[HN Gopher] How to give a senior leader feedback (without gettin...
___________________________________________________________________
How to give a senior leader feedback (without getting fired)
Author : RobinHirst11
Score : 95 points
Date : 2024-11-23 19:15 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (newsletter.weskao.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newsletter.weskao.com)
| lisper wrote:
| Another tactic I like to use is a riff on the authors suggestion
| #3: "Is there a reason you did (or did not do) X?" This works
| because it's framed as accepting the decision and being genuinely
| curious about the rationale. Often the answer is: no, I never
| really gave it any thought. Other times there turns out to be a
| good reason that didn't occur to me and it turns into a learning
| experience for me.
|
| Another tactic that works for me is "Can I offer a suggestion?"
| The answer is almost always yes but it's a sign of respect to
| ask.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| This is excellent advice. In general, offering feedback in the
| form of a question is an extremely underutilized way of
| beginning a productive dialog.
|
| Unfortunately, likely due to surveys, most people are
| accustomed only offering declarations in lieu of
| interrogatives.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Depends on the profile, when somebody talks to me like that I
| immediately cringe in my head and lose all respect for the
| person.
|
| Probably a matter of culture too.
| lpapez wrote:
| Same here - whenever I see someone trying to get around
| giving honest feedback, and trying to frame it as "humble
| curiosity" instead, I immediately assume they read some
| "leadership" articles and are trying to apply it because they
| are second guessing themselves. I believe it depends a lot on
| the culture, but I am much more used to either keeping my
| mouth shut (when there is nothing on the line) or being blunt
| (when it matters). Either way, no sugarcoating or "being
| curious".
| thethirdone wrote:
| This seems like a very shallow way of thinking. "Losing all
| respect for the person" implies that you think this is NEVER
| an appropriate way to address someone. Phrasing a
| disagreement of opinion as a question of reasoning is often
| the best course of action.
|
| In particular if a choice has been made and going back to
| reverse it has significant costs, it is important to not say
| anything like "We should not be doing this" or "You made a
| mistake." Unless there is a good of action to reverse course
| that is simply being rude for no reason. Even in the case
| where there is a good way to reverse a decision, I would
| rather ask for the reasoning that led to the decision than
| strongly state the decision is wrong. If I am working with
| someone I respect at all, I must entertain the thought that I
| am wrong and they made the right decision with good
| reasoning.
|
| What would you say to a superior who made a decision that you
| disagree with, but don't think is worth reversing? My best
| guess is either nothing or something that more strongly
| asserts your belief, but I can't think of any better option
| than phrasing it as a question.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| > What would you say to a superior who made a decision that
| you disagree with, but don't think is worth reversing?
|
| "I don't understand ... it seems it has the consequence of
| ... My professional opinion in that case would be... and I
| would advise to... because of... Is there something I'm not
| seeing here?"
|
| Benefits:
|
| - I'm not faking it.
|
| - I already provide a lot of information up front to limit
| back-and-forth. This avoids assumptions and also works
| better for when you WFH.
|
| - The person knows exactly where I stand and where I want
| to go. It's not chit-chat, it's not politics, it's purely
| technical and I want to move on the issue.
|
| - If I'm wrong, I can get told right away. If I'm right,
| it's factual, and we can move on to solving the problem.
| And if the person's ego/social status is on the line, they
| can just BS their way out of it, and I'll just add nothing
| and move on.
|
| - The template drives the conversation enough that they
| only need a short answer to let us decide if it's worth
| reversing. And we can conclude on the price / consequence
| of that and move on if needed.
|
| I'll change that depending on the person. Some people are
| way better than me, in that case, I'll default to asking
| what I'm missing because it's likely they see something I
| don't.
|
| On the opposite, if it's a junior, I'll assume they get it
| wrong and help them to fix it (unless they can justify it).
|
| And of course, phrasing will depend of how much intimate I
| am with the person. Good friends will get a playful
| version, uptight clients will get the more formal one.
|
| Once you have done that several times and people know the
| routine and the relationship is good, you barely have to
| speak. You can just nod at something or raise an eyebrow,
| and start problem solving or get the info.
|
| But note that I can do that also because my clients value
| my opinion enough, have respect for my professionalism, and
| also know, because of my past interactions with them, that
| I focus on the problem to solve rather than blaming.
| kaffekaka wrote:
| In my experience, those phrases are more often used to disguise
| the real intent: "you are doing it wrong and I can't stand it".
|
| I think the best feedback comes from people who have tried to
| understand the reasons other people have, before asking "is
| there a reason ...?".
| danjl wrote:
| Actually this is good advice for giving feedback to anyone.
| flog wrote:
| This was one of the most exhausting aspects of working for a US
| company, especially as an H1B. Simply: just don't say anything,
| it wasn't worth it.
|
| I'm from cultures where we bluntly call a spade a spade and pride
| ourselves on disdain for hierarchy. There's far less fear in
| raising concerns generally to anyone, but it's quite possibly
| because of the far better employment laws.
| bradlys wrote:
| It's not just due to an employee being H1B. It's that 80% of
| your peers are Chinese and Indian H1Bs who bring that culture
| of deference to authority into the US.
|
| I don't even feel like I'm working in the US when I'm working
| for any tech company these days. If I'm at ads for FB, I may as
| well be in Beijing. Some others, I may as well be in Mumbai.
|
| It would be nice to work with Americans/westerners for once and
| actually be able to speak up about _something_ without getting
| fired.
| fcarraldo wrote:
| In my experience, Americans are much more likely to see
| criticism as a threat or an insult than in most European
| business cultures, where blunt feedback is common. I've seen
| many teams in different companies led by Americans where
| simply pointing out that a plan will fail in a public forum
| is tantamount to spitting in their face. It's absurd, and it
| destroys teams.
| csa wrote:
| > I've seen many teams in different companies led by
| Americans where simply pointing out that a plan will fail
| in a public forum is tantamount to spitting in their face.
|
| I've been put into the "practitioner of the dark arts"
| bucket twice when I predicted with detail and accuracy why
| certain large projects would fail.
|
| The folks in charge were offended when I presented my
| analysis, and they were just afraid of me after my
| predictions came true.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I've found these situations to be no-win.
|
| When I had reasonable certainty of my next gig being
| lined up, I even put the question to leaders. "If I tell
| you why this project is destined to failure now in Q1 vs
| being quiet and playing along til end of year, will I be
| rewarded or punished any differently then?".
|
| The response was 100% nervous laughter. It turned out
| both layers of management above me were also well aware
| the marching order they were passing along were going to
| end badly, and had already lined up their internal
| transfers, which happened within days of my departure as
| well.
| 01100011 wrote:
| I don't agree with OP. I'm American and have mostly worked
| for American companies and have rarely had issues with giving
| honest, often difficult, feedback to superiors.
|
| But
|
| > 80% of your peers are Chinese and Indian H1Bs who bring
| that culture of deference to authority into the US.
|
| is sadly spot on. Even when the org is very receptive to
| feedback, one manager in the chain who possesses a cultural
| belief in absolute authority is enough to break the feedback
| chain and lead to an organizational abscess of festering
| dysfunction.
|
| It becomes even worse when your org's management has been
| taken over by a single cultural group and there is no one to
| turn to and your only option is to wait for the org to
| implode and be restructured from above.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| Interesting. I used to work mainly with european developers
| (dutch, french, germans, russians, spaniards, polish, etc.)
| and I always could speak my mind, and others would do so. No
| BS, no avoiding direct confrontation. But more recently I
| have been working with ex-faang american developers and I
| don't like it. It's not that they are like indians and the
| like, but definitely not as direct and straightforward as
| europeans.
| lijok wrote:
| Astonishing. Completely backwards. This article describes how to
| give feedback to your subordinates, not to your superiors. If
| your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information,
| regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no
| business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they
| have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such
| people, don't bother giving feedback, start polishing your
| resume.
|
| The reason you fluff up feedback to your subordinates is because
| lower down the chain they tend to be insecure and don't yet have
| the experience to distinguish between actionable impartial
| feedback, and threats to their job security.
|
| The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that
| matter to your superiors, is described in basically every
| handbook on highly effective communication in organizations.
| codr7 wrote:
| Thank God I didn't have to write all of that myself :)
|
| Well said!
| fny wrote:
| I think you're ignoring the "without getting fired" part. The
| implication is that you're in a situation where management is
| stubborn or even hostile to feedback.
|
| Most organizations don't practice "highly effective
| communication". It's often a nightmare riddled with politics
| and ego.
| Rygian wrote:
| > I think you're ignoring the "without getting fired" part.
|
| The "start polishing your resume" bit was quite explicit.
| fny wrote:
| I'd argue 99% percent of companies operate like this. No
| one likes blunt feedback--even in friendships and marriage.
| Good luck if you throw money and ego into the mix.
| tyrust wrote:
| The advice isn't backwards, but some senior leaders are in the
| sense that they don't take feedback well. In this case, this
| advice is sound.
|
| Sure, in an ideal world you wouldn't have to fluff it, but I'm
| guessing many of us aren't in that world.
| wjnc wrote:
| This. I had to get a little used to not fluffing around my
| feedback. One of our managers just asked me to give it to him
| straight, directly and 1-on-1 and we'd get along fine. So we
| did. I still am having trouble with how little, what I see as
| fact based, feedback is needed before the average person has
| had enough.
|
| Example: I like to point out shitty work processes (one needs a
| hobby). Anything with a few loops and some rework goes for me
| to start my first time right story. People take offense. No
| stop, you are not the process. You didn't design it, you merely
| took part because we asked you to. Now stop and consider
| whether you think it is shitty and if so, what can we do? Can
| you do it? Do you need help? When? Organizationally, it's a
| good riff. For me, it's strange to do and see it help. It feels
| like delivering snake oil. (I rationalize this as delivering
| Lean in thirty minutes.)
|
| My communication plan is facts >> options >> opinions >>
| advice. This way I help people mentally separate "what is" from
| whatever opinion I'm holding. This works for both verbal and
| written communication. It's a coping strategy for being outlier
| direct.
| danjl wrote:
| It would be wonderful if the world could accept blunt feedback.
| It is certainly easier to give and more in-line with what most
| technical people would prefer. However, we work with humans,
| and we have learned an awful lot about how humans respond to
| language, especially criticism. The advice here applies to
| giving feedback to _any human_ , not just superiors. As you
| spend time working with humans, you learn, perhaps slowly that
| what you might consider "fluff" is really about helping make
| your point. Being direct doesn't always, or even usually, work
| as well.
| nithril wrote:
| Definitively agree. Being blunt, too direct is just the
| opposite of a good and effective communication.
| lucgray wrote:
| Being too blunt raises defenses and completely wipes out
| the effectiveness of your feedback. Folks that are invested
| in outcomes make choices for good reason, and they've
| probably got a track record to back it up. You have to meet
| them where they are, and considering their communication
| styles and how they make decisions will improve the chances
| you're actually heard.
|
| It's a fact of life that people shut down when approached
| with evidence that refutes their world view or choices. It
| doesn't matter if it's your boss or grandparents.
| cle wrote:
| > If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information,
| regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no
| business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function
| they have oversight of.
|
| You're assuming that the subordinate's feedback is sufficiently
| important to the business. It might not be. It might also not
| be important to the business if subordinates leave b/c their
| feedback is disregarded. I can imagine plenty of scenarios
| where a leader could still succeed while not giving a crap
| about subordinate feedback. It depends on the goals and the
| dynamics of the business, the leader's experience, market
| conditions, labor environments, etc.
|
| > The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for
| that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every
| handbook on highly effective communication in organizations.
|
| You can argue in your exit interview that you were just
| following handbooks.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's even more important to give it bluntly if the feedback
| is irrelevant. That way you've wasted less time.
|
| Me: "we aren't giving enough guidance to new hires" Leader:
| "it's not a priority for us since we are freezing hiring"
|
| Perfectly good interaction, where you didn't waste time
| sneakily phrasing things you think you know better than the
| leader. And you learned some valuable info about the org
| priorities as a result.
| drewcoo wrote:
| People get promoted by "managing up," which you call
| "fluffing."
| IshKebab wrote:
| > If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information,
| regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no
| business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function
| they have oversight of.
|
| Maybe, but the title is "without getting fired" not "without
| being _wrong damnit!_ ". Unless you have a significant number
| of shares in the company you should care about your own
| employment and success over the success of the whatever
| function this person has oversight of.
|
| > The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for
| that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every
| handbook on highly effective communication in organizations.
|
| And that reason is...?
| szundi wrote:
| Hard not to be cynical about your response but do you believe
| most of the superiors out there are on this level that you
| specify? Would be a joke.
| NAHWheatCracker wrote:
| I agree with you that's how it should be, but experience tells
| me that everyone is insecure and it's hardly correlated with
| position and job security.
|
| People lower down the chain are insecure because they could
| legitimately be let go at any time for any reason.
|
| People higher up the chain are insecure because any loss of
| face is debilitating. Especially having failings pointed out by
| someone "below" them.
| hashtag-til wrote:
| From my experience, you build that non-fluff boundaries in
| the first one or two meetings with a senior leader.
|
| I'd advise against going in the first one throwing punches.
|
| Go with actionable feedback and be honest about what it is
| and what is not something you can solve. From there, if you
| genuinely care about whatever you're complaning, you are more
| likely to be taken seriously.
| herval wrote:
| That's nice in theory. In practice, the likelihood of you
| working for someone who's unable to process the truth and will
| shoot the messenger is very high
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I don't know if it's "very high". It can happen but on
| average I think successful people tend to be more reasonable
| and intelligent than average (not always obviously).
| jellicle wrote:
| If you've honestly never seen the types of leaders envisioned
| in this article you are very lucky indeed.
|
| For a large majority of supervisors, if you give them
| carefully-worded, polite, respectful, private, accurate,
| truthful, ego-preserving feedback about something they're doing
| wrong, their response will range between "immediate firing" and
| "hold a grudge against you, fire you as soon as they can find a
| replacement". There is _nothing_ that makes people as angry as
| accurately pointing out their flaws.
|
| The way around this is in essence to get the leader to think it
| was their idea to make a change, which is possible in some
| cases but not in others.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's surprising to me that such dysfunctional orgs exist
| where a single person can just fire someone immediately over
| some feedback. How have they even grown to be a business with
| that attitude?
|
| But sure, you do need to adapt your strategy for the
| environment you exist in. That's just common sense.
| dheera wrote:
| > The reason you fluff up feedback to your subordinates is
| because lower down the chain they tend to be insecure and don't
| yet have the experience to distinguish between actionable
| impartial feedback, and threats to their job security.
|
| Rather than fluff it up, just make it explicit whichever you
| are doing.
|
| If you actually like their work and are making an actionable
| suggestion, just say that, and don't forget to praise them for
| the work that you like. Far too often I see managers _only_
| give the suggestion and then it ends up looking like a threat.
|
| > The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for
| that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every
| handbook on highly effective communication in organizations.
|
| The reason you _do_ fluff feedback to your superiors is that
| you 're on an H1B visa, are at risk of getting deported from
| the country and having to find a new home for your partner and
| new school for your kids (possibly in an unfamiliar language
| and environment for them), just for upsetting one superior.
|
| The reality is most people in large companies do not care about
| "highly effective communication". They are just trying to
| survive and not get deported. Once we can get rid of this
| stupid 60 day rule and insane housing and child-raising costs
| maybe people will start caring about their work. The most basic
| of Maslow's needs are not being met, hence the fluffing up to
| the authorities (bosses) who are in control of your livelihood.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Well yes, it's a higher variance approach. If you can't
| afford to look for a new job then by all means keep your head
| down and avoid all controversy. I would do the same in that
| situation. That doesn't apply to everyone however, so for
| those people it would make sense to try to make things better
| and potentially advance their careers.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| At [company that purportedly highly values candor], I've seen
| multiple people get canned by VPs or directors they've
| criticized internally. Granted, these situations were cases
| where this was communicated either in a larger feedback meeting
| that was supposed to be a "safe" space for such feedback, or
| via other communications that were visible to more than just
| the person being criticized. These criticisms were definitely
| high up in the PG pyramid and critical of the direction /
| vision / execution, not of the person themselves. The people
| who were fired from this were high performers who weren't
| otherwise on PIPs or anything like that. Leadership did the
| typical leadership dance of shifting blame, re-org, and carry
| on. It was sad and further eroded both trust and morale of
| others familiar with these situations.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I suppose it depends on what type of "criticism" it is.
| Generally feedback is most valuable when it's constructive
| not critical. If you just say "X is bad" that isn't very
| useful no matter how you phrase it.
|
| I would be surprised if respectful constructive criticism was
| met with firing but I suppose it does happen. Probably not
| the best to be working for those people in any case.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Do not give feedback to your boss.
|
| https://www.manager-tools.com/2012/02/do-not-give-feedback-y...
| codr7 wrote:
| I don't think tip toeing around people like this is a solution at
| all. But I've never worked in the US.
|
| Some important questions:
|
| 1) Why are they a leader at all?
|
| 2) Why are they your chosen leader?
| parpfish wrote:
| Just like there are plenty of employed, bad devs there are
| employed, bad leaders/managers.
|
| Maybe they aren't good at it, or maybe they're new to managing
| and this is one skill where they will get better.
| codr7 wrote:
| I'm thinking maybe we should be more careful in general with
| who we give these kinds of responsibilities to.
| parpfish wrote:
| People can grow into their roles. You don't expect junior
| devs to know everything one day one, so why would you
| expect a "junior[1]" manager?
|
| [1] I know the article is about senior managers, but it
| reads as though the mean "somebody more senior than me" and
| not "somebody who has been managing a long time"
| notnmeyer wrote:
| pretty interesting. i think i fall on the blunt end of the
| communication spectrum, so this gave me some things to think
| about.
| cess11 wrote:
| It's not a senior leader if they aren't spending a lot of time
| prying out this kind of information from their team already.
|
| Looking at their web page this author seems like a professional
| bullshitter that pivoted into enabling other bullshitters, for a
| fee.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| Most of those examples (not giving enough direction, not training
| new hires enough, not being clear enough on priorities) are
| probably not going to be surprises for the person, and if you
| give feedback that shows you want someone to behave differently
| without having given some thought about why they aren't already
| then your feedback talks more about your own lack of experience
| and empathy than anything else.
|
| To give good feedback to anyone you need to understand something
| about the pressures and challenges that they are facing. And
| remember that everything is a trade off. For example, perhaps
| they're incredibly busy, and would like to spend more time with
| new hires, but are struggling to find time because they aren't
| getting enough blocks of concentration time to work out clear
| priorities and they have been told they need to give their
| trusted colleague more opportunities to grow so they delegated it
| to someone.
|
| Most likely, if you think something is a problem then they do
| too. They don't need to be told that or criticised for it, they
| need help _solving_ the problem that causes the problem.
|
| Imagine the difference between "I want to give you feedback that
| you aren't spending enough time with new hires" vs "I know you've
| been wanting to spend more time with the new hires, why don't you
| take them for lunch and send me to your status meeting over
| Tuesday lunch time this week."
|
| As I started doing more leadership, I became aware that a lot of
| the things I might previously have cited as predictable examples
| of leadership incompetence causing problems were not surprises to
| leadership. They knew that this course of action would cause
| problems. The reason that they went ahead anyway was because they
| believed that the problems caused by the other courses of action
| available to them would be worse.
|
| Of course, there are situations this advice does not apply, maybe
| the leader genuinely is clueless or evil or mistaken about the
| severity of a problem, but a good leader when presented with a
| problem elsewhere needs to start from a position of respect and
| learning and if you want to give advice to a leader you should
| start by trying to model good leadership yourself.
| cdavid wrote:
| > Imagine the difference between "I want to give you feedback
| that you aren't spending enough time with new hires" vs "I know
| you've been wanting to spend more time with the new hires, why
| don't you take them for lunch and send me to your status
| meeting over Tuesday lunch time this week."
|
| This is the proper answer. Ultimately, feedback should be about
| changing something. My experience is that most people are
| neither good at giving or receiving feedback, and that includes
| myself. There are more effective ways to change things.
|
| OP's is useful when you have to give feedback, which is
| expected in most large companies in some form or other (evals,
| etc.).
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I think the best feedback is pointing out problems (and then
| trusting the other party to act or at least explain why things
| are that way). You never have the full context so just telling
| someone they need to behave differently may not even be ideal
| given the information they have.
| somishere wrote:
| Leaders don't hold all the power. As others have said, I think
| this is a good approach for everyone - showing a bit of empathy
| and "you don't know what you don't know" when corresponding with
| people. In fact it's good leadership 101.
|
| Edit: can anyone suggest any good (free) tools for eliciting 360
| feedback? Potentially anonymously?
| terminalbraid wrote:
| I disagree with much of the premise and frankly don't think this
| person should be giving advice. Some of what's in there isn't bad
| like "be thoughtful about what you say". However, if you already
| feel something needs to be changed to the point where you're
| thinking something needs to be said but then you follow the
| article to force yourself to ask questions like
|
| > "Can I live with this? How much does this bother me? Is it
| worth giving them feedback and what are my chances of success
| doing it?"
|
| _and doing multiple rounds of this_ you are compromising with
| yourself at an early stage. This frequently leads to things
| escalating (the problem didn 't go away and in fact got
| incrementally worse because there was _no negative feedback_ )
| which makes it a much harder situation.
|
| This article is also written with examples like, if you don't
| make small changes to your wording, you'll get responses like
| "You think I don't know that I need to give new hires guidance? I
| obviously gave them guidance. GTFO." which clearly catastrophizes
| outcomes based on small nuances in your own already inoffensive
| language.
|
| Feedback is like gardening. Take care of small problems early and
| gently but relentlessly. If there's a wolf in your garden you
| should probably do something about the wolf instead of working
| around the wolf and spending your life in fear, even if that
| means finding a different garden.
|
| I will recommend the book "The Coward's Guide to Conflict" which
| helped me get a healthy perspective.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Cowards-Guide-Conflict-Empowering-Sol...
| bambax wrote:
| In aviation this is what Crew Resource Management is about, and
| in particular, how to make sure the monitoring pilot, who may be
| the least experienced one, can effectively supervise and review
| the actions of the other. Many crashes were the result of
| copilots' fear of speaking up.
|
| Business life could learn from this. The person in charge is not
| a king, they're simply the person tasked with making decisions.
| There is nothing scandalous in having another person evaluate
| those decisions against a set of principles or common sense, and
| speaking up when something doesn't feel right.
|
| Better that than crashing into a mountain.
| flymaipie wrote:
| Why on earth would someone deserve to be fired based on mere
| "feedback"? As long as it's not an outright offensive rant, it
| should be handled sensibly. But even if it is an offensive rant,
| firing should be a last resort. The amount of toxic subordination
| that's assumed to be normal is sickening.
| IshKebab wrote:
| It's exaggeration. You might not get fired but it will
| absolutely affect your raises & bonuses.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| If you're not on a visa and don't have kids I'd recommend simply
| not caring if you get fired by insecure leadership. You're better
| off elsewhere if they would do that.
| brunooliv wrote:
| I found strange to see so much criticism of the post as usually,
| anything that Wes Kao writes really resonates with me as a senior
| IC. Usually there's a great balance of nuance and depth to the
| advice that makes it easy to digest and pick small bits and
| pieces to try out on my own context
| 01100011 wrote:
| Nearly 30 years in the business here and I think most of what
| was said in the article is spot on if you are in an appropriate
| situation.
|
| Many commenters seem to take absolutist positions on this and
| think no one should ever allow themselves to be under a bad
| manager but it happens and then you need to effectively deal
| with it and these are some good techniques to do so.
|
| The techniques even apply to working with a good manager. You
| shouldn't just vomit every criticism or critique to your
| superior. You should engage in introspection and internal
| dialogue to see if your perspective is correct and if there is
| more you can do to address the issue before spamming your
| manager.
|
| If someone is offended by the article they might need to take a
| step back and ask if their ego has grown beyond its useful
| size.
| lucgray wrote:
| Yeah I mean to generalize even further, these are techniques
| that can apply to your direct reports, your friends, your
| spouse.
|
| Giving feedback is definitely an art and a thin line between
| getting your point across in a clear way vs running up
| against ego or impatience.
|
| If you care about your org's success it's critical to know
| your audience, their approach and value system, and how to
| tailor your message to account for what will resonate with
| them. It's really tough stuff.
| fny wrote:
| These are all rhetorical techniques to make your idea _their_
| idea. If you ever want to get anything done in painfully
| structured or faux-flat orgs, this is the way.
|
| Why this psyop works:
|
| 1. People like to take credit for things.
|
| 2. People don't like to be wrong.
|
| 3. People get irked when a good idea wasn't their idea.
|
| 4. People don't like to feel threatened.
|
| 5. Just remove the duck.
|
| The examples given are a little contrived, but the techniques
| applied are gold for more tricky scenarios.
| bargainbot3k wrote:
| Why is there a watermelon there?
| slater wrote:
| What watermelon?
| peppertree wrote:
| Feedback is pointless. Vote with your feet. If a team has high
| churn it's guaranteed the leadership is garbage.
| terminalbraid wrote:
| I agree voting with your feet is good and underutilized, but
| it's also extremely expensive for both sides. There's no
| successful group that didn't need feedback or even internal
| conflict (with healthy resolution) to be successful.
| 5cott0 wrote:
| Captain Miller: "I don't gripe to you, Reiben. I'm a captain.
| There's a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up.
| You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on,
| and so on. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you.
| You should know that as a Ranger."
|
| Private Reiben: "I'm sorry, sir, but uh... let's say you weren't
| a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then?"
|
| Captain Miller: Well, in that case... I'd say, "This is an
| excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective,
| sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover... I feel heartfelt
| sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay
| down my life and the lives of my men - especially you, Reiben -
| to ease her suffering."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhbObZEF0Mc Saving Private Ryan
| thanksgiving wrote:
| I don't get it. He said gripe to his superior but he is
| basically kissing ass?
| inopinatus wrote:
| No, that is how you inform a superior officer that you
| believe the mission is a waste of time, effort, equipment,
| and manpower, and will probably get everyone killed for next-
| to-no benefit.
| jen729w wrote:
| This is a lesson to us all, though. Like it or not -- and it'll
| vary depending on your geography and industry and so on, I know
| -- this is _an issue_ of at least _some_ proportion.
|
| So, just be aware. Many of us are someone's boss. You might not
| feel like you're 'senior', but to them you are.
|
| Be open. Listen. Don't react (immediately). Consider. Just stop
| and _think_ for a second. Realise that these other people 's
| views are, at the very least, worth considering. (They may, of
| course, be wrong.)
|
| One of the most rewarding things I did before I left the
| corporate world was have a 26-year-old grad as a direct report. I
| was 46 and had 'Head of...' in my job title. She was as smart as
| anything and it was an incredible experience. Hopefully, for us
| both.
| palata wrote:
| In my 13 years of experience, I would say it's never worth giving
| feedback to your manager. Either they are good and it's useless,
| or they are not and they won't learn from you.
|
| I have come to a simple rule: if the manager is good, there is no
| problem. If the manager sucks (often that's because they lack
| experience, but it's all the same), just lie to them in order to
| preserve yourself. No need to have empathy for them: there is no
| karma out there. Bad managers usually have no problem climbing
| the ladder, even if it means making your life miserable. Work for
| you, not them.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Largely agree, 19 years here. Good managers and bad managers
| alike have weaknesses that are largely in-built personality
| traits. Telling them won't change how they've spent decades
| behaving.
|
| The two worst managers I had clearly had anger management
| issues and some sort of inferiority complex, theres no feedback
| to fix that.
|
| Try to stick with good managers as long as you can, especially
| if their weaknesses that don't bother you too much, understand
| where it's coming from, and try not to take it personally.
|
| The 3 examples at the top of the article - unclear guidance,
| unable to set priorities, and not training new hires .. these
| are good benign issues that I've seen repeatedly from good
| managers.
|
| You can remind them in a friendly tone why things are happening
| -(as they raise yet another low importance high urgency task)
| "if we keep switching to these urgent but less important tasks,
| the long-term important things (give examples) you are unhappy
| with the pace of will continue to be slow". The best outcome
| tends to be a 20% reduction in the undesired behavior, over
| many months. It doesn't go away or get unlearned.
| Kiro wrote:
| I love that I live in a country where I can just tell my
| superiors exactly how they suck and never risk getting fired. It
| might not be wise for other reasons but fire me they cannot.
| anticorporate wrote:
| > If you don't speak up, you're robbing your organization of your
| good insights.
|
| No you're not. If your organization does not giving feedback
| easy, and safe, they're the ones who have failed. You don't owe
| them anything.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| - ChatGPT, give me a few ideas on xxx
|
| - These are a few points for you to use
|
| Write an article with that. Get mentioned on HN.
| UltraSane wrote:
| One of the most annoying things in companies is how criticism
| only flows downwards and praise usually only only flows upwards.
| passwordoops wrote:
| Without getting fired? "That's a _brilliant_ idea! The only
| reason we won 't execute is incompetence."
|
| Deviate and your career will stall at best
| postit wrote:
| I hope corporate ling like this stops for good. Seriously. Bad
| management is the norm, not the exception. We're all suffering
| from poor leadership at every level; I bet you all can count the
| good managers you've had on one hand.
|
| I'd rather live in a world where we could give blunt and direct
| feedback like, "You suck as a manager, why are you still
| insisting on this?" However, we live in a situation where the
| system will always push back against any dissenting voices, and
| in the end, back-patting and corporate camaraderie are what keep
| the wheels turning.
| rietta wrote:
| What about the simple, "may I talk to you for a minute in
| private?" And then clearly state the information that you need to
| share.
| dakiol wrote:
| At work I always give positive and friendly feedback, regardless
| of who is asking. I don't need to put myself in a position in
| which the receiver didn't like or misunderstood my feedback the
| wrong way. What for? I couldn't care less about their
| professional development, and I don't want to be a blocker in
| their path to promotion.
|
| I do my time, I get paid and move on. Don't need drama at work.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| I assume the mentioned feedback could be interpreted as critical.
|
| First I'd start by mentioning something they doing well OR
| something positive about them that relates to their job. Ie they
| have good attitude or get on good with co workers etc.
|
| Then I would move on to what it was thought needed "some
| improvement" Id mention the "positive outcome" that would result
| if the feedback I was about to give was implemented. I could even
| tone it down ...with the words "...my opinion ..."
|
| ie My opinion , is if we ( meaning the manager ) where to do "...
| what ever ..." it could result in this "....more desirable
| outcome..." I could soften it more by saying .... we tried this
| at my previous job ... and it gave "...whatever the positive
| result is "
|
| ( Giving effective feedback is a skill. I learnt how to do in a
| speech training program called "Toastmasters " We had a internal
| Toastmasters club for the company I worked add ( Not in the US )
| with about 30 members. Often the other members where >several
| levels< above me. Me - a very junior person at the time. So had
| to give feedback to Senior staff about their speech. )
| inopinatus wrote:
| This is entirely the perspective of an abusive CEO. As we say
| here in Australia, get fucked. What an entitled grub.
| firefoxd wrote:
| I think this article is teaching you how to dance on a song that
| isn't being played for you. Unless the feedback is something that
| is going to benefit, or improve your own work, then toss it
| aside. My experience [1].
|
| Unless your company is in pursuit of a noble human endeavor, just
| make sure you get some good work done, and make good connections
| along them way. The truth is rarely what a company seeks. So if
| your manager is imperfect, don't sweat it.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21766903
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-11-23 23:00 UTC)