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Comment by eight_ender | Hacker News Reader

Admitting I'm wrong or that I screwed up, and likewise praising others when they're correct or have ideas I agree with.

You would not believe how much smoother everything at work is when you learn to recognize early the signs that you're holding on to a bad opinion, or that you're headed towards a fuckup, and just saying it out loud.

The praising / agreeing thing is a bit more complex. I've noticed more recently that people tend to be quick to disagree but remain silent even when they agree with someones opinion.

Specifically calling out when you agree with an idea has some marvellous effects. The silent ones who also agree join in, people who disagree join the fray, and a rough consensus can be reached quickly.

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Admitting I'm wrong or that I screwed up ... You would not believe how much smoother everything at work is when you learn to recognize early the signs that you're holding on to a bad opinion, or that you're headed towards a fuckup, and just saying it out loud.

Avoiding judgement of those that have screwed up or have done something wrong, and simply working with them to correct it goes hand-in-hand with this. By the time someone admits they did something wrong, they already know what they did - by dwelling on that you're just wasting time and energy.

I wonder occasionally how many problems there are in the world that have become much bigger than they needed to be simply because the person who messed up knows the news won't be received well, so they keep their screw up hidden. Similarly, I wonder how effectively we teach children this kind of dishonesty by teaching them that honesty results in punishment.

Also, forgive them!

I hate it when people hold something against someone forever, even though they've already admitted fault. If they get punished even if they repent, there's no incentive to ever repent again. They might as well just keep doing bad things because there's no difference for them.

One of my favourite maxims is, be hard on the problem, not the person.

depends on the screwup. You can separate them into the categories of reasonable and unreasonable.

pushing to production at 5pm on a friday is not a reasonable screwup, and I absolutely will let you know if get called in to fix something that should have waited until Monday.

Sure, there are absolutely varying degrees of screw up. You can make the same argument for anything. But for any position there is usually a general rule, and any number of exceptions.

The point here is that the general rule for human error should tend toward compassion, because the vast majority of mistakes people make are not that serious. In my world at least it seems that we prefer to tend toward punishment instead.

This might sound strange but I wish I learned how to be more assertive and less apologetic/yielding.

When I was in a 50/50 debate/discussions, in many cases I leaned towards myself being wrong and the other being right automatically...and later would feel discontent with everyone when I turned out I was right and should have pushed harder. But I guess dont know how to be assertive without being offensive or overly brazen about my frustration.

That sounds super familiar. One time my team lead moved a meeting one day back for a week, even though I mentioned that the meeting was important every day. When we finally had the meeting, she was mentioned that I took care of it too late. In these situations I tend to be too much 'yes and amen', and I should push back some more.

Likewise, I tend to give the other person the benefit of the doubt, and when one party accepts the possibility that they might be wrong while the other party professes ironclad certainty that they're right, the argument almost always goes to the latter.

These days I temper my "I'm not certain so we should investigate this" with "but you're not certain either so you're not getting out of investigating it and admitting you're wrong if it comes to that."

Yet another variation on this important theme: do not be afraid to speak up when you see areas of waste around you.

You think this or that project is not solving the right problem? Speak up. You think some key result should be achievable with fewer people and sooner than what was planned? Speak up.

I learned this recently, sharing feedback that I was concerned would sound harsh, only to fall on receptive and understanding ears. If anything I should have spoken up sooner/more often!

Your team/startup/etc. will thank you.

I think these two flaws actually go hand in hand, despite seeming opposed:

1. Avoiding acknowledging doubts or weaknesses in the position you're arguing for.

2. Allowing a decision to be finalised when you remain unconvinced.

These two behaviours have different outcomes if you take 'outcome' to mean 'who won the debate'. But they're both flawed and they both come from underconfidence.

Confident engineers care about finding the best consensus. They openly entertain doubts in their own position (and happily change their position in front of others), and they also persist with the discussion until they're genuinely satisfied with whatever consensus is reached.

It obviously a case of needing a balanced approach. Your comment and the parent are for two initial and opposed problems.

I have been in the same situation and I observed it happens more often when discussing with non-technical team members. What I think is happening here is that I forget how "business people" can have different knowledge and beliefs than I do. Assuming good intentions, it might be just lack of information on both sides that make us hold back and assume "they are probably on the right track". And IMHO that is good news because there are many possible paths to address this common issue.

I've had an unhealthy fixation on my opinions/ideas, which usually resulted in me being overly emotional when they were attacked or disproven. I found out this has been a great source of frustration for me, and for the people around me as well.

> Admitting I'm wrong or that I screwed up (1), and likewise praising others when they're correct or have ideas I agree with (2).

That's what I'm focusing on, now. However, although I always mean it, both (1) and (2) — at least in my ears — sound fabricated and artificial, even patronizing at times, as if I've been trying to manipulate the people around me instead of being a better human.

So, that said... How do you do (1) and (2) properly?

For me, realizing that I ought to behave in some manner is only half of the problem; the other is finding out _how_ exactly I should do that.

The first thing you need to do is admit you are an idiot - constantly doing or saying stuff you regret forever, - and always have been an idiot, and will remain one in the future; probably do even more stupid stuff you will regret today.

Get it? This is the whole trick.

The other way to look at this was pointed out to me in the book 'Being Wrong' by Kathryn Schulz (amazing book, btw).

What is your goal? Is your goal to be right, or is your goal to feel right? Because those are not the same things at all. When we get attached to our ideas and emotional, it's because we believed we were right, and we don't want to give up that feeling.

But if our goal is to actually be right, then it's super easy to recognize when you got it wrong and move forward.

It also helps to stop thinking of things as 'correct' or not, and look at them as a spectrum of 'less wrong' to 'more wrong'. If you're constantly working your way towards being less wrong, then it becomes really easy to abandon ideas that have outgrown their usefulness.

I agree! ;)

I try to make it more meaningful by saying why I agree with or like something in order to clarify the (prefferably shared) values behind my appreciation.

I've also recently used a torrent of appreciation (the Mesita strategy) to build up the self-esteem of a person struggling with self-confidence.

The trick is it has to be honest and at least somewhat meaningful to them (it's not good to compliment someone on things they don't value).

A really over the top example: complimenting a woman in the workplace on her looks. will definitely not be appreciated and these days might get you fired ;)

Sometimes you find yourself "arguing" only to realize you're talking about the same thing using different words. In other words... you both agree.

In other cases you're arguing different aspects of the problem and not realizing it.

I do agree with you though, admitting being wrong is better than being stubborn and wasting time and progress. It is something everyone up and down the chain of command should take to heart, you'll find yourself wasting less company resources, time and energy.

I regret praising others early in my career, being helpful and always looking for my mistakes.

Those who didn't that got a headstart, went further, earned more, took some opportunities that weren't available to me and now, with more money, bigger houses, happier wifes and families, they like to say that they should have acted different in the past.

This is good advice. When it's hard to quantify competence as it is in our industry, arrogance is a huge advantage.

You have to weigh it against "If I had behaved like they did, would I be happy with myself?"

Introspection is life's one true and very real super power.

> You would not believe how much smoother everything at work is when you learn to recognize early the signs that you're holding on to a bad opinion, or that you're headed towards a fuckup, and just saying it out loud.

Doesn't this make you feel good but piss of the other person even though they may be wrong? On the other hand it never wears off if you don't let it out, but the problem is there are lot more peoples opinions to consider other than the person you are dealing with. Its lose-lose situation.

Hello down voter care to reason. My question is genuine. I think the author has some point, but just that i could not get it. May be i should have asked to describe more which would have clarified my intent properly.

I think he is saying that if he is wrong to admit it. I can't see why the other person would be pissed off...

For example if I see that I made a wrong decision earlier in a process and I tell my colleagues that I screwed the pooch, it allows us to get back on track quickly and they would probably be happy that I admitted to my earlier mistake.

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