Be Really Real in your Business: Why Candor Works | Hacker News Reader

Be Really Real in your Business: Why Candor Works

sean-johnson.com

64 pointsziadbc14 comments

Candor works because people crave it.

Why? Because they get so little of it right now.

If more people were perfectly honest with their customers, they would stop craving it so much, and they would turn to wanting businesses to be polite and thoughtful instead. (Not that they don't want this now, but candor is craved a little more.)

I'm not saying to lie to your customers. I'm never happy to have been lied to, no matter how often I get the truth. But it's worth noting that businesses respond to the market, and that's why you see shifts in things like return policies and honesty.

This argument only works to a point. No amount of living indoors will make me sick of it as a lifestyle – I don't enjoy camping for more than a day or so. I enjoy living indoors because it's better – no bugs, controlled temperature, comfortable surroundings, safety, running water, toilets, electricity, on and on.

In the same way, candor is simply better than being bullshitted. Moreover, candor vs. politeness is a false dichotomy. You can be thoughtful and honest at the same time.

I'd say that the shifts we see toward more honest business come as a simple result of network effects created by the web. Do right by people? Word gets around faster than ever and you are rewarded with additional business. Screw people over? Everyone will find out just how bad you are to work with – and you'll pay for it lost revenues. It's a potent carrot and stick.

The logic only works on masses of people, not individuals.

This post arrived here today just after me getting told off for being honest, again. I still don't know if being too honest is right or wrong.

I work in a big company (100K employees worldwide), and as such there are company politics going on that few would believe unless you worked there.

This time I got scolded for telling some of our DBA team members that the database we were trying to fix was a schema design disaster from day 1 - I didn't call anyone out, just plainly stated the problems with the design so we don't make the same mistakes again. Apparently admitting that outside my local team could lead to bad things happening politically, and I should just say nothing.

What are you supposed to do? Lie, refuse to comment when asked, sweep the problems under the rug (which is generally what happens)? I really don't know, and as a hacker, I am not great at playing the big company games. Maybe I should say nothing a bit more often, but that doesn't exactly get the customers served any better. So far I have stuck with the honest approach, but I still don't know if its correct or not!

Be honest. Brutally so. Nothing will get better if you're not, and unless you're politicing to increase the greater good for your customer and your workspace, honesty is the path of greatest good.

Um, no, there are very few people that will appreciate you telling them that the work they did is crap. If you really think the database us crap, you have to prove that your opinion is worth listening to on the subject. To prove that you're worth listening to, you are probably going to have to actually create your own version of the database, and demonstrate that it is better

The other path to getting the database improved is to propose specific changes, explaining the benefit of those changes. It's the same idea though, you have to show that you can do better before antone will listen to you.

Oh I know this. The team I was pointing this out to didn't design or build this system, they meerly have to support it, like me.

Agree the best way critize is by showing you can do better, but this is a muli-terrabyte system, so its not easy.

What are you supposed to do?

Make choices you won't regret later. For me, at least, that's being honest. Both honest and dishonest responses make some people angry, so I choose what I can live with.

Lying is bad. Never lie, it will only bite you back a thousand times.

Not making a comment on something that's delicate can be okay if it's only about politics but if someone asks, I don't want to refuse answering either nor can I not tell what I think.

Sweeping actual problems under the rug is worst: it will sweep your working morale under the rug as well. Assuming that you at all care about the company you're working for, if you see something wrong it should be your responsibility to bring it up on the table. If you don't then you will, in time, stop caring about your job and the company, eventually stop producing any significant value, and merely submitting to the never-ever-upset-anyone culture while cashing in paychecks. And that's a hell for anyone with even a tiniest bit of self-worth and integrity.

so we don't make the same mistakes again - I can relate, but generally there's some element of ego involved. Better to save the critique for the planning phase of your next project.

Especially in large companies, you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the "good-enough" (bootstrapped startups usually have more flexibility here, but often use it to their detriment). Supervisors definitely value employees that get things done without lots of questions... even if the results are not perfect.

Generally, I think the ability to prioritize is definitely an under-appreciated skill. This is what makes the whole MVP philosophy so effective and I think the same thing goes for producing results in large corporations...

P.S. I think your experience is a pretty good example of what drives many people to build startups.

> P.S. I think your experience is a pretty good example of what drives many people to build startups.

Yea, this place drives me more and more mad. I have dabbled in my own side projects, but I am thinking more and more that the time to leave the mega-corporation will have to come soon, for my own sanity at least!

Sean and the rest of the Jelly Chicago crew he and friends have pulled together are good people because of thoughts like this. If you're full of smoke, eventually, someone pokes a hole in you and then you're just an empty bag.

Curious. All of the advice I've read about women in the work place contradicts this assertion. To wit, that women tend to be TOO candid, and should restrain this compulsion in order to thrive.

I think this is because it's advice for a corporate environment. Candor works with customers because customers want to know they can depend on you. However as someone else in this thread commented, corporate environments have a lot of politics. Other people don't depend on you (or don't perceive it as such) and, to make a blatant generalization, are more worried about keeping their own job. So: work with customers? Be candid. Work in corporate? Don't be candid.

IMHO this is one of the reasons online social networks (and to some extent professional networking sites) don't work very well.

Common weaknesses bond much stronger than common strengths.

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