea in a very round about way. I think
| that actually comes off as assuming you're right in this
| conversation. I would imagine the person asking me that
| is being a snobby asshole showing off how intelligent
| they are. It's on the other person to try and piece
| together your wisdom you've delivered in cryptic socratic
| whataboutisms.
|
| If two doctors are having a conversation about a
| treatment, do you think they have these roundabout
| conversations or do they just say "No, his liver is shot,
| he can't take that." We're professionals too. We should
| have enough mutual respect for each other to be upfront.
| neilv wrote:
| > _You 're asking a question meant to make them
| reconsider their idea in a very round about way._
|
| How would you ask the question differently, if your
| intent was that you wanted to understand how they handled
| "{problem}"?
| graypegg wrote:
| By not asking a question. "I think this won't work
| because {reasoning}". I'm fine being told that. If you're
| working with level headed people, that starts a two way
| respectful conversation.
|
| Honestly that's just my mileage I guess. Maybe it depends
| on everyone's own personal attachment to their ideas, but
| if someone thinks I'm about to pull the footgun trigger,
| I want them to tell me that.
|
| If they're right, they saved my foot.
|
| If they're wrong, I show them that the safety is on, and
| we go on.
|
| Getting all "well what is it you expect to accomplish
| with that? Is this aligned with the incentives of the
| team? If there was a safety would it be on,
| hypothetically?" just serves to muddy the message and
| come off "smarter than thou". I'd call it manager speak.
| [deleted]
| projectazorian wrote:
| > "How does this approach handle {problem}?" is very
| socratic. You're asking a question meant to make them
| reconsider their idea in a very round about way. I think
| that actually comes off as assuming you're right in this
| conversation. I would imagine the person asking me that
| is being a snobby asshole showing off how intelligent
| they are.
|
| Alternatively, the questioner might not have your context
| on the situation and they might sincerely want to know if
| you've considered the problem they're asking about.
|
| "Not sure, but I'll look into that" is an acceptable
| answer most of the time.
| [deleted]
| playing_colours wrote:
| I think it is a matter of culture. I personally would prefer
| a straightforward approach, and I think many of my German
| colleagues, but I think my British colleagues would prefer
| that indirect way of communications.
| f1shy wrote:
| >> "I really liked how you tackled this, have you thought
| about this approach?" Instead of "Why didn't you do it this
| way?"
|
| So, basically lie in the face. How could that be good
| advice?!
|
| If I do not like it, I would just say it. One thing is being
| polite, other completely different to be a liar.
| gabereiser wrote:
| How is that praise?
| wkjagt wrote:
| I also hate this. When someone tells me they really like how
| I did something, when they clearly don't and only say so to
| package their criticism, I find it hard to take their
| criticism seriously because at that point I no longer know
| which parts are honest anymore. But it seems to be a cultural
| thing. I've noticed when I moved from The Netherlands to
| North America, that people here are often less direct, and
| actually appreciate the packaging. People seem to be more
| easily shocked when things are said in a more direct way.
| It's not necessarily a bad thing, but going from one culture
| to another it can cause unpleasant situations, on both sides.
| mavelikara wrote:
| I really like how direct you have been in stating your
| preference, but have you thought about an approach where
| tailoring your message to the audience to produce the best
| reception?
| rectang wrote:
| I've found that people who prefer to receive "direct"
| critiques don't object to genuine praise accompanying
| suggestions, and so there's no need to adapt communication
| styles to omit praise.
|
| But I personally can't adapt to the subset of people who spin
| a preference for receiving "direct" critiques into a penchant
| for _giving_ critiques with no consideration whatever for
| preserving the face of the recipient.
|
| My worst experiences have been with people who make a big
| deal about being "direct" but are actually quite
| psychologically astute and who find ways to smuggle maximum
| cruelty within their "direct" critiques, yet without going
| over the line where a sanction would be justified.
| ineptech wrote:
| Fair warning, the research mentioned at the beginning of this
| video is controversial and (I think it's fair to say) has
| generally failed to replicate.
|
| The research in question ("Praise for intelligence can
| undermine children's motivation and performance", Dweck &
| Mueller): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9686450/
|
| Overview of the controversy:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism
|
| Previous HN discussion on the paper:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12233571
| gabereiser wrote:
| Has it? Ok, I'll follow up and see if a better example can be
| found/substituted. Thank you.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I think that performative praise is obnoxious most of the time,
| and causes more trouble than it's worth, unless there's a
| process behind it. Individual public stuff tends to bias
| heroics or forget people behind the scenes.
|
| In public, team praise is the best policy.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Sometimes you just want someone to acknowledge the hard
| effort you put into it and share the rejoice that it's
| over/complete.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Totally agree. You just need to be mindful of context.
|
| I'm in a senior director role. Part of that is that I need
| to be cognizant of what I say and how I say it, because
| Spooky23 is talking, but "corporate officer guy" is who the
| audience hears.
|
| One early mistake that I made was recognizing a colleague
| who was essential to my aspect of delivering a key project.
| Which was true. But because of how I said it and what I
| didn't provide (context), a person reached out to me,
| genuinely hurt and upset because they felt that the (very
| significant) contributions that they made were forgotten or
| ignored.
|
| You can't walk on eggshells, but a celebration should be
| that.
| grecy wrote:
| > _"I really liked how you tackled this, have you thought about
| this approach?" Instead of "Why didn't you do it this way?"_
|
| Commonly called "Positive, to & try", taught to Snowboard
| Instructors.
|
| i.e.
|
| "I really like how you did that, to get even better results,
| try x"
|
| (I'm being vague to not make it about snowboarding, but it's
| important to be concrete)
|
| i.e.
|
| Instead of "that took too long, make it faster", use
|
| I really like how you got consensus in that meeting. To make it
| happen even faster, try outlining the pros and cons of the
| solution right at start of the meeting.
|
| or
|
| instead of "You're not bending your knees enough", use
|
| I really like how you completed those (snowboard) turns. To get
| even higher performance, try bending your knees more so the
| edge of your snowboard bites into the snow harder.
| xxs wrote:
| At some point people understand the 'approach', and it is
| extra condescending. Being straight/blunt is not about
| hurting someone's feeling.
| xyst wrote:
| I typically find these people in corporate firms. The "I want
| to be friends with everyone" person.
|
| Detangling their corporate double speak and no spine demeanor
| can become tiresome and counter productive.
| confidantlake wrote:
| The phrasing seems confusing and manipulative. Did you like my
| approach or not?
|
| I would rather someone be straight up with me. If you don't
| like the approach or would have done it differently say so and
| we can talk about it. Save the compliments for when I do
| something you actually like.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Save the compliments for when I do something you actually
| like.
|
| issue in cultures like this is compliments never come. Maybe
| a "thanks/good work" after the project/module is done, but by
| then it's empty words. feels more like "thanks for making me
| lots of money" instead of "thanks for contributing your
| skills to this project" if we treat compliments with a
| waterfall approach with no substance.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| In the culture of prefacing every simple question with
| empty praise, then all praise becomes an empty formality.
| It's far worse than receiving a simple "good work" after
| the job is done. If you have to choose between the two
| instead of finding some reasonable middle-ground, then you
| should choose the one that entails treating your coworkers
| like professional adults instead of emotionally sensitive
| children.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| In reality, we tend towards one extreme. So to correct
| that, there is nothing wrong with over-correcting and
| leaning back if it becomes a problem. This is assuming
| benevolent actors, of course.
|
| IME even in attempts to over correct we may still end up
| undercorrecting. So I'm not too afraid of a huge shift to
| empty platitudes.
| gabereiser wrote:
| I don't know, what is your approach? What others did you
| evaluate? That's what I want to know. It's not a gotcha
| question. Some people seem to think it is because of their
| experience with a bad manager. I genuinely want to know what
| approaches you took, why those didn't work, why yours is the
| right one, so I can defend you to the VP.
| metafunctor wrote:
| Sounds like a dysfunctional workplace, or at least a very bad
| manager, if one has to _secretly_ help colleagues. I 'd leave
| that boss or job as soon as possible.
|
| Giving praise should always be OK. Rephrasing feedback for bad
| work as praise also sounds like a bad idea. In my experience,
| negative feedback should be honest, clear, constructive, and
| private.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Agreed. If my manager was like what I described, not liking
| praise given because it was out of scope of their routine,
| and was immediately upset - I'd be gone too. However, if it's
| something that happens over and over again and eventually
| your manager says "Hey, it's great your helping others, let's
| document that so you can get back to the departments
| initiatives". I'd have more respect.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Sounds like a dysfunctional workplace, or at least a very
| bad manager, if one has to secretly help colleagues.
|
| There are gradations of things though. There are sometimes
| things you want to be doing, don't take a huge amount of
| time, and you know are clearly out of your scope. You then
| have a choice to just stop doing or continue to do quietly on
| the side. (Where the helpee knows silence is golden.)
|
| Companies function through all sorts of informal networks
| that are often better for not having too much light shown on
| everything.
| sensanaty wrote:
| I'd _hate_ to get a condescending review like that, hell I 'd
| prefer someone straight up saying it's shit and not elaborating
| than trying to beat around the bush like this.
| gabereiser wrote:
| What part is condescending? Asking if you thought through
| another approach? Or asking for your findings?
| jpadkins wrote:
| Great comment, love the effort. Next reply can you try to be
| more genuine and less patronizing?
| allarm wrote:
| > I really liked how you tackled this, have you thought about
| this approach?
|
| I would slightly rephrase it like this: I liked your approach,
| because (reasons), though I believe there's a better one,
| because (reasons).
|
| If you put it this way you show that you actually understood
| the approach and not just saying "do it my way". It gives the
| opportunity to learn something and it invites to a discussion -
| "hey, I thought about your approach but I decided to use mine
| because..."
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _"I really liked how you tackled this, have you thought about
| this approach?" Instead of "Why didn't you do it this way?"_
|
| Both of these are bad. Split the difference and drop the smarmy
| _" I really liked how you tackled this,"_ crap. That sort of
| thing makes you sound like a mother praising her toddler's
| scribbled drawings. Don't treat your coworkers like kids. If
| you want to know if they considered another approach, just ask
| them that without trying to softball it. _" Have you thought
| about this approach?"_ If that's what you want to know, that's
| what you should ask.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| This is a very stylistic and subjective take. Not all workplace
| cultures and not all people prefer to communicate this way, and
| many of us resent the "YTA" label that is applied to a direct
| communication style. I don't work for praise, and I maintain
| high standards as a matter of personal professionalism. I
| couldn't care less whether my colleagues recognize me, and
| business leaders don't care about your effort; they care about
| the bottom line.
|
| It's not surprising that your video relates to children. This
| sort of feelings-driven approach has no place in a professional
| workplace full of adults who are all expected to know why
| they're there, the terms of their employment, and what
| objective they're working towards. In fact I find it somewhat
| _demeaning_ to have the default communication style be so
| childish.
|
| Did you notice that "Why didn't you do it this way?" is rather
| less verbose than your alternative? This holds true in the
| general case too: communication tailored to your audience is
| much more verbose, and therefore laborious to produce, than
| communication written following the ABCs - accuracy, brevity,
| clarity. Imagine all the time that such organizations waste
| rewording things ad infinitum. Managing emotional state should
| be the responsibility of the listener/reader, while the
| communicator's job should be to get their idea across as
| clearly and concisely as possible. It's just more efficient
| that way.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Did you notice that "Why didn't you do it this way?" is
| rather less verbose than your alternative?
|
| "your code sucks" is even more concise. We can take a minute
| out of our time to elaborate and clarify, and of course not
| result to insults.
|
| >Managing emotional state should be the responsibility of the
| listener/reader, while the communicator's job should be to
| get their idea across as clearly and concisely as possible.
|
| And this mindset is exactly what leads to meltdowns in
| certain industries. "it's not my fault you feel bad about my
| abuse". People still want to generally feel like they belong
| and if all you put out is criticism they will find that
| belonging elsewhere. You can't be negative 100% of the time
| and be surprised when morale is down.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _" your code sucks" is even more concise._
|
| It doesn't convey the same meaning at all though. One is a
| constructive criticism, one is not. Asking about reasoning
| for discarding alternative solutions is a perfectly
| standard part of any review process. It doesn't need to be
| further elongated and stylized to reduce directness.
|
| > _" it's not my fault you feel bad about my abuse"_
|
| Nowhere in my post did I justify abuse. Ad hominem is
| generally out of bounds in professional communication. I'm
| defending a more direct style that communicates the same
| message, not a difference message all together.
|
| I'm not saying that praise isn't useful feedback, only that
| it shouldn't be used in place of criticism as the parent
| post suggested. A submission is either adequate or not, and
| a review finding a submission inadequate should lay out its
| reasoning as clearly as possible.
|
| If you're consistently authoring inadequate contributions,
| the onus is on you to figure out why, and negative emotion
| is a powerful tool to motivate an individual to do so. The
| same applies to teams and organizations that fail to meet
| their objectives. After all these emotions didn't evolve
| for no reason or in a vacuum.
|
| > _People still want to generally feel like they belong_
|
| Some people do, some people understand that they're
| fulfilling a professional function in exchange for
| compensation and don't see that their feelings have
| anything to do with it.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| Have you noticed that the people advocating for emotional
| coddling in this thread also seem to have trouble with
| nuance? They pose this false dichotomy of _" Wow I really
| love this but..."_ vs _" This sucks go fuck yourself"_
|
| Simply being direct and forward without wrapping your
| words with empty praise or naked insults doesn't seem to
| be an option they recognize.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| _' I apologize for such a long letter - I didn't have
| time to write a short one.'_ - Mark Twain
|
| I also notice many people advocating "directness" tend to
| be bad with words. You may be paid to code, but you're
| still a professional expected to know how to communicate
| with peers and everyone else involved. Take time in both
| your craft and words.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > One is a constructive criticism, one is not.
|
| The other one is accusatory in tone and puts the user in
| a defensive position. Even a simple tweak to say "did you
| consider this approach" is better than a direct "why did
| you do it this way/not that way"? So I argue the original
| form leans a bit away from constructive.
|
| > I'm defending a more direct style that communicates the
| same message, not a difference message all together.
|
| and unfortunately, that direct style has histories of
| being used to put down. Hence my allegory. Good
| intentions, but if you can't consider how that language
| was used by others in less savory ways, you will simply
| end up the same when you dismiss someone's personal
| concerns: Tonedeaf.
|
| >If you're consistently authoring inadequate
| contributions
|
| And here's the assumption that once again comes out of
| nowhere. Why are we assuming that the hostile employee is
| right and everyone else is dumb? There are very few cases
| where these kinds of workers are truly in the right, and
| those that do tend to have enough emotional intelligence
| to go on a tirade against every co-worker, as opposed to
| talking to a manager or director.
|
| Complain up the ladder, not in your immediate radius. I'm
| assuming we're all competent professionals, so there's
| almost no reason to ever lash out at a co-worker over
| their code quality.
|
| >some people understand that they're fulfilling a
| professional function in exchange for compensation and
| don't see that their feelings have anything to do with
| it.
|
| Then they shouldn't care about their co-worker's code
| quality unless they are constantly asked to fix it. Which
| is a managerial problem, not a co-worker problem. Same
| matter applies.
| gabereiser wrote:
| "FU" is even more concise. I don't want to work in an
| environment where engineers actively put each other down
| instead of helping achieve goals.
| rewmie wrote:
| > If you are calling out your colleagues for doing bad work, or
| not the way you would do it work, you should try to rephrase
| into praise w/ direction. "I really liked how you tackled this,
| have you thought about this approach?" Instead of "Why didn't
| you do it this way?"
|
| Why are you telling your colleagues you "really liked" how they
| did something when you feel the need to call them out for
| "doing bad work"? It comes off as cynical backstabbing.
| gabereiser wrote:
| You wouldn't. You are either telling them you liked it or
| telling them they did it wrong. My comment was, if you are
| telling people they aren't doing it right, rephrase it into
| something constructive instead of off-putting.
| pxc wrote:
| > If you are calling out your colleagues for [...] not the way
| you would do it work, you should try to rephrase into praise w/
| direction.
|
| Is the following alternative completely insane? Be _more_
| combative, but playful about it:
|
| > I don't like this code. Let's fight about it ;)
|
| > ...
|
| I feel like under a lot of circumstances that would be way more
| comfortable for me than trying to suss out whether someone was
| genuinely praising me, criticizing me, etc. Social ambiguity is
| more uncomfortable to me than disagreement or criticism.
|
| (To be clear, I'm not endorsing this as a general approach.)
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _"I really liked how you tackled this, have you thought about
| this approach?" Instead of "Why didn't you do it this way?"_
|
| That crosses the line by lying, I think it would be better to
| say "I think it would be better if you did it this way." It's
| bad to call them stupid or make a superfluous claim of
| objectivity, but you don't need to pretend to smile and praise.
| groby_b wrote:
| If you struggle with "I really liked" because you really
| didn't, I'd suggest the value-neutral "That's an interesting
| approach!" followed by "have you thought about X"/"how does
| it compare to <other approach>"/"how did you land on it".
|
| You're still starting from a positive point of view for the
| recipient, which makes them more open to actually engaging
| with you. Without having to "pretend to smile and praise".
|
| It's an interesting choice alright. If it weren't, you
| wouldn't be talking about it.
| whatshisface wrote:
| It's still not an interesting approach unless it interested
| you... There are no positive sounding meaningless
| adjectives because positive and meaningless are conflicting
| attributes.
| groby_b wrote:
| If you're dead-set on being somebody nobody wants to work
| with, sure, keep ignoring that people have feelings. It
| won't work particularly well for you in the long run, but
| you do you.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Would you praise someone by saying "That's an interesting
| approach?" Or is that just a comment on their outcome?
| groby_b wrote:
| I'm not going to praise an outcome that's clearly
| suboptimal, but "that's interesting" still beats beating
| them over the head with "well, I'm always scrupulously
| honest, I don't care about anybody's feelings, your stuff
| sucks".
|
| There's always effort-based praise if you want to praise.
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| I like to say something like "Hey, I realize you put a lot of
| hard work into X, but I think Y would be more efficient and
| save us all time in the long run!"
|
| Because then you're being totally truthful (assuming they
| actually are putting in effort) while still not coming across
| _too_ directly.
| sokoloff wrote:
| "It's impressive how much time you were able to waste while
| only accomplishing X", but said a lot more politely.
| gabereiser wrote:
| This is how that would come across to most people, yes.
|
| Praise should never be a time to display your
| intellectual superiority.
| [deleted]
| thenose wrote:
| Not at all. The trick is to force yourself to find something
| about their approach that you liked. There's almost always
| something likable.
|
| It's also the trick to being liked in general. Not everyone
| cares about that, but I've found it more of an asset than a
| distraction.
| [deleted]
| adionionio wrote:
| If someone tries to make me believe something that isn't
| true, that's as bad as a lie in my book. Avoiding telling
| an outright lie only serves to keep the dishonest person
| safe, either from their own conscience or from legal
| trouble.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| which part of "find something about their approach _that
| you liked_ " is not being understood here? Have you only
| seen horrible code throughout your career? Has every
| single thing you ever reviewed rated a 0/10 in your book?
|
| Avoid telling lies by not lying.
| user_named wrote:
| No, it's absolutely horrible. It means you think the person
| you're talking to is dumb and can be manipulated with this
| phrasing. They see through you.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| You are spot on about lying and intentional manipulation.
| It's a horrible way to be.
|
| However. that's not what they said. They said "find
| something you _genuinely like_ about an approach. " It
| means you're smart enough to find the aspects that are
| worth reinforcing _in the face of_ something that you
| find problematic. You can 't just do it as a checkbox.
| You have to genuinely and authentically recognize the
| positive.
| w0m wrote:
| A better way to describe it.
|
| Have you ever brought in a new engineer; and their
| _first_ pull request gets a dozen or more 'Change this'
| 'this won't handle X'?
|
| Watch an NCGs face as the avalanche of (mostly minor, but
| still 'you did X wrong') PR comments come in.
|
| But if you're the reviewer - be sure to comment on nifty
| things in the code also. Call out that neat usage of
| struct as a switch or the context manager, or even praise
| base understanding of the problem flow.
|
| Mixing praise in with the (hopefully constructive)
| criticism can go a loooong way toward building a healthy
| team environment. And - Suprise! - you'll find you
| actually get invited to that beer lunch instead of always
| being bitched about at it.
| koliber wrote:
| Not dumb. Human. It's rare to come across someone who,
| after hearing by anything vaguely negative about them, is
| listening attentively to what comes next. Not saying that
| such people don't exist. I can count the ones I came
| across in my 44 years of life on two fingers.
|
| This includes people who directly said that they want to
| hear things in a straightforward fashion. This includes
| me, who also likes to hear things in a straightforward
| fashion. We're wired in a way that we don't even notice.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Don't be seen through then. Actually appreciate your co-
| workers and see the good qualities in them.
|
| Some of y'all are really overthinking the example. If you
| ever said:
|
| >very fast solution, but you missed this edge case
|
| It's the exact same format. I can praise the performance
| while also acknowledging that there may be some
| correctness issues (hopefully not such a nasty edge case
| performance falls off the cliff, but it happens).
| tines wrote:
| It's not about phrasing, it's about being genuine and
| also choosing to have a certain perspective which builds
| the other person up. There's nothing to see through.
| stcroixx wrote:
| It's out of context. Not all adults need or want other
| adults to 'build them up'. If you start with some
| unrelated positive thing, it will be recognized as a
| manipulation technique because context tells us there's
| no other reason to raise the point.
| tines wrote:
| > If you start with some unrelated positive thing, it
| will be recognized as a manipulation technique because
| context tells us there's no other reason to raise the
| point.
|
| That's true, but nobody (that I saw) suggested saying
| things that don't fit the context.
|
| > Not all adults need or want other adults to 'build them
| up'.
|
| Everyone wants respect and for people to be "on their
| side," and that's what we're talking about here. If
| someone doesn't care about your opinion, they won't mind
| you treating them respectfully, but if someone does care,
| then they'll mind when you don't. So why not just treat
| everyone respectfully?
| ragona wrote:
| > it's about being genuine
|
| I think this is an incredibly important lesson. Don't
| lie, _actually_ find something good to say. It's a
| goddamned super power, and it's also very good for your
| own mental health.
| lelandbatey wrote:
| It's not intended to be manipulative or lying, it's meant
| as shorthand for saying:
|
| _" I've reviewed your work and I have feedback. To
| begin, I genuinely find X and Y facets of your work to be
| good and well done. I am here to praise you for that
| work. I also found P and Q to be deficient in ways A and
| B; unless there are additional factors I do not
| understand, I recommend making changes G and K to areas P
| and Q."_
|
| But that's a lot of words framed very stiffly, and
| despite being framed extremely flatly, may still be
| received poorly. Hence why folks go for the much shorter
| and less formal _" I really liked X and Y, have you
| thought about approaching P and Q with technique G and
| K?"_
| OmarShehata wrote:
| It's manipulative only if there really is no redeeming
| quality to their approach, which, in any realistic
| scenario there probably is.
|
| I interpret this as, not that you should lie, you should
| just NOT focus 100% on the negative aspect. At the very
| least you can thank them for taking the time & effort to
| implement this solution & test it or w/e (I assume they
| did "some" work & put in some amount of well meaning
| effort).
|
| If I can't genuinely find anything to praise about
| something I want to criticism, it's a sign that it's
| pretty bad (or I have a bad working relationship with
| this person) and that is a bigger, separate problem
| anon84873628 wrote:
| It's very different talking to strangers on the internet
| via text versus a coworker in person or video call.
|
| As others have said, the person will know if you are
| being genuine or not. Which is the real core point; not
| the particular phrasing you use.
| Angostura wrote:
| I think you have a really good point here - but have you
| thought about being a little less abrasive in your
| phrasing? It can help your point gain acceptance.
| Osiris wrote:
| This thread is a perfect example of OPs suggestion and
| why it works.
| zogrodea wrote:
| I think it's sarcasm or a joke, because there are two
| replies I've seen phrased like "I think [praise] but
| [suggestion]".
|
| Here's another.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37342414
| ori_b wrote:
| This comes off as passive aggressive. I would avoid this
| kind of phrasing, unless your goal is to needle people
| while maintaining plausible deniability.
| matwood wrote:
| Are you 100% right every single time? The problem with
| not using simple communication niceties is that you not
| only put the other person on defensive, you put yourself
| on defensive when your opinions on the approach end up
| wrong.
|
| Yes, there are clear times when some work doesn't meet
| standard and it's important to be very straight forward.
| But, most of the time we're dealing in shades of grey
| with different tradeoffs.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > Not at all [a lie]. The trick is to force yourself to
| find something about their approach that you liked.
|
| A lie is not always a falsehood; it is rather any use of
| communication with the deliberate intention of worsening
| somebody's idea of the state of the world, and cherry-
| picking evidence (your "trick") very much counts. I'd say
| it's a very popular approach, even. You're welcome to use a
| different word than "lie" here if you want, but my point is
| that either way the result is the same: the target is now
| worse off in their knowledge than they previously were.
|
| In the spirit of Harry Frankfurt's definition, bullshit is
| the same as a lie but instead the perpetrator wants to
| change somebody's perception of the world _with disregard_
| to the actual state of it, not _in contradiction_ to that
| state.
|
| So from your description I'm not sure if your "trick"
| counts as lying or bullshitting: generally speaking,
| adjusting your logic or evidence to arrive at a
| predetermined conclusion is bullshit, but that you talk
| about a "trick" suggests an acknowledgment that you're
| deliberately not communicating your best idea of reality,
| which would make it a lie.
|
| But it's definitely one of the two, and regardless of which
| it is I still think it's quite bad, both in the immediate
| sense of not letting the other person (if you're right) or
| you (if you're wrong) learn, and in the sense of eroding
| the conventions of honest communication in ways that make
| it harder for others to learn in the future.
| grey-area wrote:
| Your assertion that this sort of linguistic hedge is a lie is
| itself based on a few false assumptions:
|
| 1. That there is one correct way to do something
|
| 2. That you know that way, and they don't
|
| 3. That they didn't consider and disregard that way in early
| planning due to something you're unaware of
|
| What you see as lying is intended to avoid an arrogant
| disregard for their time and thought, and also to avoid
| having ego dictate the conversation rather than ideas.
| whatshisface wrote:
| "I think..." is a hedge, "I really liked," (when you
| didn't) is a lie.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| But what if you did? No one is saying to lie. If you
| genuinely cannot find any good out of the code review
| (considerations for performance, easy to read, functional
| solution, time to execute, ability to reach out to proper
| peers), then maybe they shouldn't have been hired to
| begin with? Even a well picked intern these days should
| have one of those qualities.
| nemetroid wrote:
| It's right there in the description of the situation. You
| didn't like it: "If you are calling out your colleagues
| for doing bad work, ...".
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| There's a spectrum of "like" and "didn't like", you know.
| Have you ever truly come across a situation with a co-
| worker where there was no redeedming quality in their
| code review?
| nemetroid wrote:
| > Have you ever truly come across a situation with a co-
| worker where there was no redeedming quality in their
| code review?
|
| This is irrelevant. Calling out specific parts as good is
| a great idea, if nothing else as clarification of what in
| particular it was that you didn't like. This is not what
| people are arguing against.
|
| In the example under discussion, the judgement of the
| work as a whole was "bad", while the communication _on
| the work as a whole_ was "I really liked your approach".
| This is not pointing out redeeming qualities, it's just
| dishonesty.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >This is irrelevant.
|
| no, it's the entire point. Don't focus all on the bad,
| we're biased towards that and it's something we should
| always keep in mind.
|
| >In the example under discussion, the judgement of the
| work as a whole was "bad",
|
| exhibit A. Where in that top post was the objective
| judgement "bad"? As a reminder:
|
| > If you are calling out your colleagues for doing bad
| work, or not the way you would do it work, you should try
| to rephrase into praise w/ direction. "I really liked how
| you tackled this, have you thought about this approach?"
| Instead of "Why didn't you do it this way?"
|
| We're assuming the "caller" in this case is right. When
| there may not be a metric of "correct approach". This is
| especially highlighted with "not the way you would do
| it". Okay, who says your way is the best way?
|
| If you cant self-introspect and understand different
| approaches, as well as shortcomings in your own, then
| yes. I would say you are that hostile worker no one wants
| to work with.
| nemetroid wrote:
| > If you cant self-introspect and understand different
| approaches, as well as shortcomings in your own, then
| yes. I would say you are that hostile worker no one wants
| to work with.
|
| That is entirely unwarranted, and beside the point.
|
| > Where in that top post was the objective judgement
| "bad"?
|
| No objective judgement is being made or communicated.
|
| > We're assuming the "caller" in this case is right.
|
| We don't need to assume that, or even take technical
| merit into consideration. This is not a question of who
| is right or wrong in a technical sense.
|
| What is communicated by the caller's first sentence is
| whether the caller _liked_ the approach. By their own
| admission they did not like it ( "bad work"), but they
| communicated that they did like it ("I really liked").
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| okay, so we're talking in circles and you simply dismiss
| any attempts at clarifiation. I have a point but you are
| free to ignore it, even if you think it's irrelevant it
| is to me.
|
| just keep this thread in mind the next time you say in
| your mind "I don't know why coworker X isn't getting it".
| Sometimes you need to check under your shoe.
|
| EDIT: the last response shows I was wasting my time here.
| I wish we had an ignore feature on HN.
| nemetroid wrote:
| > Sometimes you need to check under your shoe.
|
| Indeed.
| [deleted]
| staunton wrote:
| So, that would be "I think you did it wrong; of course, I
| can't claim to know that objectively; anyway, I really
| liked the way you did it"...
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| You sound wishy washy and you need to review your
| requirements, and/or rope in someone who does knows how
| to do it right in that case.
|
| There is nothing wrong with "this doesn't feel right but
| I don't have the capacity to tell". If you aren't
| qualified for that sort of code review, find the proper
| peer who can.
| staunton wrote:
| My comment was parody. Surely, nobody actually says
| things like that?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| unfortunately I have seen that sort of language. Usually
| more as mumblings of a manager that has given up on
| trying to maintain a quality codebase, but I suppose
| Poe's Law strikes yet again.
| Madmallard wrote:
| nah people know when they're sucking and you just look
| patronizing talking like that
|
| ever play any competitive games? theres nothing you can say
| directly to a person when they screw up. you have to just
| have to ignore and focus on the gameplay. saying anything
| to them raises the likelihood of a negative outcome.
| jfim wrote:
| Coworkers have different incentives than players in a
| game of Dota. In a competitive game, they'll skulk or
| grief until the game is over, then queue for another and
| likely will be matched with other people. That behavior
| doesn't really work in an office, since people are
| working with the same colleagues every day.
| Madmallard wrote:
| is it incentives or are these just the underlying
| feelings that happen in most people and there isn't as
| much of a reason to suppress in an online environment?
| Sort of like the road rage problem
| anon84873628 wrote:
| That's just not true. What do you think happens when the
| catcher goes to talk to the pitcher? It's not just
| strategy.
|
| "Good eye" "good hustle" "you got this" "we got em on the
| next one"-- good teammates find lots of ways to support
| their teammates and keep morale up.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I think the point behind this discussion is that people
| will take external input in very different ways, and if
| you spent some time with your colleage/teammate hopefully
| you found a way that works for them. There will
| definitely be catchers that tell you to fuck off if you
| come to them and they already know what you're trying to
| say.
|
| Praise sandwitches for some, straight requests for other,
| no direct communication in some cases etc. it needs to be
| tailored and not a recipe.
| jpadkins wrote:
| Mike Tomlin (coach of the steelers) is a master
| motivator. I really like what he said to his rookie QB
| after a bad loss https://twitter.com/sdextrasmedia/status
| /1585807604277657600
|
| "There's going to be better days. Head, high, fighting
| all the time." You can see Kenny Picket visibly lift his
| head up as they walked back to the locker room.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| A few _potentially_ false assumptions. The (very real)
| possibility of being wrong exists, but declaring that
| because of it nobody ever--or you specifically--can be
| right seems overkill and contradictory to the ethos of the
| engineering profession and the approach it uses for its
| chosen range of problems.
|
| (I have the vague impression that people who talk along
| these lines usually think that being wrong is somehow a bad
| thing, or at least that even if they personally don't
| others do and those others need to be accomodated.
|
| Of course, while being wrong might not be pleasant, it's
| absolutely necessary, and the harder the problem is the
| more times you'll need to be wrong before you solve it.
| Thus shaming people for being wrong, especially in an
| educational setting, is one of the very small number of
| things that make me genuinely furious. Not telling people
| they're wrong when [you think] they are because you think
| they might feel shame because of it is... not as bad, but
| still feels seriously counterproductive. I can't say I have
| a grip on how to train or at least help others out of that
| shame, though.
|
| Is your motivation different here? Because, I don't know,
| you seem to say that telling others they're wrong [about an
| engineering problem] always [or often] constitutes
| arrogance, and that is such an extrodinarily extreme
| position from where I'm standing that I can't convincingly
| model it.)
| ajuc wrote:
| Interpretation depends on the culture. In UK this is
| basically "you fucked up", in Germany this means "you did
| great with small nuances" :)
| lemmsjid wrote:
| I think it's important not to lie, but I don't think the
| above is automatically a lie. Instead, it's a call to
| evaluate people on multiple dimensions rather than one.
|
| When you're giving feedback to someone, it is often a knee
| jerk thing to ONLY evaluate the outcome of their work. The
| other thing you should evaluate, though, is your estimation
| of their effort, e.g. how hard they worked at it, and your
| estimation of their process, e.g. how well they used their
| time.
|
| If you only evaluate the outcome of their work, and the work
| is not adequate, you have given them a purely negative
| evaluation. If you acknowledge respect for their toil and
| their process, then you have given them 2 positive
| evaluations and 1 negative evaluation. You're also
| acknowledging that because you respect their toil and
| process, they are doing the right thing in spite of needing
| the course correction you are providing.
|
| Of course, maybe you have a negative opinion on all 3 aspects
| of the evaluation. If you think they didn't apply themselves,
| e.g. their effort was not good enough, AND you think they
| were't efficient in their process, AND you think the outcome
| was bad, then certainly it would be a lie to praise any of
| those aspects, though at that point there's almost certainly
| something more fundamental that's going on and the person is
| not a good fit for the job.
|
| Finally, it's important to evaluate your own sense of
| certainty about the feedback.
|
| I think the important thing about the above advice is that if
| you are giving feedback and you only focus on the course
| correction part, it's safe to assume that most people will
| take that as negative feedback on all the aspects of their
| work. Now, there are situations and teams where there is so
| much trust built up around everyone's mutual respect that you
| can skip to the outcome feedback. There are also feedback-
| recipients who are confident enough in themselves that they
| feel that they don't need anything but correctional feedback.
| In other words, "This was shit!" can totally fly when there's
| a lot of mutual trust and confidence. But too often I've seen
| people misread the room in that aspect: THEY, the feedback-
| givers, have plenty of psychological safety, and they think
| that is extended to other people who absolutely don't feel
| that way.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| "I really liked how you tackled this, have you thought about
| this approach?"
|
| I hate this because it's usually just a shit sandwich. "Great
| work. Actually it sucked. Keep going."
| anon84873628 wrote:
| The pithiness of the example is not doing any favors. In
| the real world there would be much more substance.
| koliber wrote:
| Would it work better if it was delivered as "good
| intention, decent start, improve the middle, but an alright
| finish"? Shit sandwich? Call it what you will. If it is
| genuine and true, lead with the good and deliver the bad
| afterwards works wonders. While not everyone reacts that
| way, many people get defensive if you lead with the bad,
| and won't hear the good as something good.
| gabereiser wrote:
| "Great work" is an outcome. "Great effort" is an effort
| praise. It can still suck and you can still have great
| effort. You can't have Great Work and it sucks.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| and while outcomes are... great it's the effort that
| should be prioritized because we want that brought to all
| initiatives, not just the ones where you're going to be
| successful. Every parent should know this; give feedback
| like "You worked really hard on X" (effort) vs. "You're
| so smart!" (outcome)
| freedomben wrote:
| what's the difference between "Great work" and "I really
| liked how you tackled this" ?
|
| I assume it's a sports analogy for american football or
| similar. If you try to tackle an opposing player and you
| miss or do a bad job, "I really liked how you tackled
| <player>" is clearly talking about the work, not the
| effort. If you were talking about the effort, it should
| be something like, "that was a good attempt!" It's kind
| of like, "Nice shot!" when the person actually missed the
| goal. It just doesn't make sense.
| boneitis wrote:
| I think their point (in this discussion here) can make
| sense and remain true to the point (made in the example
| statement) by adjusting the feedback segue to something
| like "I really [appreciate that] you tackled this".
| freedomben wrote:
| Yes, exactly, I agree. That's the point I've been trying
| (and obviously failing) to get through.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Tackling is analogous to achieving. To put effort into
| and complete. To complete a tough subject. "to seize,
| take hold of, or grapple with especially with the
| intention of stopping or subduing"
| koliber wrote:
| The latter provides a tiny bit more detail about what you
| are praising. It is still lacking in concrete details
| though and can be improved by adding more about what you
| liked about why you liked how they tackled it.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| Webster's 1913 (as in, the 1913 edition of the
| dictionary) relates this sense as "grappling with", as in
| wrestling, and provides an example from a Dublin
| University publication to illustrate this exact idiomatic
| usage we're discussing.
|
| I'd say it's not derived from American football.
| freedomben wrote:
| thank you for sharing that (truly that is interesting
| data), but how do you know that GP was using the
| Webster's 1913 definition?
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Because "tackling a problem" is about the approach.
| That's how the phrase is commonly understood. The
| Webster's reference is just backup.
|
| Dictionary.com provides "Make determined efforts to deal
| with (a problem or difficult task)." As the first verb
| form, before the football/rugby definition.
|
| Further, the hn guidelines suggest that even if there was
| more ambiguity, we should presume the strongest
| interpretation.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| I cited an old source to make it clearer that this is not
| a new sense, and that its entry into English probably had
| nothing to do with American Football, which existed in
| 1913 but was still far from being _the_ sport of the US.
|
| I'd have cited the OED instead, if I had access. I bet
| it's got examples of this usage dating back to 1500 or
| something. It's simply a sense of the word, now, hardly
| even figurative at all (as "grapple" barely is, in some
| similar senses, now)
| cratermoon wrote:
| Have you never had a co-worker do something in a way you
| appreciate for it's skillfulness but doesn't quite address
| what you asked them to help with? Have you ever put extra
| effort into something and done your best, only to have
| someone ignore your accomplishments and focus on what you did
| wrong?
|
| You don't have to like the result to like the co-workers
| initiative.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Let's break down your version: "I think it would be better
| if..." You start with an opinion. That's going to cause any
| listener to put up their guard. It's the beginning of any
| sort of confrontations. By saying "Thank you for the
| effort..." you are acknowledging the work they put into it
| and showing empathy by seeing their work they have done. If
| it isn't correct, either it should have been course corrected
| by management or volunteer for the next one. If you think
| something should be done a certain away across the board,
| create a brown bag or lunch and learn where you evangelize it
| and get consensus.
|
| You aren't lying when you give praise about someone's effort
| (unless they gave none, in which case why are you praising to
| begin with?), you would be lying if you said "You did a great
| job" when the solution is potentially tech debt for later.
| It's a matter of communication and human behavior.
|
| You wouldn't praise someone by saying "I think it could be
| better".
| freedomben wrote:
| Your second example is a good one and I agree is a more
| effective approach to communicating.
|
| But GP was right. There's a huge difference between your
| first example:
|
| > _"I really liked how you tackled this, have you thought
| about this approach?"_
|
| and the second:
|
| > _"Thank you for the effort..."_
|
| The first is most likely a lie, otherwise you wouldn't be
| offering an alternative suggestion! If somebody said that
| to me I'd feel extremely patronized and would consider that
| person very disingenuous.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Offering a different point of view helps either confirm
| their decisions or open up avenues for improvement of
| their work. It's not about telling "this is how I would
| do it" but rather "Have you thought about other options
| and approaches? What do you think? Why did you choose
| this route?" helps the individual weigh the pros and cons
| with each. It should never be an opportunity for you to
| chime in with how you would have done it (even if you
| would have done it that way). You simply want to expose
| the other possibilities so that they are aware of them
| and haven't overlooked a potential savings or killer-
| feature.
| freedomben wrote:
| to be clear, I fully agree with this and your broader
| point. It's the specific verbiage in your first example
| that I think is problematic, mainly because it feels
| disingenuous and insincere at best, manipulative at
| worst. Which is highly unfortunate because I think the
| vast majority of the time the motives are pure!
| BytesAndGears wrote:
| It's funny because I still feel the opposite of you -- I
| think the example where you say that you like their
| solution is a better approach, as long as it's not
| horrible.
|
| It leaves open the possibility that you as the reviewer
| are actually mistaken, and they possibly have a good
| reason for doing it that way.
|
| I may be the senior reviewing the junior's code, but they
| probably spent longer looking at the problem than me and
| there is a chance that I'm missing something. By
| suggesting "have you considered this, it may be able to
| handle x situation better", you respect their work more.
|
| It depends on context though, if somebody clearly just
| didn't understand something obvious, then I'll just tell
| them directly.
|
| Either way, probably a difference in our opinions of
| feedback, you might prefer more directness than me
| freedomben wrote:
| interesting indeed, thank you!
|
| > _It leaves open the possibility that you as the
| reviewer are actually mistaken, and they possibly have a
| good reason for doing it that way._
|
| That's a great point. There must be room in this to cover
| that the person actually had good reasons that the asker
| doesn't know about. It's a hard needle to thread.
| [deleted]
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| It feels stilted and weird to me. My first thought was
| "OK, that sounds unnatural, I'd have to say it
| different." Good idea, but I could never let it come out
| of my mouth that was since no actual human being talks
| that way.
| hmcq6 wrote:
| "I like the way you tackeled this" Implies the work has
| been done successfully. ", have you thought about this
| approach?" is trying to imply that the work is not
| sufficient actually without actually saying that. Your
| message has taken a complete 180 since the first half of
| the sentence but you haven't given the listener any clues
| because if you use a word like "but" it might hurt the
| facade of niceness. It's mixed messaging.
|
| But I think a lot of the issue here is because were
| talking about a made up example. If we just add a little
| more detail to the made up response it clears up a lot of
| the ambiguity and makes it sound less contradictory.
|
| "I really liked how you tackled [X Requirement], have you
| thought about [Y Requirement + approach]?"
| Kalium wrote:
| These approaches and how effective they are are both
| culturally and individually sensitive.
|
| The "Yes, but" approach works well in a context where
| people understand it as feedback that they should change.
| Softening the criticism with praise works for many
| people. It can also backfire in a context where people
| distrust praise, where the criticism is not understood as
| such, or when people have trouble with American business
| idioms.
|
| The more direct approach works better in other contexts.
| I have had coworkers who responded much better to blunt
| criticism about why they should do things differently
| than to a praise sandwich.
|
| This gets very tricky if you are interacting with
| multiple very different people at once. What is a strong
| enough criticism for one person might be well below
| detectable for another. There isn't one ideal answer or
| approach.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| It's a lot easier to teach many people how to receive
| communication in one style than it is to teach everyone
| to send communication in many styles. We can, and many
| organizations do, write style guides for internal
| communication. The most successful such style guides (eg.
| military, intelligence) emphasize the ABCs (accuracy,
| brevity, clarity) any to avoid extraneous verbiage.
|
| If your coworkers respond negatively to a simple, direct
| question like "Why didn't you do it this way?", they can
| be trained to handle professional communication more
| dispassionately (more professionally).
| matwood wrote:
| I think the OP confused 2 states. One is bad, and it's
| important to let the person know it didn't meet standard for
| whatever reason. Use all the normal communication styles for
| that.
|
| The other is, it wasn't done how _I_ would do it, but isn 't
| necessarily bad. That's when I would use the approach you
| have an issue with.
|
| In a lot of engineering there is no right answer, only
| different tradeoffs. It could certain be that the reviewer
| isn't seeing a tradeoff that the writer saw, etc...
| cacois wrote:
| I've often phrased it closer to "I like how much effort you
| put into this. You clearly put some thought in, did you
| consider this approach?"
|
| I don't have to say I liked the solution to appreciate the
| effort and dedication.
| eschneider wrote:
| Very often they _have_ thought about the other approach and
| rejected it for reasons. When you go into something like this
| open minded, you might come out learning something new. :)
| darkerside wrote:
| Can you help me understand your intent with phrasing your
| response that way? I can see it coming off as challenging
| instead of collaborative, but if there's something I'm not
| seeing, I'd like to know.
|
| Or, taking your cue, I could just say, "I think it would be
| better if you didn't immediately presume that you knew better
| than the person who actually spent hours working on the
| problem".
|
| And, for those who say they like the direct approach in the
| second paragraph better, I don't disagree that it's a better
| response to a flip HN comment. When you're reacting to
| something someone has put serious personal effort into, a bit
| of tact goes a long way.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "they might not want their micromanaging manager to know they
| helped you outside the scope of their work."
|
| So true.
|
| My manager was telling me it would look good if I contribute
| outside of the team. I recently spent maybe 15-30 minutes
| helping another team - not because I was told to but just
| because it was the right thing to do (I was the only person
| left with the knowledge). My manager found out then told me
| that I shouldn't be helping other teams without getting
| approval, etc. WTF?
| NordSteve wrote:
| The only way I'd give one of my reports this feedback is if
| I'd previously heard "I'm spending all of my time helping
| other teams get stuff done, and it's blocking me from getting
| my own stuff done."
| brazzledazzle wrote:
| Worth pointing out that you should always ask even when you
| think you don't need to. It's easy to think that a micromanager
| is always obvious to anyone outside their team but that's not a
| given. Some managers are very aware of the stigma and will try
| to hide it from outsiders.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I always enjoy reading her posts. She must be an outstanding
| coworker.
|
| I have also found that some people are experts at "weaponized
| compliments."
|
| They can give a compliment that is an insult, or an attack.
|
| _" That's great, how you roughened the edges."_ when talking
| about a graphic asset with obvious mistakes.
|
| _" I always told Bob how great you are, at that."_ This is the
| "stolen valor" compliment. It insinuates that you could not have
| done it without their help.
|
| etc.
|
| In some cases, it's completely accidental, so we need to think
| carefully about our compliment.
| r00fus wrote:
| Can you provide more details on this? I've always had a
| fascination with these kinds of subjects (eg, conversational
| terrorism like "distorted active listening" that politicians
| use) and the examples online seem to only hint at how a
| narcissist weaponizes this.
| realjohng wrote:
| Compliments should be easy. Too much forethought will reduce
| volume and I would keep it simple to encourage volume. Yes,
| Quantity over quality.
| koof wrote:
| I can agree with the article's framing during performance
| reviews and periods of heightened scrutiny. But for the day to
| day, frequent collective appreciation and recognition has
| mattered a lot to me.
|
| "You did well on this grunge work" is a death sentence only if
| it's contrasted by silence. Maybe I have a blind spot here, but
| even if the compliment had to stand alone, does the receiver
| really have so little agency to not reframe or rebut any
| unintended consequences of the compliment?
|
| Does frequency cheapen compliments? Maybe. Does every piece of
| praise need to be so weighty? I don't think so. "Please" and
| "thank you" might not mean much but I still like it when people
| are polite. So too effort can be recognized.
| ChicagoDave wrote:
| I have always done this since way back in my early days of
| working. I have never understood people who follow "Art of War"
| tactics in the job world. I suspect those people feel they have
| no talent and assume they have to play dirty to succeed.
| bitwize wrote:
| At $WORK we actually have a "kudos" column in our biweekly
| retrospectives specifically for shout-outs to coworkers who were
| particularly helpful. I think it's a good idea.
| xxs wrote:
| social media at work, you say.
|
| My own bar for great stuff done by others is high, yet at least
| if I mention anything it's sincere.
| Mizoguchi wrote:
| As member of an underrepresented group I would say stop over
| thinking about how you can help us. Just treat us equally, not
| worse not better. I personally cringe at people trying to make me
| feel "represented". I get it, you are trying to do something
| positive for me (and for yourself, let's no pretend it is not
| about you also) but if you are not careful you may end up
| annoying me and even doing/saying "racist" stuff, and 9/10 times
| you will. Like this super nice dude at work invited me to eat
| spicy food because he thought all Latinos like spicy food like
| Mexicans, or these guys at a bike shop near my home giving me a
| discount for being brown so that I could afford biking, despite
| the fact that I have a little fortune in pro mountain bikes in my
| garage.
| jbandela1 wrote:
| Not just coworkers.
|
| If a customer service has really helped me with my issue, I will
| ask if I can talk to their manager to let them know how much I
| appreciated their help today.
|
| So far everyone sounded pretty happy about that.
|
| I tell the manager that <employee name> really helped me with my
| issue and made me happy to be a customer of <company name>. The
| managers also seem pretty happy to hear that and some have
| mentioned that they will be adding that feedback to the
| employee's file.
| kdamica wrote:
| Pro tip for managers: Whenever someone on your team does
| something good, keep a record of it in a doc. This will make your
| performance reviews a breeze to write
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| I disagree with the angle on this about asking and how to go
| about things but mostly because complimenting in context is
| helpful.
|
| When someone does great work, tell everyone, not just their
| manager. Do it in public and clearly in standups after they talk
| about what they did last day/week.
|
| "I just want to mention, that work that Joe did on that module is
| fantastic, thanks!" It is so easy to be a force for good.
|
| Being the person who does this evenly for all good work is a
| guaranteed way to make others feel better, work better, and to
| develop real friendships. People tend to know when they are
| working hard.
|
| Compliment in public, correct in private.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Not sure about this advice in general. I get quite
| uncomfortable if I receive praise or compliments in general,
| and in a group setting is even worse. I find it embarrassing
| and awkward.
|
| Im not saying "never give praise in public". But, you know,
| read the room. As always, especially with social interactions,
| context is key! Know the people you're talking with!
| ryoshu wrote:
| 1000% agree with, "Compliment in public, correct in private."
| But I still ask a person if it's okay if I compliment them in
| front of large groups to make sure they are comfortable with
| it. I've embarrassed people before when I haven't asked.
| Different people have different reactions to compliments in
| groups.
| master-lincoln wrote:
| I never understood the "correct in private" stance. How can
| others learn who did not do the mistake? The argument to have
| critique in private only is probably because of ego and honor
| culture where people feel personally attacked in topics where
| it's not about them at all but about the actions they have
| taken in a professional context with rules and expectations.
|
| But I fully agree on not talking to the manager, but praising
| in the full team instead.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Not everything is, or has to be, a learning opportunity for
| everyone else.
| jjice wrote:
| I think correcting in private makes sense if also paired with
| a no-blame oriented retro after the fact for everyone to know
| what happened and to brainstorm about preventative measure in
| the future.
| mulmen wrote:
| How can a correction be private _and_ blameless? In a 1:1
| if you talk about what "we" did wrong you're clearly
| talking about me.
| ineptech wrote:
| Those are two separate discussions. Even if I do
| something dumb and am rightly blamed for it, we can still
| have a retro to discuss process improvements that would
| make it harder for that mistake to happen again in the
| future.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| "Correct" is the key word, I think it is important to make
| sure that people feel not attacked and your take on it is
| mostly correct but this is mostly in context of opinions and
| nit-picking. Actual failures need to be owned publicly.
|
| I think a missing element in what I said is that I also fully
| believe that if I fail at something, it is my responsibility
| to inform the team rather than wait for someone else to levy
| blame. ("My apologies, I realized I misread the ticket and
| wrote the logic expecting X when it should be expecting Y."
| or "I created the typo there, I'm sorry, will fix by XX AM.")
| If the team works in that context, then you don't need to
| correct in front of the team as the person who failed would
| inform others and use it as a learning moment for all. This
| also kills the ego problem a little.
|
| I also think failures tend to be systematic in nature and are
| rarely owned by a single person once you get to the bottom of
| the 5 "whys". We use Github BATS in PRs now, this fully
| killed the whole rubber duck of shame culture in our
| engineering division. While someone breaking the build used
| to be a singular responsibility, now it is a shared
| responsibility of the reviewer and tooling and nobody else's
| build gets broken by bad code. It is easy to blame the person
| who wrote the code but that excuses those that create the
| systems and culture.
| [deleted]
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| No good deed goes unpunished.
|
| There are bizarre incentives in stratified hierarchical pseudo-
| authoritarian corporate social structures.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I think people are coming up with edge cases like "what if they
| helped you do something they weren't supposed to do, and
| complimenting them on it _gets them fired?!_ ", but that's an
| exception, and most people would use common sense and
| discretion in any reasonable scenario. As a rule, pass on a
| good word about people who help you, it's not that complicated.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Let's try a different scenario here:
|
| My boss is great and part of that is being aware of
| everything that's going on. We're got some problem people who
| really love bypassing our support queue. And then some
| critical system goes down while their favorite developer is
| on vacation and we don't find out until they've escalated the
| problem to upper management.
|
| If I got complimented by someone in another department for
| something he wasn't aware of, I will get asked for the
| context. If it's important, I need to create a support ticket
| to document it.
|
| Personally, I'm fine with that but sometimes I really don't
| want to spend 15 minutes discussing and writing up what may
| have been a 30-second conversation.
| mulmen wrote:
| Don't do this. Ask for consent. It isn't hard.
| constantly wrote:
| [flagged]
| random_kris wrote:
| [flagged]
| mulmen wrote:
| I strongly disagree and have worked in multiple environments
| where your actions would have harmed me personally. Your
| manager is never your friend. All relationships with management
| are adversarial. It's like talking to the police. Do not
| volunteer information. You don't know where other people are,
| always obtain consent.
| whats_a_quasar wrote:
| This has not been my experience at any of the places I've
| worked. All of my managers have been supportive, open with
| information, and collaborative, including in promotions and
| in negotiations with other teams for resources.
|
| I would never knowingly take a job at a company where the
| culture requires this attitude towards management. I'd also
| try hard to avoid corporate cultures where praise can somehow
| hurt someone.
| jhatemyjob wrote:
| Sounds like you have a good job. That's great! But you
| still have no idea what your coworkers are going through.
| Maybe you have a good job, but your coworker has an awful
| one, and praising them makes them a target.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > Do not volunteer information.
|
| Well, I guess where you worked was either stack ranked or a
| generally oppressive atmosphere smothered in politics. Work
| should be a collaborative effort, even from the greedy
| billionaire perspective you hire 2 people to do twice the
| work. If you end up being 25% efficient something is wrong.
|
| And this is a sort of odd angle to begin with: your work
| isn't private to the manager stack. Some CEO ordered a
| product manager who ordered a director who ordered your
| manager to order you to make that stuff. the CEO probably
| doesn't care about you, but it would be easy to track you
| down if they did care. Likewise, I'm sure any reasonable
| company has a log history that other co-workers can access
| mulmen wrote:
| That all sounds and feels nice but is divorced from
| reality. It is admirable to want to improve working
| conditions but you should consider the effect on your peers
| when you take that stand.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Divorced from the reality that you don't own the work
| corporations extract from you? From the reality that
| there are co-workers who aren't mutually planning your
| destruction?
|
| Everyone's experience is different, I guess. But I assure
| you there are places where co-workers are fine focusing
| on work and not making specifically you miserable.
| mulmen wrote:
| I'm not sure what conversation you are having or who you
| think you are having it with. The world you have
| described doesn't exist. The point here is that taking a
| stand is admirable but personal. You should never force
| others to join you. You may desire a world in which
| unsolicited feedback has no negative consequence but we
| don't live in that reality.
| [deleted]
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > You should never force others to join you
|
| you were clearly never on the same wavelength as me to
| begin with if that's your conclusion. Remember your
| original comment compared "giving out information" that
| your boss already has to talking to the police (who at
| least need to subpeona the govt. to get more
| information).
|
| I'm just saying that not every job has you living in
| fear. If you haven't experienced that environment yet, I
| wish you greener pastures.
| amatecha wrote:
| Jeez, that sucks, sorry you had to endure such a toxic
| environment. I hope you're working in a more psychologically-
| safe workplace now. I've worked in the full spectrum from
| probably-legally-actionable toxicity to extremely
| welcoming/safe and productive environments and can definitely
| say I won't tolerate the toxic shit for a second anymore.
| It's easy for me to say that because I have a lot of
| experience, and I absolutely feel for ppl who are early in
| their career and don't feel they have the flexibility to flee
| a toxic work environment..
| SilverBirch wrote:
| I actually think the tip about asking is really useful for one
| specific reason - and it totally might not apply to you.
| Engineers can be extremely unaware of social cues. I feel
| confident I can judge my time and place and phrase my
| compliments such that I don't feel like I need to ask first -
| or atleast that I'm a good enough judge of context to know when
| I need to ask first. I'm pretty good at getting to know people
| and I'm very good at coming across open and well intentioned.
| To use a wanky term - I'm good at building trusted
| relationships.
|
| _However_ some people really struggle with social interactions
| and judging situations. The advice about asking is really
| valuable for someone who isn 't quite as good at judging
| complex situations. It's simple - just ask! It might not apply
| to everyone.
| nottheengineer wrote:
| I think this is more appropriate when talking to people that
| are on your level or below you.
|
| The post is about compliments to managers and I think it's
| valid to ask in that case, especially in large companies where
| you might not know the people you work with very well.
| [deleted]
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Rule #5: "Credit floats up, and blame travels down on the
| corporate ladder"
|
| This is a universal fact with few exceptions
|
| Be careful who you manage =)
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| Yeah, tell their manager you did said work and demand a raise!
| tennisprince wrote:
| I worked at a large bank that attempted to formalise this through
| a software application they purchased, which allowed you to
| recognise people on your team. The solution was over-engineered
| to hell with low engagement. A culture which fostered simple
| acknowledgements in a stand-up meeting would have been
| immeasurably more personal and effective.
| bootlegbilly wrote:
| at my job, it's part of company culture to praise people publicly
| whenever they're doing great work. it's a great way of knowing
| you're on the right path.
| mulmen wrote:
| Public praise is different than direct management praise. It
| still shouldn't be done without consent. Your intention may be
| good but only effect matters.
| sequoia wrote:
| benefit of starting to give feedback if you're not already:
| ============================== - a lot risk that giving
| feedback without asking that hurts the recipient: == -
| very small 0 ---------------------------- a lot
| <-impact->
|
| If you are trying to follow this advice but are scared your
| feedback might "backfire," see the infographic above. The risk is
| non-zero, but the takeaway here should be "you should start
| giving feedback" not "feedback might backfire and hurt the
| person!" The benefits of giving more praise to managers far far
| outstrips the risk of misplaced praise.
|
| So: when in doubt, go for it! Asking can help, I usually send the
| person my feedback first if I'm unsure & ask if they want to
| revise it in some way. If they want to refocus on something else,
| that's fine. The point of it is to express gratitude & help them
| out.
| mulmen wrote:
| Weird take. There's risk in unsolicited feedback but nearly
| zero cost in simply asking. Why take the chance?
| Yhippa wrote:
| Boggles my mind that for as long as I've worked, I rarely see
| this in practice. It costs almost nothing to do. I try to do it
| when I can.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Look at the responses in this thread and you see why. People
| are just bundles of nerves these days and can't even take a
| compliment without over-analyzing the intent behind it.
| Sometimes a duck is just a duck.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| One thing I'd add to this: When your coworker does great work -
| tell them! It's great when people notice you've done something
| good. Not everything has to be reported to a manager, sometimes
| just compliment their work or thank them for the effort.
| foobarian wrote:
| This is kind of exactly what various peer review processes are
| for. Managers usually solicit a report's peers' feedback (team
| members + whoever the report suggests) so it's really nice when
| there is an unsolicited feedback note. I try to give out at least
| a few every cycle.
|
| I haven't done this for very long or at director level before so
| I'd love to know if managers with lots of reports end up with
| certain "frequent fliers" who either get a positive reputation
| for the extra notes, or tank their reputation by complaining too
| much. :-)
| ulizzle wrote:
| There's an obvious political slant here and likely some white
| savior syndrome. Is racism the reason why managers overlook some
| high-performers? And why would empty praise from a co-worker help
| any? What if the manager is part of an "underrepresented group"
| themselves?
|
| Smart people hate being treated like children so you run the risk
| of offending them. That actually could offend someone for real.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| It is introduced in the context of anti-racism, but the content
| actually seems more related to enabling a true meritocracy.
| It's hard to interpret that as a bad thing.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Apologies for not commenting on the content of the article, but
| just wanted to say it's great to see the use of a gender neutral
| pronoun at the top of HN this evening.
| system2 wrote:
| Is there a way to write that title with genders?
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| "When your coworker does great, tell his manager."
| NeuroCoder wrote:
| The lab I'm involved in right now started off pleasant but there
| were definitely a handful of people who were less than pleasant
| to work with. Our PI has played a big part in picking the right
| people but we've all been very supportive of each other too. I
| don't think any one person started it but we all speak well of
| each other and it's only improved over time even when providing
| criticism of each other's work. This has been a big deal given
| our time working with human subject data throughout a pandemic.
|
| At this point I can't think of anyone in my lab I don't like
| working with.
| [deleted]
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| My way is to write an internal Newsletter highlighting people's
| interesting work, achievements, and highlight often-overlooked
| gotchas. People liked it, even the most introverted DevOps was
| happy that people started asked him more about his work, such as,
| his beautiful documentation.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _When your coworker does great work, tell their manager_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858662 - July 2020 (367
| comments)
| pxc wrote:
| Besides some more formal systems for praising/thanking people
| that my company has, my department has a 'Gratitude' chat on
| Teams dedicated to thanking people when someone goes out of their
| way, unblocks you, demonstrates extraordinary patience, gets back
| to you especially quickly, etc.
|
| I think it's awesome. It sets a public precedent for kind
| behavior and appreciative attitudes. It always makes me happy to
| see people thanking each other in that chat.
| palata wrote:
| > I think it's awesome. It sets a public precedent for kind
| behavior and appreciative attitudes. It always makes me happy
| to see people thanking each other in that chat.
|
| Which brings exactly the same problem as the likes: some people
| always appear on those chats, some people never do. Does that
| mean that they are doing a bad job? No... they just get less
| visibility.
|
| How do you get more visibility on the "gratitude" chat? By
| thanking the others, so that they see you more and think about
| thanking you in return, I suppose? In my experience, some teams
| keep congratulating themselves, some don't, at all. And
| management sees those who are visible, even if it is not fair.
|
| It can quickly get artificial, and a bit depressing for the
| people who don't really appear there.
| pxc wrote:
| My department is pretty siloed, so I don't offhand know who
| all normally works closely with whom. I don't consult the org
| chart when I see people praise or thank each other, either,
| so I don't have a good sense of how much public praise in my
| department is intra-team puffery.
|
| I can say, though, that I've (so far) never used that channel
| to thank anyone on my own team. On my own small team, my
| manager already knows when someone has been especially
| helpful to someone else. I use that chat in part to make
| things visible to external managers who otherwise might not
| know.
|
| > And management sees those who are visible, even if it is
| not fair.
|
| I admit that even in the best circumstances this could create
| some bias, but I don't think it has to be that severe.
| Managers should have other, better sources of information
| than that which should weigh more heavily than that.
|
| > It can quickly get artificial
|
| Yeah. I think keeping it low stakes and not treating it as
| some kind of informal metric is important for preserving some
| level of authenticity.
|
| Truthfully, though, I don't really find myself evaluating the
| authenticity of exchanges of gratitude between others. I just
| know that when I use it, I'm genuinely thankful to whomever
| I'm thanking, and so far I feel like the thanks I've received
| have also been genuine.
|
| > a bit depressing for the people who don't really appear
| there.
|
| That's true. I've even felt a bit of that myself. But I think
| ultimately it's imperative for organizations (especially
| managers, but to a lesser extent basically everyone) to try
| to ensure that all kinds of people feel appreciated for their
| work, including people who are introverts and people whose
| work is solitary or unsexy maintenance work. And that means
| that recognition can't just be formulaic or systematic or
| happen in only one place.
|
| Ideally, feeling underappreciated or left out in a certain
| system of recognition/thanks would be something you'd bring
| to your manager during a 1:1. And they could try to answer it
| by making your impact visible in some other way, like
| organizing a presentation or a demo of your work, or writing
| up some kind of report on it and sharing it somewhere, or
| just DMing you every now and then and letting you know that
| they had a conversation with so-and-so about how whatever you
| did was nice, helpful, vital, or whatever, or (hopefully!)
| arrange something more substantial like a promotion, raise,
| or bonus.
|
| I like our gratitude chat at work but I wouldn't begrudge
| anyone still feeling underappreciated for whatever reason or
| saying that it doesn't do much for them.
| exabrial wrote:
| I've also learned, when people that work for you do great, tell
| your manager.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-08-31 23:01 UTC)