I don't want to work with people that communicate this way.
A question by it's nature isn't aggressive. The words "should" and "we" are the real cancers IMO, as in "we should have done..."
I think your example of have you thought about, vs. Why did you is potentially better but I personally don't have an issue answering either question or feel attacked in either case.
I would on the other hand be concerned about working with someone immature enough to read in so far to perfectly innocuous curiosity.
"Have you thought about this approach" can come across as condcending. Of course I thought about that, it was the first thing I tried before the much more complicated solution that actually works.
"Why didn't you do it this way" invites them to share the war story of what happened when they tried doing that.
That said, I never liked the 'sandwhich' method, saying; "Great effort. The result is horrible, like your indentation though."
The trick is to know who you are talking to. If they did think of your idea, accusing them of having missed it is offensive. If they didn't consider it, asking them to justify their reasoning puts them on the spot.
Overall I agree with your assessment though. People giving this sort of feedback usually focus upon the problem and grasp at straws when it comes to the compliment.
This is what I want to hear. Tell me you first considered it and ruled it out because of XYZ. No where am I saying “I think you’re incompetent and I would have done it this way”. On the contrary, I think you’re the right person for the job and I want to hear the assessment of the various other approaches (if any) and why yours fits the bill. It could be as simple as “well, mine does Y, others don’t”. Next time someone asks you about your approach, try not to assume they are trying to belittle you or get you into a “gotcha” situation.
I’m sorry that you had bad managers in the past and are hurt by someone asking about your methods. I genuinely want to know so I can defend the choice to the higher ups on your behalf.
I love being told short, crisp, critical feedbacj that is data dense. Any overly verbose communication adds a layer of parsing and interpretation which may be unnecessarily ambiguous, which is more costly and for the benefit of what? a subjective opinion that it is 'more social'?
As with most things, it depends and knowing your audience goes miles.
Only having one is a form of poor social skills.
Wrapping of criticism in praise is a poor substitute for genuinely praising good work, and being empathetic and helpful with direct, unambiguous feedback when someone can improve. Mistakes are inevitable. They're not a problem. It's ok to discuss them directly.
'Why didn't you do it this way?' reveals an expectation that you would have done whatever it was 'this way', but it doesn't indicate that that expectation is normative. A junior might well ask that just because 'this way' is the only way they know how to do it, and they're curious about whether the developer they're asking chose a different route for stylistic reasons, performance reasons, or out of some entirely different consideration. Nothing critical about it.
Inferring criticism from mere surprise may be uncomfortable, but it also seems a kind of misapprehension that will very quickly sort itself out as the conversation goes on.
In contrast to the case above, by the way, 'have you thought about this [other] approach?' does imply that the asker knows better because it very directly and explicitly raises the possibility that the one being asked hasn't even considered alternative implementations.
Imo a lot of the difficulty with things like this comes from high turnover and/or siloing. When you're working with someone who is basically a stranger, that means you've hardly had a chance to build up a real sense of rapport/trust/comfort with that person. So it's easier to doubt yourself and harder to know what the other person really intends.
Most differences in communication style or preferences about how to approach criticism are at least somewhat easier to deal with between people who know each other and understand what their particular differences are.
It doesn't mean you have to be mean about it, but you can just spit it out.
"Why didn't you do it this way?" I trust that you considered many alternatives. Can you tell me your thoughts about the decision you arrived at?
“have you thought about this approach?” You probably couldn’t imagine this possibility, let me do it for you. Checkmate!
I can also see how they could each be interpreted in the opposite directions.
I’m betting it’s more about the contextual body language and tone they’re delivered with than the words/sentences themselves that matters, which I just don’t see being that different once you look behind them to see the gist of the message.
That’s the double edged sword of text-only communication: you can choose to interpret everything charitably, but you can also infer a condescending tone even if it wasn’t intended.
Expecting people to wordsmith to your individual taste is just asking for otherwise fine coworkers to be mind readers.
I’m more into “ehhh honestly not how I would do it. The {problem} will cause issues down the road”. And that opens up a two ended respectful conversation. Someone telling that to me, I’m not going to think they’re being an asshole.
I’ve learned a lot from people stopping me from firing a footgun directly into my… foot.
If the context is that someone is speaking about something they think they know, and which would be acted upon, what about phrasing the concern as a question, like "How does that approach handle {problem}?"?
(Not that I always practice this, because I don't. But probably it's generally best if I don't assume I'm right. Risks include people who misinterpret question-asking.)
If two doctors are having a conversation about a treatment, do you think they have these roundabout conversations or do they just say "No, his liver is shot, he can't take that." We're professionals too. We should have enough mutual respect for each other to be upfront.
How would you ask the question differently, if your intent was that you wanted to understand how they handled "{problem}"?
Honestly that’s just my mileage I guess. Maybe it depends on everyone’s own personal attachment to their ideas, but if someone thinks I’m about to pull the footgun trigger, I want them to tell me that.
If they’re right, they saved my foot.
If they’re wrong, I show them that the safety is on, and we go on.
Getting all “well what is it you expect to accomplish with that? Is this aligned with the incentives of the team? If there was a safety would it be on, hypothetically?” just serves to muddy the message and come off “smarter than thou”. I’d call it manager speak.
Alternatively, the questioner might not have your context on the situation and they might sincerely want to know if you've considered the problem they're asking about.
"Not sure, but I'll look into that" is an acceptable answer most of the time.
This is good so long as it’s framed in a use-case. Like, we need to handle sending emails (simple example), How does your approach solve the need to send emails? Demonstrate it.
It’s important that we remember we are talking about praise, not criticism here. Something often lost on the rest of the commenters here.
I have lived for a few decades at this point and have noticed, like anyone else I imagine, a desire in (some, but a nontrivial percentage of) people to maintain lifelong ways of thinking and behaving that have been historically associated with early life.
For example, a desire to be praised and not challenged, to dress like a teenager even as one nears retirement, to show a degree of enthusiasm for pedestrian events that was once reserved for major accomplishments.
For some of us this is a KPI of our life/job satisfaction.
I can tell you that if I was in some job that did not allow me to schlep around in hoodies and cargo pants I would be much, much less happy than I am today.
I like working out and being in shape, but if others prefer to do some side project at night instead of hitting weights, it is fine with me. I enjoy reading and thinking, but if others prefer to watch reality tv, who am I to judge them?
Admittedly, seeing some of my middle-aged colleagues who are complete slobs, from their worn-out clothes to their prominent bellies to their unkempt hair and beards and some fun smell coming out of them, is a stress-test for the fortitude of my beliefs.
There are people who like this style on both sides of the conversation, but in my experience, these are not high performers who make a difference in an initiative, a company, or a group of friends.
Now, the alternative to paternalism is not rudeness, or brutality, but, as I see it, a clear communication that does not infantilize people, but treat them seriously, like serious adult people, and not kids who have to be coddled or paid excessive attention too, or, even worse, as "damaged goods".
A few years ago, I received a message from someone I had a date with, and they used the sandwich, paternalistic style of communication that most adults dislike. "Hi, it was great to meet you and we had such a great time. Unfortunately, I don't think it would work etc. I wish you the very best/you are a great guy/see you around". Unsurprisingly, they were working in corporate. It is annoying to be treated like kids when there are white hairs on semi-bald heads.
Is it hard to believe that someone could have a great time with you but not see you as a future partner for themselves?
Maybe this visceral dislike for this style of communication is why? You’re entitled to your opinion and preferences as are they. If you’re willing to look past yourself, maybe that person thought you were too much, instead of too little. Maybe you were further down the road than they are and they want someone closer to where they are in the journey.
I’m simply stating that expressing praise for a thing doesn’t have to be clouded in ulterior motives like trying to prove you know better. You can simply reply back “Thanks, I had a great time too. If you ever change your mind or want to hang out again, give me a ring. If not, I hope you find your happiness, whatever that looks like for you.”
That’s a respectful reply.
But I personally can't adapt to the subset of people who spin a preference for receiving "direct" critiques into a penchant for giving critiques with no consideration whatever for preserving the face of the recipient.
My worst experiences have been with people who make a big deal about being "direct" but are actually quite psychologically astute and who find ways to smuggle maximum cruelty within their "direct" critiques, yet without going over the line where a sanction would be justified.
That just makes you a disappointing, inefficient hypocrite.
But you understand that people can genuinely like you right?
Perhaps that person is trying to not throw the baby out with the bath water.
“Hey I’m glad you patched the bug, but can you give the SREs a heads up next time? They p0’ed on an expected traffic spike”
The person is actually happy with you for fixing a bug. They don’t want to you take away that in the future, to not take initiative and fix bugs.
To me that just sounds passive aggressive and sort of like "you should mind your own business".
I'd feel better you if someone just told me: "I saw you patched a bug, could you do X"
or even just "can you give the SREs a heads up next time?" alone.
Then again I'm used to a culture where any praise is ussually implicit and criticism tends to be quite explicit so it's easy to interpret words like "glad" etc. as insincere by default without even wanting too..
"Hey, I saw you patched that bug that was causing traffics spikes. That's awesome work and I appreciate your proactivity! The Ops team thought we had to work late tonight to implement mitigations for the problem.
In fact, it looks like we had a communication breakdown and they didn't realize you had fixed the issue until 6 hours later. In the future do you think you could let them know when this sort of problem is fixed, just to make sure we're all on the same page? We'll have to look at a solution for automated alerts too -- maybe an integration with the ticket system or build system. Do you have any ideas for that so we don't have to rely on manual communication? We're moving so fast that it's hard for everyone to keep up! Thanks again for the great work."
Yeah, I do. And when I get genuine compliments, I like them!
But it's obvious when someone consistently prefaces their statements with "softening" compliments. When they're "deploying" a "communications strategy."
Talk to me like a real person, please. It will make it easier for those compliments to land when recipients know they're real. But if you're the type to always lead with one, then they're all worthless. You're just a happy-talker. Your praise is empty.
Especially in large corporate organizations where there are vast differences in how people communicate and take input, and you talk to too many people in a given day to really get close with any of them, it requires a handshake to know that I can always indicate my roughly unfiltered technical opinion to you and that you'll take it in stride, and if you feel strongly about it, you'll have the confidence to shoot my idea down without me having to give you an opening by posing my suggestion as a question.
> I always have doubts about others' work and suggestions on how they could do it better
If you're right, they should listen to you (gratefully), if you're not they should tell you why so you can learn. There is no good reason to react emotionally to professional criticism, it is a worst-practice which no measures ought be taken to accommodate.
And yet when it happens (not a rare event), it can be quite unproductive for both parties. I would hope that you deal with other worst-practices in your domain with greater grace than a total refusal to deal with and prevent pathological outcomes.
Additionally, if you truly believe what you stated, then so long as I avoid sacrificing significant efficiency/productivity to keep my words from bothering people, then I do not see why it should bother you either. If I had to self-judge, I really don't think that the added conversational padding pans out to more than 15 minutes per day. That's worth spending to make sure that the people you work with are engaged with you and the task at hand in an accommodating way, rather than fearing being rebuked at each turn.
When it does happen, like any other mistake, it should be corrected. Just like if someone put secrets into git, it should be explained to them why they shouldn't do that, and an expectation should be set not to do it again. If the individual fails to meet that expectation, disciplinary action should be taken, up to and including termination.
I've in fact had this happen to a developer who took PR comments personally. The rest of the team was very glad to see them terminated. Fifteen minutes per day adds up to a lot, and I'm quite sure it's more for staff whose roles are heavier on communication or those for whom anticipating people's feelings comes less naturally.
> rather than fearing being rebuked at each turn
My point is that a fear of professional criticism is a fundamental flaw in a professional, one that should be corrected to the benefit of the individual and the organization. A leader who refuses to correct this flaw in their reports is holding back their professional development and failing in their role as mentor. One should experience nothing but sublime gratitude that one's mistakes were found and corrected before they caused any damage.
If I'm tasked with a code review, that is pretty much a directive for me to offer feedback. When I am asked explicitly for feedback, whether directly by my peer or as assigned by a higher up, I tend not to bother with the kind of niceties I am talking about. Still, being nice is nice. But I expect the other person to take my words as-is, so I won't mince them.
Accommodating others becomes more important to me outside of this "directly asked for feedback" context. If I'm in a group discussion, or if my feedback hasn't been explicitly solicited, then that's a trickier environment with greater potential for me to negatively dominate the discussion. Similarly, if the issue at hand is not one of baseline technical necessity (like committing secrets to git) but more open to different opinions (like how to structure an interface we're exposing), I place greater weight on trying to be accommodating. I find that most discussions tend to be of the latter kind.
I read it as passive aggressive. Pretty much everyone in my culture would read it this way. If you think it is a good example, please reconsider.
Since this is a discussion of communication theory, I have to say, it’s crazy to me that you read it as passive aggressive.
Like when I say bad things about you, you can just accept those things in a straightforward fashion. However when I say good things about you, that cannot be accept in just as straightforward a way, and instead it is viewed as passive aggressive.
You don’t see the asymmetry there?
> However when I say good things about you
Yeah, I read it as the exact opposite, in this particular phrasing. Historical reasons.
In fact I’m on the SRE side in this example, and I often have to remind people to suppress alerts when they change something. I normally go with “We got paged for the planned works, could you please turn off alerts next time? Thanks”. I’m not thanking people for their job in this case because it’s likely irrelevant - we’re from different teams and chances are I don’t even know what exactly they’ve been working on (in a broad sense) or for what reason. I’m being polite and straightforward. Never got any complain, at least so far.
All this is a level of 4D interpersonal chess that you’re forcing me to play that could simply be avoided if you said that you think its worth changing it like so and so because such and such.
Because you open the communication with a lie.
But yeah if you're a person who's only capable of complaining and criticizing others (assuming it's perfectly legitimate/reasonable) you might struggle communicating with most people who don't know you really well/are used to different culture.
There are ways to like someone’s work, even if you don’t think it’s complete or optimal.
For example, I think a huge part of getting a job done is just having someone take initiative and at least try, as opposed to waiting for someone else to start them off.
The line might mean “I’m glad you started us down this road…”
If you would like to learn about these cultural preferences, read Erin Meyer's The Culture Map. https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/
It's a rule of thumb regardless. not an ironclad rule. generally, people want to be treated respectfully, so treat them respectfully and course correct if cultural/social lines demand it.
I would not enjoy that kind of workplace, and if I accidentally join a place that leaned very heavily on that communication style, I would likely leave quickly.
Given that I have consistently gotten thanked for how I give and take feedback from colleagues, I think I will be fine on finding organizations that work for me culturally.
(Edit: And no, that praise didn't contain "but I wish..."es.)
The point that may have gone missed in my original comment was the perspective was focused on "being effective" and not "working somewhere I like". One is somewhat selfish, the other is not.
FWIW, I'm not saying anyone should have to care about their impact. It's just ironic when I see people constantly job-hopping with the stated goal of finding a cultural fit so they can have said impact.
"Thanks that you liked it, I'm always happy with positive feedback so will share it widely within the team and towards my manager. When I get home I'll also tell my wife and put it in the family's group chat. Grandma's FB post should be up soon".
Don't lie to my face. I'm not a moron nor a child. You didn't like how I tackled it at all. You can just say that and point to tangible things where I went wrong. Any working professional should be able to handle that. And not just that, embrace it, it's a learning experience.
I'd rather work with someone who says, "fuck, why did I do it this way," first. To that I'd say, "it's not the end of the world, let's get on this."
So, basically lie in the face. How could that be good advice?!
If I do not like it, I would just say it. One thing is being polite, other completely different to be a liar.
"I don't want to work with people efficiently, and would rather cling to inefficient ways."