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Comment by actionablefiber | Hacker News Reader

I go with "my first impulse is to suggest..." which IMO adds the diplomatic nuance of admitting an incomplete understanding of the problem and/or the person experiencing the problem. You either get a "good suggestion, I'll try that" as a response or you get "you might think it's a good idea but I already considered it and XYZ problems occurred" and you can work from there.

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Everyone here is looking for ways to make unsolicited suggestions in a diplomatic way. Even with extra language this can be irritating to reply to. I’ve learned to first ask if there is anything I can do to help, rather than immediately making suggestions. Often times people are doing just fine working through a problem, and may want to communicate the status without receiving advice on how to solve it.

For interpersonal situations, people often just want to be heard without any advice being given. A simple “I hear what you’re going through and I’m here if you need anything” is way better than finding ways to immediately offer advice, but I believe this applies to professional situations as well.

This is certainly sometimes true, but when someone is explicitly asking for help, making suggestions that are too "obvious" may come off as condescending or, if the other person hadn't tried it, put them on the defensive. For instance you might suggest something like "turn it off and on again" and the other person might say "duh, I already tried that and it didn't work, I wouldn't have come to you otherwise" or worse they might not have tried it but the way you suggest it as a blindingly obvious course of action makes them feel bad for not having tried it.

Can't you ask "What have you tried so far?". I can't imagine that being taken weirdly.

In some situations could result in a 30 minute speech though.

That has got to be a very rare occurrence. Asking first is in my opinion the best advice. If in rare situations the person is giving a long winded or incoherent answer it should be okay to interrupt, but to avoid asking them what they tried on the off chance they are a poor communicator seems to me a bad tactic.

That's unfortunate but if the user has done something that takes 30 minutes to explain it's probably worth listening.

If you’ve been asked to help troubleshoot or fix a broken system then it’s not really unsolicited.

Often if I’m the person who is stuck I’m totally willing to let a new set of eyes offer all of the “obvious” things that have already tried, because while it’s usually just a rehash, there are occasionally “but what about” cases that haven’t been checked yet. And if we don’t find anything new, at least the helper is now up to speed on what’s already been covered.

Certainly if you have been asked for help then offering advice is fine. But often people will jump straight to offering advice without even establishing that the person wants help, and I wanted to call attention to that behavior.

I appreciate unsolicited feedback. I don't know why people are so anti it...

For a lot of folks, they either just want to be heard/understood, or they may not even recognize if there’s a problem (i.e. they have anosognosia). Imagine someone forcing their opinion when a person is at their most vulnerable, it’s most often perceived as just patronizing/dismissing their concerns, or as an outright attack. Active listening and developing trust first is key.

Are we talking about work or marriage? If someone wants to interrupt another person's work, they should be gracious enough to first try obvious suggestions and explain why that didn't solve the problem. Just listening is great in personal relationships when the focus is on the journey rather than the destination.

As I said I believe this applies equally to professional settings and interpersonal relationships. I don’t see why interrupting someone’s work and offering unsolicited suggestions should be considered gracious. It sounds irritating to me. Listening is very valuable in professional situations!

I go with "my first impulse is to suggest..." which IMO adds the diplomatic nuance of admitting an incomplete understanding of the problem and/or the person experiencing the problem.

Same here, with a slight variation. I usually say "my first thought is to try ..." or "the first thing that comes to mind for me is ..."

Depending on the situation I might also use the old "Have you tried ..." phrasing.

I also like “could you try…” as a way of acknowledging that it’s a suggestion that may be unworkable for reasons I don’t know, and that I’m willing to hear that.

"could we try"

not always a we

It doesn't have to be literal.

Same. "My first thought is...but I'm sure I don't understand all the nuances."

Branching way off topic, and paraphrasing Sun Tsu here, but he says to always give your opponent an out unless you plan to completely destroy them. Very rarely in business do you want to or need to destroy someone so I try to soften my suggestions.

The other mantra I repeat almost daily is 'do I want to be right or effective'. It feels great to tell someone an idea you know is 100% right, but does that mean they'll use it? At the end of the day I want to be effective. "Just" feels more like being right, than effective.

Speaking of phrases, early in my career the senior VP of my business unit was a nice, very sharp woman. One of the best executives I've ever met. Listening to her on calls was a master class on EQ and how to deal with people professionally. But, anytime she said 'help me understand...' you knew the hammer was coming.

I wish there were an actual masterclass on how to deal with people professionally.

A lot of ones I've seen is hand-wavey "be more empathetic" or "there are multiple intelligences" kind of advice.

I'd like to be able to listen in on conversations with challenging DO's and DON'Ts.

e.g. "Why do you think Rajesh reacted this way? What might James have said to elicit a more positive reaction, all other things being the same?"

Not so much intercultural communication as "here's how to give someone an out".

Similar to correcting a big shot's mistaken notion, where you might say something like "Curiously, that turns out not to be the case."

Oh, I might have to borrow that! I've sometimes used "for my own understanding, is there a reason we're not doing X?"

This one grates on me as insincere-sounding, to be honest. It can sound a bit like a sarcastic way to state the obvious. “Oh, you’re cold? For my understanding — and I may be way off base here — but is there a reason you haven’t closed the fucking window?” (Obvious extreme example of intentional sarcasm)

I wish more people would ask simple questions with the expectation of getting a complicated answer.

Usually it’s more along the lines of “for my own understanding, why can’t we just ship things as they’re ready instead of waiting for everything in the order to go in one box?”

Similar: I like “maybe a dumb question, but tell me about X”. I am never shy about being possibly redundant or asking “dumb” questions.

I try not to frame things as “dumb questions” because I find that junior devs can feel a lot of their questions are “dumb” but really they’re often very good questions and (even if you lead by example) they can be hesitant to ask them. I think it’s generally a good assumption that if someone has a question in mind then it’s worth exploring, so there are no dumb questions.

Fair point. I think as a senior dev (and someone in their mid-40s with a longish career) I want to make a point that I still ask the type of question. But a good thing to be sensitive to.

Yeah absolutely and some of the most senior engineers I have worked with often made a point of asking seemingly obvious questions, to great effect. I think it’s a wonderful thing to demonstrate and I do the same.

“Naively, I’d be thinking about trying…”

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