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Comment by krallja | Hacker News Reader

Shit sandwiches don't work. People can still tell when they're being fed a load of shit.

Yeah, at a couple of companies I worked as a middle manager we had training on how to manage people and they made a point of telling us to avoid the shit sandwich. That it's really not effective and managers use it because they don't feel strong enough to give the feedback without sugar coating it. My anecdata doesn't include enough points for me to be sure if it is effective or not, but those trainers who had seen large numbers of cases insisted it was ineffective.

I think it depends a lot on how it's done, and what the speaker's genuine feelings are.

If someone holds me in contempt, they're not going to magically make me feel okay about their negative feedback by going through the motions of sandwiching it.

But if they respect me and genuinely think I'm doing some significant things well, then making those things clear can help me to avoid taking the negatives personally.

How can this person make you feel that they respect you?

I work with a lot of Junior engineers. I do want to believe in them but want to express to them that their fuck ups are pretty serious and they shouldn’t repeat that. But there isn’t really a way to be both direct and also not an asshole ️

Probably it depends at least as much on context (the sum of all your interactions) as on how you present any single critique -- I know that I can take a piece of criticism very differently depending on who is giving it, and that's not just a function of our formal relationship or their position in the hierarchy. So making a point of being sincerely positive whenever appropriate might help, even if you don't have anything good to say while delivering a rebuke.

Also it's important to take into account each individual's temperament: try to learn which ones will be scared straight by a gentle word (and discouraged by anything more than that), and which ones need the severity of their mistakes hammered home. Also where they fall on the 'respect = unvarnished honesty' versus 'respect = niceness and politeness' spectrum.

If you were calling me out on a big mistake, it would definitely be important to control any emotions like exasperation or bafflement, and focus in a matter-of-fact way on what happened/why it was a mistake/what to do next time.

when a junior messes something up, then that's usually because they didn't know better (or they didn't have the skill/experience to avoid it). that's why they are juniors, i don't expect them to know better. but that also means, it's an opportunity for learning:

remember last week, when you brought the server down by typing mkfs instead of fsck? cost us a few days to get the server back up. but that's not your fault. it's our fault for not having a better recovery strategy. nevertheless it is a good idea to avoid mistakes like that. here are a few tips...

You need to create a space where people can fail safely; an area where someone can take a risk, and if it doesn't work out, it's not the end of the world, but they can get some acclaim if it does work well.

They work if you set the right expectation that you're gonna feed them a load of shit, but still be gentle about it.

Do you think it's better to start with the shit and end with the compliments, or to start with the compliments and end with the shit? I think it's better to sandwich the shit in-between, so yes, shit sandwiches don't work, but they work better than the alternatives.

When I see people using the "sandwich" method on me it is usually pretty clear that the only reason they are giving compliments is just to soften their criticisms, so I would rather just get the criticisms on their own. Not every criticism or set of criticisms needs to be accompanied with something positive. If there are many points of feedback, some positive and some negative, I think they should be split into logical categories, mixing together positive and negative feedback, rather than trying to completely surround criticisms with compliments.

This depends on culture actually.

However you order it, though. Be honest and direct, and include corrections to give them a path forward. That's the best way to end on a positive note.

> However you order it, though. Be honest and direct, and include corrections to give them a path forward. That's the best way to end on a positive note.

OK, I think your comment is the best example of why lots of people don't like the shit sandwich. You're literally acknowledging that the goal was to deliver the shit and that the ordering is just a detail on delivering it (i.e. the details of the compliments are rather unimportant, but the details of the shit are). Furthermore, the goal wasn't even to deliver the shit, but to "include corrections".

I would strongly recommend people read good communications books (e.g. Difficult Conversations, Crucial Conversations, etc). If your goal is to deliver a message, with corrective action already prepared, you are not having a discussion, nor are you having a conversation. What is generally missing in such interactions are:

- Discussing your role in creating the other person's bad performance. Take this a number of degrees further (the role of your team, department, organization, etc)

- Getting the other person's perspective

- Identifying barriers to better performance

And quite a bit more.

Perhaps many managers are open to discuss all of the above, but they never indicate it, and their posture doesn't match. Certainly, delivering shit with corrective action at the ready does not.

Difficult Conversations is a very good book. I'd also recommend The Culture Map.

Yes, you do want to have those conversations where you try to discover and work through the reasons behind behavioral or performance problems.

When communicating the problem, however, you often need to communicate expectations. Discussing and listening to feedback on the expectations is vital. But clarity in presenting your view of the problem is just as vital, so as to be talking about the same thing.

The initial discussion I was responding to was about delivery of an assessment. You should have many conversations and observations before you reach the point of assessment. Once there, you've moved on to instigation of correction or improvement (either for you or for the other person, often both).

> Do you think it's better to start with the shit and end with the compliments, or to start with the compliments and end with the shit? I think it's better to sandwich the shit in-between

False trichotomy?

Set up a culture of honest feedback. And set up a culture promoting change vs sticks. Lots of other approaches. You can't divorce the culture from the presentation. If your focus is only on how you present your feedback without examining the wider culture, then you're focusing on theater.

I prefer to get them separately and directly . Make a compliment and leave it there. Criticize and leave it there. If you often use the sandwich method I will just wait for what comes after the first part so the compliment is worthless. Don’t give a long speech before you get to the point.

Spot on. I have to wait for the actual feedback and suggestions which to my managers credit are often useful and insightful and on point. But what precedes the feedback can be mind numbing.

An alternative is context, counter-argument, argument

"we currently xxxx, and although yyyyy, zzzz is still better. Make the case against your own argument or for an alternative first, to show you understand both sides, can exhibit some empathy, and to prevent the inevitable rebuttal. If your argument isnt well received, youve still framed the counter-argument in a way that leaves the subsequent conversation about moving forward with it in an easier place, because now everyone knows you understand what is being asked of you.

This is good. It opens a real discussion about the issue at hand.

I just want the feedback. Here's what I saw happening, I think that was wrong because of this and that and you should try doing this other thing more instead. That's just helpful, no need to cushion it.

I dislike shit sandwiches but I think they generally do work, at least to remind people that you can't just shit on someone.

If the shit sandwich doesn't work on you, that's on you. In fact the goal for personal growth is to be able to take the shit with or without the sandwich. Feedback delivered roughly is still feedback, in fact the roughest feedback is often the most valuable. It's the stuff that should have been said a long time ago.

When someone is given feedback they'll walk away with one prominent takeaway. If the first piece of feedback was positive, the second corrective and the last positive, that person is going to walk away thinking they're doing a great job.

If you have a piece of feedback just give that feedback. Don't decorate it. Don't sweeten it up. Be direct, objective and be helpful if it requires support to implement.

The shit sandwich is just bad management advice.

> If the shit sandwich doesn't work on you, that's on you.

And if people never believe your compliments, then that's on you, because you'll quickly get the reputation of manufacturing compliments only for the purpose of delivering shit (regardless of whether this is true or not).

> In fact the goal for personal growth is to be able to take the shit with or without the sandwich.

You misread the GP. When he said "Shit sandwiches don't work." he explicitly added "People can still tell when they're being fed a load of shit." His complaint isn't that people can't handle the shit. It's that they realize they're being given shit and have a problem with the (real or perceived) artifice around it.

He is projecting his personal preferences on the human race. The idea that all the people in the world handle criticism exactly the same way is absurd. I have come across many people in my career who needed criticism to be broken to them gently. Others (evidently highly represented on Hacker News, but not from my experience in the general US population, maybe in some other cultures) prefer that it be direct.

Other comments in the thread were along the lines of "it's not good criticism if it's not delivered the way I like it" which is basically just saying that you enjoy shooting yourself in the foot.

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