Dont Explain Yourself | Hacker News Reader

Dont Explain Yourself

erikvancraddock.com

51 pointserikvann26 comments

I agree in many situations. In many kinds of discussion (debate, sales, other persuasion), people are asking you to elaborate so they can tell you why you are wrong. In sales it's called "objection handling" and it's something salespeople learn and practice. If you believe you are in such a discussion, explaining is just providing a larger attack surface.

In good faith discussions, where you and your discussion partners are actually trying to understand each other, it's better to explain

> If you believe you are in such a discussion, explaining is just providing a larger attack surface.

Only if you lie about your objection. Otherwise, maybe it can get overcome and you can engage in a win-win transaction. That is, it's not in red, it costs too much and it's not available delivered Thursday are all problems that may be solveable.

Now, if you invent a problem for something you aren't interested in at all, that's an issue.

It is still a larger attack surface. A salesperson can give a false impression about the value of the ongoing relationship over the transaction and make a ~promise that is not legally binding.

I.e. if you give the actual date you need something they may say they talked to a friend in logistics and they have it on good authority that it really should be here by then. Getting their offer with no indication of your requirements means any misrepresentations aren't tuned to your specific requirements.

I mean, I guess if you think the person is lying to you, don't do business with them. But that seems to apply regardless of what you tell them.

Ironically, what has happened here, is that the poster above you thought it polite to explain themselves, which gave you an opportunity to attack a super-specific not-necessarily-representative scenario of their argument. All while effecticely counterarguing that explaining yourself cannot possibly backfire, ever.

The irony is delicious here xD

Wow, this is bad advice for any time you're in a hierarchical relationship. Try this with your boss

- I'm not going to do the thing that you asked me to do.

- Why?

- I don't explain my decisions as a matter of principle!

- You're fired.

Similarly if you take this tack with your children or employees you give up any hope of teaching them reasoning abilities or giving them wider context they need to not ask you for things you can't give in future. Ultimately they are likely to come to the conclusion that you are a petty tyrant whose decisions are arbitrary and simply bypass and/or despise you.

Sure, you don't owe the telemarketer an explanation, and you may not owe your relative, but there's a huge class of relationships where not giving explanations is just damaging to you and the people around you.

Right? I can see taking a conversation forward and saying no at a juncture where you see the purpose of it failing but to say no right in the beginning is just blunt and can come of rude depending upon the relationship person has with the other. The other person should walk away with some perspectives behind your (calculated) No not the bad feeling surrounding the blunt No. This doesn’t mean that you have to give him something you don’t or shouldn’t. But there is always pragmatism possible in most scenarios to keep the future conversations open and civil.

It felt overly authoritarian to me as well, but I think that's part of the point. In all the examples the author did have the authority to say no.

In any sort of leadership position you should absolutely take advice and talk to people, but as soon as a decision is made you have to stop talking about it and just communicate the decision. It's more frustrating for people to think a decision is up for discussion when in reality it's not.

Do you really think that that is what TFA is about, at all?

Cause its fucking great advice for dealing with your boss. Getting called in on your day off? Don't want to come in? Don't explain, simply decline. Need to take a day off? Notify them, don't explain or justify past the bare minimum.

Explaining when you don't need to is not a great idea. Thats the big idea. Not, "never explain yourself", which is assinine, and obviously much easier for you to rail against.

This is awful advice, and really only applicable for anyone who isn't responsible to anyone else for their decision making. Has this author never had to sell one of their ideas, or argue for a particular implementation detail, or explain a mistake? Explaining thinking is a cornerstone in building consensus, discussion, advocacy, and leadership. It invites conversation and dialog, bringing people into an understanding. Most jobs are foundationally a communal activity, and no man is an island. Tough to have to work with someone who never gives an explanation for anything.

For a more technical example:

I think a lot of us have come across systems that seemed weird so we ask "what the fuck were they thinking, this sucks". A lot of times this leads to frustration and the urge to rebuild.

And it's all because the reasons for it being that way aren't clear (hey, documentation is important). More often than not, the reasons for a particular decision are sound and, if given, can foster acceptance and appreciation.

Totally different context. Explaining decisions in a documentation setting is wholly appropriate, and completely unrelated to what the author is arguing here, which is people are not entitled to an explanation why their request is declined, when the main point of the explanation is to better enable coaxing an agreement.

I see no realistic scenario where proper documentation would make a downstream developer pick up the phone and ask for favours.

This is good advice in the same vein as the multiple-times-submitted "You can't tell people anything (2004)"[0][1][2][3]. The crux of the issue is that people prefer their own understanding of the world over someone else's. As with the examples given in this article, each person took the opportunity to further develop in their mind their own idea about the situation whilst disregarding the author's reality. This is human nature. You see it in "You can't tell people anything" where the software team really just thought about what the Chip tried to explain to them in their own way, heavily steered by their own very different understanding of things. Outside of these examples, my experience is that an exceptionally small amount of people are really willing to listen. When it seems that many people are listening, I'd argue that it's their own preconceptions that pave the way for the message. If their preconceptions aren't in line with the message, then you get into the situation the author describes. In those cases, just saying No really is more efficient.

[0] http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-an...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23617188

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17384703

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28775517

Other commenters are brushing this advice aside on the grounds that it’s isn’t universally applicable. But, if we accept that it requires some discernment, I think it’s pretty sound, particularly in cases where it’s important to be authoritative.

I’m reminded of the English crown’s unofficial motto: “don’t complain; don’t explain”.

I agree - I notice many times good advice is overlooked because of some not-very-common-scenario.

For example:

Think twice about giving detailed status reports, especially things you are stuck on.

If you're stuck on something that needs help, by all means call it out.

But I've sometimes found that when I give detailed status and mention some detail of my current stopping point, I get all kinds of unsolicited advice and micromanagement.

for example, if I were to give my status as "Working on interface code, struggling with undocumented interfaces" I'm pretty sure I would get all kinds of advice on how to fix it even though I'll probably get through it in an hour.

It conflates exposing your reasoning with being open to debate. I can perfectly well state my decision, make it clear that it's final, while also explaining it. This, for example, is exactly how courts work.

I agree with some others here: this advice is not useful often enough to go unqualified. It may make sense to frame it more in terms of "In situations where there the person is unknown and the communication is unsolicited, don't explain yourself."

I suspect 99% of my daily interactions would not benefit from advice. Perhaps I'm an outlier.

Hmm… the bit about how explanations invite insistence jives with my experience. Not offering an explanation (again, in the appropriate context) has worked astonishingly well for me, personally.

Like you, I suspect that 99% of my daily interactions would be degraded if I applied this rule. However, the remaining 1% happen to cause the most pain, and it’s precisely here that the articles advice rings true.

> particularly in cases where it’s important to be authoritative.

I think this is lens makes the advice clearer.

"Don't explain yourself" or "use of authority doesn't require explanation" smells gross because it's anti-egalitarian. (People are equal, how can one person have authority to an extent that explanation isn't needed/beneficial?).

In a sense, "explaining things" is a way of showing you're not wielding authority over others, or open to suggestions.

The frustrating situations described in the original post, since OP's mind isn't open to be changed, his advice is to 'wield authority': to say no to telemarketer, to his son asking for a kitten. Giving explanation while teaching shows that the reason what's being taught is true isn't just because the teacher is saying it.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. I suspect people are reacting to the potential for this advice to be misapplied by assholes.

> I’m reminded of the English crown’s unofficial motto: “don’t complain; don’t explain”.

Was this explained to to current royals, it’s hilarious?

Unsurprisingly, many Brits agree with you. I've heard "don't complain; don't explain" invoked in the news more times than I can count in the past few years.

This is terrible advice. Woe unto anyone who extrapolates from telemarketer interactions to their relationships with their kids.

Especially when the extrapolated practice is not to offer explanations for your thinking. That's how you end up raising a human who is conditioned to accept "because I said so" as valid in their intimate relationships.

It really is awful advice for relationships.

The advice has strategic advantage in limited situations.

Hiding your decision making from others robs you of the opportunity to learn from others. If your decision is on such weak footing it can’t hold up the the scrutiny of friends and family then perhaps it should be questioned.

If the person doing the questioning is not tending toward appreciative understanding, then avoiding discussion makes sense.

To quote the philosopher Costanza: “we live in a society!” Not letting people know what you’re thinking is good advice if you’re in the mafia, not if you’re trying to raise a child or work at a company.

After reading this article, I sincerely hope I never encounter the author in any kind of professional or personal setting. His view of humanity is borderline psychotic.

Generally some good advice here. I don't really understand the perspective of people who are railing against it. Maybe they didn't read TFA?

I think simply and politely declining is the most polite thing to do in some situations. And its something a lot of people struggle with.

Sorry, but I'll skip this advice.

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