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Comment by thom | Hacker News Reader

I dunno what’s up with these Ask HNs which are utterly transparent humblebrags but in this case, chances are what you think is clear communication lacks a lot of context and nuance, and despite obviously feeling superior to them, you’re missing or ignoring important information that people want you to possess.

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This. I've seen to many times how some people ask direct question which doesn't have simple answer. So they instead get answer with some context, questions and conditional statements.

It happens often when question goes through 'occupation boundaries'. Eg you are manager (judging by 'my experience is with SWEs') and you ask 'simple' direct question from swe "can you implement this feature". And instead you get wall of text. Which might be frustrating, but is it SWE to blame?

Indeed, any SWE manager asking 'Can you implement this?' and not expecting a wall of followup questions, conditionals, and background context is out of their depth.

> a wall of followup questions, conditionals, and background context is out of their depth.

Really?

I hate long discussions so I try to answer my questions as succinctly as possible. In this case, if I think I can implement, I'll simply say yes. If not, I'll say no and give the reasons why.

I guess I'm out of my depth?

And yet some people just can’t communicate well with any of their co-workers, and that’s what we’re discussing here.

Your comments elsethread are further examples of someone ignoring (and apparently attempting to throw under the bus) co-workers who are trying to provide important, actionable context.

Sometimes one just needs a direct answer to a question. In fact, it’s a common anti-pattern of effective communication, to think that “more detail (all the detail) is always better.” Sometimes we just need an answer to the question, and will ask follow-ups as needed.

I find a correlation actually where people who struggle to give clear answers/explanations, struggle in their own decision-making. They get ensnarled into ever-deepening details and can’t cut through them to make actual progress.

All the examples you've given are of team members struggling in a wider ecosystem. Yes, you can stamp your foot and hold them to their responsibilities on a single task. But you might deliver more value if you listened to the things holding them back, because there will always be future tasks.

Again... in many contexts, yes I appreciate the detail. I'm not saying engineer-to-manager or engineer-to-engineer communication should also be terse.

But some people struggle to collect their thoughts clearly, and struggle to articulate simple answers to even the simplest of questions. I have seen this, and seen how detrimental it is to their effectiveness as engineers and teammates. My approach is to actively coach people on my team that I see with poor communication.

And it's a valuable skill that I'm advocating. When an engineer is invited to a VP presentation, and the VP asks "Has this feature launched?", you better believe they don't want a 3-minute ramble of the challenges they faced, or what they'd do differently, or whatever. They want to know: "Has. This. Feature. Shipped?"

Sometimes it is a fear response to the anticipated consequences of giving a clear answer.

In your example, I imagine that the engineer is trying to be seen as still worthy of employment despite not shipping a feature. That motivates them to show themselves as:

- Able to overcome some challenges.

- Able to learn from mistakes.

This is a self-reenforcing cycle. An engineer who struggles to make decisions will struggle to deliver at pace. An engineer who struggles to delver at pace will have more experiences of getting fired. An engineer with more experiences of getting fired will be more fearful and thus struggle more to gather their thoughts and communicate clearly.

The only solution I know of is more secure professional relationships such as with a coach such as you’ve been acting as.

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