How to boss without being bossy
jeffwofford.com
jeffwofford.com
But more seriously:
Ensure people know what and why something is important, ideally by arriving at that conclusion jointly and as part of an overarching plan that everyone can feel involved in - thus requests shouldn't be a surprise, they aren't coming from you so much as from the plan (nebulous though it may be).
Don't try to maintain 'superiority' by withholding information.
Show consideration for other pressures that somebody might be under.
Listen when they say no.
Close the loop so that good results get back to the person who did the thing.
Handle bad results in the same way that the NTSB deals with plane crashes - find the flaws in the system instead of somebody to blame.
Be ready to help out others as they have helped out you.
The "nice" corner of the chart simply screams hypocrisy to me. Like they want to say or mean "do this" but they try to couch it in some passive aggressive pleasantry. No thank you. I prefer clear communication.
It's a hard time for people like us to be in tech (particularly startups and small companies), because the culture of extreme passive aggressive is widespread and prevalent. Many people, most people, view direct requests as rudeness or condescension, even though the net result is exactly the same.
The worst part of it to me though, is that it can be hard sometimes to figure out what the person means. If they could just say what they mean, it would be so much easier. But no, instead we have to imply and hint our way to what we want lest we be taken as rude, and this requires the receiver to exercise some part of mind reading. Most of the time it actually works fine, but there are sometimes important and consequential moments when it doesn't work fine and there is miscommunication, sometimes with disastrous results. And completely unnecessary, if the person could have just said what they meant instead of trying to hint it. It doesn't need to be this way people.
And that's not some terrible thing. Like you said, a job is something you do for money. If it weren't, it would be a hobby.
Having people be passionate about the work they do is a great way to lower the wages and working conditions. Look at gamedev, or other sectors people are passionate about. Because so many people want to build games, they are considered expendable/replaceable and are treated poorly, both in terms of wages, working hours, and other labour conditions. The same thing applies to FAANG companies to some extent - they just "burn up" young talent by motivating them to spend as much time crunching in the office as possible.
...well, that explains its popularity in the corporate world then. rimshot
I've managed equally passionate teams. All I'd have to say most times is, "We gotta get this done." And somebody would jump up and say they would do it, because they saw the value of learning it, the value to the team, the value to the organization, or all three.
The last two places I have worked (A non-profit and a mission-based Linux company) have been completely different. Almost everybody was passionate only about keeping a roof over their heads (if that). It is a source of constant chuckles that I found more passion in a second tier ad-tech company than I do in mission-driven organizations.
I think companies have earned this though because of exactly what others have said in this thread. Companies have taken advantage of passion so that now. Say what you will about the ad-tech company they did retreats all around the world, gave us interesting swag and threw incredible parties. The mission driven organizations are like "Do it because you belieeeeeve."
[edited to remove nonsense]
If person says no or asks why I can elaborate or hear them out why and maybe I will do it on my own or delegate to another person.
That sentence seems clear on what needs to be done and that it needs to be done, there is no “could, maybe” on the “do it” part and still gives other person control over the situation.
For reasonable request and from boss position I don’t see how would it backfire.
For unreasonable request or unreasonable person on receiving end - I guess there is no good way anyway :)
What's wrong with a nice, "Please foo?"
Especially for filling out time sheets or heck, TPS reports. This goes really well.
For anyone who has not seen the movie Office Space, you need to see it. While you are at it, also watch the series Silicon Valley.
But I think your suggestions mirror my experience in actually getting the person to do the thing. The other benefit is that the same steps, more or less, work well when managing up as well as down.
Sometimes, that's fine. After all, I would assume no rational human is going to "command" someone to do a thing if they don't think they want that thing done. Personally, I've found that pointing people in a general direction ends up yielding far superior results. Empower your team, and they'll surprise you, usually in a good way.
Sometimes your team will surprise you but often they’ll horribly disappoint you. If the stakes are low, sure do whatever, but if shit matters …
The bad engineering managers I've seen seem to suffer from anthropophobia when they aren't giving orders in a meeting room.
Worst are the people who both don’t like the “I need you to …” task giving and do absolutely nothing when left alone or only given a goal and a direction. How do you deal with it if you are working on an industry where performance adjustments and feedback can take years and you can coast without doing anything four more than a couple of years?
Long term, if you have the right team, the positive surprises will more than cancel out the disappointments and the "meh" results. But, if it's a life or death type matter, fuck the long term -- you have to survive the short term before you start worrying about that. You can't manage or lead an organization that's at war the same way you would one that's at peace, and nor should you try.
And as a boss, you need to learn to delegate and first thing about delegation is that the other person must know clearly something was delegated to them.
Playing games around delegation only makes for worse experience. Creates noise, uncertainty and unnecessary failure.
In the end, if I am hired and paid for 8h of my time, I expect my boss to tell me what she needs me to do within those 8h.
Now, there are different ways to delegate. You can tell them "I need you to" 20 times a day pointing to small things or they can tell them "I need you to" on the first day of their job and then shut up about it.
One of my first questions to my new bosses is literally "what do you need me to do", unless they have already told me. This is to avoid any confusion about what I am supposed to be doing.
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All this nice and softy stuff comes after you have the very basic business of managing team done. To be nice to your team you need to have a reason to have a team and then you need to have a team or at least collection of people who are assigned as your resources for you to delegate work to.
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There is a pyramid of needs on both employer and employee side.
The employee needs to be paid first. Then treated nicely. Given the choice of being paid and treated nicely I would chose being treated nicely but that's just because I can go somewhere else to be paid and also have savings to not have to worry about it for a long time. If you don't have savings and don't have somewhere else to get paid, you care less about being treated nicely.
Likewise, the employer needs work to be done first. Whether they care for their workforce or not, work is more important because if the work isn't taken care of then there is no chance they can take care for the team anyway. At least not long term.
When a specific task absolutely needs to be done, the boss asks for volunteers, delegates, or does it themselves in that order.
The era of militarist corporations dictating downward, monopolizing information like it's some fucking government intelligence agency, and employees bending the knee to inflated egos upward is over.
Bosses now are organizational and individual employee facilitators of said employees getting shit done and improvements thereof.
Laying out what milestones need to get done and helpful bits to get there without micromanaging. Checking in and asking questions if there are any blocking items is okay.
Open-mindedness, dispassionate failure analysis, and 360 feedback are important to maintain professionalism and growth.
An issue can run the gambit from "it's the system" to person X is not doing their job inline with the basic expectations. Subpar managers will always try and blame the system over individual accountability even when the problem is blatantly obvious because if the person is the problem then that necessitates an uncomfortable social interaction. Best to understand the facts of a given problem and not jump to any conclusions about it must be the "system". There has to be some individual responsibility in the work place.
Can you say more about this? I use this phrase (or slight variations) all the time in both work and personal contexts. I had no idea it could be abrasive.
In those cases I strongly prefer to use and hear, "Will you please..."
There's something in it that feels like I don't exist. It's just an announcement of what the King or Queen wants. I'm not worthy of consideration in the request.
And there's nothing wrong with being irritated.
The phrase used to mean responses like "I wonder why some people act like moronic pieces of shit about others' seats". See how it's non-direct but aggressive at the same time?
When I'm asking someone to do something, I almost always want to know if that request is a stupid thing to do right then. So, "Will you please" implies my intent. If you don't think it's the right thing, then let me know and I'll almost always be persuaded by the new information.
If the reason is, "I don't feel like it." that's one kind of conversation, but the more common response is, "I'm right in the middle of xyz, can we do this tomorrow?", or even "I'm not sure we should do that at all because, x, y and z."
The answer is almost always, "Of course, thanks for letting me know."
All that said, a "Will you please" when you really mean, "Do this shit right now, or else!" is one of the most infuriating things people do and I've left an otherwise great relationship in large part because that nonsense was constant.
Having said that, I think it is wise to try to keep things amicable and only fall back to more rigid language and requests, stated as requirements, only after kinder communication has failed.
I don't think I've ever used this phrasing in writing, maybe because I also hear something similar to what you're hearing when I read it to myself...
Better to say that it is the thing that has 'needs' - e.g. 'the rubbish needs to be taken out [before the dustbin people get here]'
People on the spectrum will probably struggle with that type of ambiguity too, which is worth keeping in mind.
> Handle bad results in the same way that the NTSB deals with plane crashes - find the flaws in the system instead of somebody to blame.
Definitely. I'd like to see a lot more of that, but the default often seems to be blame.
I recall a system at a place I worked where the stakeholders (native or skilled non-native English speakers) would produce requirements by holding meetings with the developer (much less skilled non-native speaker), dictate what they wanted, and have the developer take notes (which the stakeholders would not check) then immediately implement the software. When the resulting software was built incorrectly they would blame the developer for incompetence, and hold another meeting.
When your kids are young, it matters much less and in some cases not at all. But especially as they get older, and can start to exercise reason, you should always, always explain why you are making a decision or a rule. Even if the why is "because I get too hot and I like the thermostat being low" being honest is not only going to get more compliance, but it will build trust, and your kids will learn from your example.
It really is good general life success advice.
This is a lesson I learned and it now bothers me to no end if it ever happens to me. When decisions are made behind closed doors and then commands rain down from above then I feel rage.
One thing I often say to people who I am responsible to lead is that they don't always have to agree but they need to understand. It is impossible for people to understand if information is kept from them. Even worse is if you try to fake compliance through faux-understanding using disinformation or by selectively editing information.
Another thing I do is plainly recognize when someone is being asked to do something they won't like. Understanding works here, but so does some empathy. You can both understand why the unpleasant task is required to achieve the goal and acknowledge the fact that the person tasked with the duty has a right to their feelings.
As often happens on HN, a comment worth more than the article. A concise and deep set of rules!
Of course, "establish mutual trust" is a whole megillah unto itself. But if it exists, "take out the trash" is not bossy. If it doesn't exist, "could we take out the trash?" is incredibly rude.
If your staff knows your character and that you will stand up for them and back their needs in the work place, the phrasing is secondary. The most important thing for me is to see the individual before directing them, and that takes time, empathy but also for them to see that I'm worthy of listening to (the criteria differ here).
If you're not considering your language and phrasing as a leader.. then you're not doing it right. Self reflection and adjustment is a huge part of leading.
OP is correct that rapport is important - although that's a different thing from what the article is discussing. An exercise for you and OP: Consider being the boss of a team where you haven't had time to build rapport with the team.
I actually spent years doing something very similar to the exercise you’re suggesting, which is what led me to the conclusion that subtle variations of meaning are too easy to overthink to be worth it for anything but prose. Add to that the fact that the differences in meaning are going to be, well, different depending on the background of the person I’m speaking to led me to the conclusion that if I find myself thinking about phrasing for a particular person for more than a few seconds I should focus on getting to know that person better. My social interactions have improved a lot as a result.
Do you know why you feel this way? How does it make you feel when somebody says that? Does this stay true even for a significant other?
Meta: I upvoted because this is a legitimate perspective and one I think that needs to be shared. For the down voters, why would you down vote this? Is there a reason besides that you disagree? Down voting something just because you disagree is silly.
So the social interaction is you come up to me and are deliberately hostile and then order me to do something. That's what you do to an employee you dislike and wish would quit.
Obviously I'm capable of understanding different people communicate differently, and I can deal, but that's always the initial reaction I'm going to have.
In my experience, the disconnect in this thread comes from three things:
1. Different cultures. What's rude in California might not be in Finland.
2. Autistic people vs neurotypical. Autistic people don't see the underlying message of (I hate you, please quit) underlying the surface "Do this" conversation.
And they (understandingly!) feel excluded and gaslit and frustrated. The solution there is for everyone to understand and work around the disconnect.
3. Antisocial HN nerds. There's always a few here who clearly don't care about other people and view them as things to be used and discarded. Other people aren't worth any effort.
Aka "Hey Jim, can you tackle this issue?"
It's less about the wording than the information it conveys, that you respect someone enough to talk to them politely and make the effort.
If it's hard to see the difference, would it make sense if I made an analogy? Your girlfriend texts you "call me? :)" vs. "Call me."
One is clearly flirty and in a good mood and the other could be angry? upset? urgent? The extra punctuation conveys information about how that person feels.
I said "If X, would it be helpful if I did Y?" because I'm about to explain something basic and I don't want to sound condescending and treat you like you're stupid.
"If it's hard to see the difference" = "It seems like this might be true, but I don't want to assume that. This way I give us both an out if I misjudged something and I'm accidentally being condescending."
"would it be helpful if I" - "I am trying to be helpful and not fight and so I am offering this as a question, so you have the freedom to ask for clarification or to discount it if it's not helpful"
It's less about the words and more about the "I am trying to be helpful and avoid sounding like I think you're dumb, which I do not" meaning.
It seems genetic instead of cultural, at least in my case. The local culture is quite direct about commands. And when I look at my father, I see the same trait. Far stronger, actually.
> How does it make you feel when somebody says that?
When someone is bossing around, I suddenly start to feel extremely independent and being robbed of my agency. I'm likely to do the opposite, just to manifest/assert my "rights". Just a slight change of phrasing (or my own attention) can direct the decision to a different circuit.
And the other side of the deal is that "I must" always means for me a very deep intrinsic motivation. I feel so much motivated about variety of the weirdest stuff that there's just no room left in me for "there's a societal expectation for you to do X".
> Does this stay true even for a significant other?
Of course, we often joke about it.
If they don't put it, they don't care about you.
A manager who doesn't care how he conveys the message, (or doesn't care how the same message is received differently by his different reports), doesn't care about his reports.
And when you’re at the point where you’re trying to figure out the “right way to say things” you’ve already, utterly, failed.
Good tech leaders influence, guide, and grow people. They are honest and authentic.
The management style I have seen work the best is when people act in a real, genuine and sincere ways that are true to who they are as individuals and avoid manipulative behavior. They can still be hard chargers. They can still be abrasive. But they generally have a great degree of self-honesty and consideration to others to go along with their ambition.
Spending oceans of time trying to figure out the right turn of phrase is a terrible idea. It’s focusing more on how things look rather than putting the focus on how things are and how things should be.
Obviously there are oceans of management styles. But I can say that the smooth talking, super considered people who are focused on how exactly to say things rather than bigger picture leadership ideals are typically to worst, most manipulative people I have ever worked with.
Ding ding ding! You win the prize.
The way I always put this to people is that "if dictating worked, there'd be a lot more dictators in the world."
> Good tech leaders influence, guide, and grow people. They are honest and authentic.
> The management style I have seen work the best is when people act in a real, genuine and sincere ways that are true to who they are as individuals and avoid manipulative behavior. They can still be hard chargers. They can still be abrasive. But they generally have a great degree of self-honesty and consideration to others to go along with their ambition.
The best managers I've ever had never told me to do anything. At my last position (from which I was unfortunately laid off a few months ago) as a senior staff engineer at a ~100 person startup with a ~30 person engineering org, my manager, the CTO, raised this to an art form. I joked with our other senior staff engineer (whom I hired) that our manager never said anything but "Figure it out." Once, after an eng all hands meeting, I Slacked my colleague and said "Well, if that wasn't peak $CTO-NAME, I don't know what is. I'm pretty sure what I just heard was the 25 minute version of 'figure it out.'"
"Figure it out" is a great message when you have a talented group of engineers working with you. They're experts at what they do, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten hired. "Figure it out" gives them room to get shit done, and it also goes a long way toward validating any concerns they might express. It's almost magical, really.
I worked there for almost a year, and I what I just wrote here for all of you is the absolute most valuable thing I learned in all that time. As a leader, telling smart, curious, and deeply technical people to "figure it out" will get you everything you ever dreamed of and more.
The only problem is that if you're not careful, you can end up talking too much, which leads to the other half of the lesson: shut the fuck up. Literally just stop talking, and leave some space in the conversation that you're not filling up with words. It's best if you can stop talking right as you've sketched out the barest outlines of a big idea, or told a good story, or you've just got something that's conceptually interesting to drop in the other person's lap.
Once you do that, "figure it out" + interesting idea + "shut the fuck up" is just like weaponized nerd sniping.
Eventually the situation got escalated up the chain and the director came to our site to look into the situation. I was hopeful that that would lead to some improvements but when he was introduced to the team and gave a little speech it basically boiled down to "back in my day engineers would get their hands dirty and figure things out, maybe as a company we've become too lazy and expect other teams to fix things for us" - i.e. "you guys need to stop being lazy and figure it out yourselves". We were pissed. Fortunately the management chain was able to get him to understand the situation and he assigned one of the main devops guys to work with us to make sure our needs were met going forward. He never even apologized to us, I think he just decided it would be better to disappear and let things settle (we worked in a satellite city and he was at the main office so this was the only time many of us had ever interacted with him).
Thank you for sharing this anecdote. It has helped me understand the management style I prefer.
Generally it’s very difficult to survive as a good manager in most large enterprises as the culture is toxic. And that culture is because of poor leadership at the top — CEO culture in American companies is divested of human sensitivity and deeply entrenched in exploitative ethos. “You got to do what you got to do.” It’s simply not true and many founder lead companies prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that companies don’t have to be run the way they do. But that’s the collective belief of the Harvard Business reading crowd.
The wage issues, environmental externalities, and people’s failing faith in the economically-driven society that has been so successful for so long reveals a system out of balance.
These are all management and leadership failures, be it inside of corporations or government. Few workers inside of the system glow about their bosses or the effectiveness of their leadership teams. And many that do only do so because of the contrast to terrible leadership they have experienced.
So I agree with you that there is a dearth of good leadership. What can we do about it?
It’s certainly much better than it was 20 years ago.
Ive owned several businesses and probably hired about 100 people in my life. Ive never commanded a single one.
These are voluntary relationships. I’m paying for their services. I don’t command the waitress to bring me a drink, and she doesn’t command me to pay her.
Why would I ever issue a command? Either you’re choosing to work with me, in which case you want to provide me with your service, or we’re not working together.
Agreed. Compare:
We’re going to sail on the high seas and discover new lands!
vs
Cut down that tree for wood and build a ship.
We’re going to sail on the high seas and discover new lands! Who's with me?
<loads of hands raise up>
Great! Now, what we need is some wood. How can we get some wood?
<lots of people point at the trees and eagerly grab an axe>
The first statement permits the response 'no'. It is clearly an order, with room for agency on the other side.
The second statement doesn't permit a response. To disagree you have to say 'you are wrong'. The statement leaves no room for free will. It assumes the authority of the command to be overwhelming. Or perhaps it is a threat.
I don't mind direct commands from a boss. But a boss that tells me what I will do, might likely find himself wrong.
"You will do this" no agency, no control, no considerations, skips calling out authority and goes direct
"Will you do this?" Direct, has agency but potentially confrontational if you say no
"I need you to do this" indicates their authority, direct, no control, could be inconsiderate to some as they overriding your priorities for their own
It can to be softened up with a question but if they really need you to do it I feel like your response also softens it up.
I think adding a acknowledgement of inconvenience, reason, urgency or explanation to it also helps.
"Hey Jim, I know you are working on X and this will be inconvenient for you but I need you to tackle Y" ideally a reason or compliment would be good too.
"I need you to do this because you have the most expertise on this and feel no one can do it well but you"
"I need you to do this right now. We are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars with the web server down" I feel this is an acceptable reason to demand to interrupt someone to take care of something that has a major impact on everyone
And for the life saving measures saying "I need you to evacuate this building immediately" is completely acceptable to me with no reason needed. Being butt hurt over a demand versus a kind request is better than dying.
I once got fired for not doing something the way the boss wanted, because at my previous job we did it the opposite way. He had explained that he wanted me to do it, but didn't say why, so I didn't remember. I too find that when I ask someone to do something, they're much more likely to do it right if I explain why, not just how. (Getting the method wrong is different from ignoring the request, but they both spring from the same underlying phenomenon -- we are likely to discard information if we don't know why to heed it.)
Context matters a whole lot, some of which doesn't even have to be verbal, but I've found that adding the why goes a long ways in getting people on board because no one wants to dive head first blindly into a demand or request without knowing the reason or desired outcome.
“You will be joining the oncall rotation” -> Quite friendly
The second one reads as a news report: like I, the reader of the oncall rotation, am sharing the news that your name has come up. (If I was the sole controller of the oncall rotation it might come across a bit differently, as an actual command).
I like the contrast of these two!
Those turns of phrases are more inspiring than they are commanding.
The challenges ahead are for the team to solve. It should be a team discussion on how to plan and divide the work up.
There is always boring work involved, but posing it to the team and being straightforward “hey this isn’t the most exciting thing, but we need to get it done” usually gets a volunteer.
The more empowered the team feels when work is planned out, the less pushback you tend to get.
"Do you want to take out the trash?"
My engineer mind interprets it literally every time :)
Usually I don't mind taking out the trash... but occasionally I don't really want to. I have to always translate this to "She wants me to take out the trash".
It's as if you are forcing your spouse to somehow smell a janky web page.
/garfield
In the more general "team at work" case, it's also straightforward, sit together, define the bucket of work that needs doing, distribute it "fairly", and go do it. The team leader's job is to get and communicate outside stakeholders' needs + the wider org context, not to give marching orders.
Absolutely agree with this but then the adult thing to do is not to attempt to manipulate the partner into doing the work but either a) fix the situation directly if it's a one-off (asking, "would you take out the garbage?" or else just doing it), or b) if there is a pattern of unfair division of labour in the relationship, raise it, discuss it honestly and with intent to find a fair solution, and resolve it.
> Once it becomes subjective
Relationships are subjective. It takes a collaborative effort to make them objective. Subjective is the default mode.
There is a lot of implicit communication in a relationship with deep trust and respect at its core. You can say less, very directly, and usually get what you want, without offending anyone.
One anti-pattern I've seen is the "big fish in tiny bowl" syndrome where a certain person evolves over the years into an overpaid, arrogant asshole.
These are the best approaches:
1. "Please take out the trash."
2. "The trash needs to be taken out. Can you do it?"
3. (If there are several people around). "The trash needs to be taken out. Who can do it?"
Extra consideration:
I'm assuming this refers to a context where there's a prior agreement in place that A can tell B what to do (e.g. a business, where B signs a contract stating that he has sold X hours/day to the organisation). It usually should be unnecessary to bark out orders or to beat around the bush -- both are insulting: if B is a functioning adult they accept that they work for an organisation and so need to complete certain tasks.
However, direct instructions are rarely necessary for knowledge workers or highly-skilled professionals. Unless things have broken down horribly, they're aware that the success of the business they work for will contribute to their own career success.
E.g., instead of "you will write unit tests today" or "would you mind terribly writing unit tests today?", A would do best saying something like "we're introducing too many regressions when we change things, we need a better testing strategy -- let's discuss our approach to unit testing" and then let the team weigh in with their own ideas so they have ownership over whatever is decided.
If this was commonly true, then it wouldn't also be commonly true to feel best served by switching companies every 2 years. Other than simply continuing to be employed, but even that's tenuous and often volatile.
> "Unless things have broken down horribly"
It's a lucky individual who's never experienced this in their career.
In real life, many people really do jump in to help when they know help is needed.
See to me that gives me flashbacks to Target, and that disconnected robot voice on the radios:
“Second request, 15 seconds remaining. Who is responding?”
"Take out the trash" is a well known, predictable, and well defined solution to a well known, well defined, and expected issue. If I were your manager, I'm sure you wouldn't mind me saying to you "@quickthrower2, I'd like you to lead the retro next week," would you? I don't want to put words in your mouth or anything, but if you're anything like 97.3% of people I've worked with, that's not going to faze you in the slightest, provided you feel like you have the skills to do the task. It's a checkbox.
Contrast that with "@quickthrower2, you need to reticulate the splines on this project." If "reticulating the splines" is a nontrivial task that doesn't have a well defined solution, that's going to land entirely differently than something like leading a retro. They're totally different scenarios, totally different contexts, totally different expected results.
Source: How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk - https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/14516638...
My personal favorite, combo of 2 listed, would he "I need X to happen"
I had a boss who spoke like this: He was too afraid to communicate directly, so everything was implied.
Instead of saying "I'm assigning X task to you" we'd have to play a game where he'd say "X is really important and it needs to be done". Then you had to ask 20 questions to extract the actual ask from him:
"Okay great, should I do it"
"If you want, that would be great"
"Cool, I can do it. Is it the highest priority or can it wait?"
"Well it's very important, but I don't want to interfere with your other work."
"I'm working on task A with tasks B and C next in the queue. Where should I prioritize it?"
"Well it's very important. The stakeholders want it done soon."
"Okay, how soon? Is there a deadline?"
"I don't like to put deadlines on people, but they're very adamant that it gets done soon. It would be good if it was done soon"
And so on, until I had spent 15 minutes extracting enough clues about what he wanted. He thought he was being extra nice by never giving anything resembling an order, but it just created confusion for everyone and disappointment when we didn't perfectly read his mind.
Anyone at the end of the days it’s literally their role to handle the dysfunction and/or understand the products
Edit: to expand, the “I need” language has an implicit imperative. Since it is implicit, the listener/employee needs to internalize the command, and internalize the idea that the bosses “needs” are the employees “wants”. Maybe I’m psychologizing too much, but I haven’t ever met someone who talked like that who I could get along with. A baby cries when it needs something, mommy responds. As adults we should handle our own needs by turning them into actions to fulfill them ourselves or requests to have others fulfill them.
If I hear it in the context of both a knowledge job and a high-trust relationship it works way better for me, here is the problem and we need it solved.
> I'd feel the same way if I heard it in food service. Corporate motherfucker who doesn't actually work.
Hang on, to you, "We need some paper towels at this table" equals "Corporate motherfucker who doesn't actually work"?
Just how sensitive are you and GP?
I've actually worked in food service, and a table telling me "we need some paper towels at our table" didn't trigger any negativity in me at all, nevermind the extreme PTSD sort of negativity that that sentence appears to trigger in you and GP.
TBH, if you're triggered by the phrase "We need some paper towels at this table", then you probably have ... some sort of condition?
“The trash needs to be taken out. (who wants to | can you) take responsibility for getting it done?”
So I see myself as an equal that has a different role to the others in the team.
There are occasions when there's something that breaks through that shield and then when I do ask either an individual or the team, they understand that I'm asking them to do something that I couldn't avoid or do myself.
If you’re in authority over people pretending that you’re not is just insulting. Just be polite and give commands as are appropriate for your position.
If you find yourself as a manager telling people what to do and how to do it, take a step back.
Engineer: invents self-dumping garbage bags
If I'm giving a command it's usually to say confirm some option that other people have suggested and debated like - ok "so Bob we agree that you're going to X and Alice will do Y".
At other times I want to make sure something gets done and I cannot do it or have no time to do it so I give the reason why it needs to get done first, e.g. "I'm worried that the QA's don't understand it enough to be able to test", so that the person can tell me if I'm wrong or if there's new information and then I say "could you make sure that the QA's know about it?"
If you that you explain you can show that your reasoning can be questioned. Someone might say "I don't know that area well" or "I'm under great pressure to do this other thing" or they might say "that isn't the way to get what you want". I find it worth explaining the problem, suggesting solutions and encouraging the other person suggest some - then debating them briefly before making a decision.
If you do other things to show an interest in someone and that you care about them a bit then the pill of taking instructions is less. If you can build rapport by finding out what intersts them, get them to talk about themselves - take their HR related requests and other interests seriously. You cannot afford to fake this - you MUST care.
I also have to take commands and some are very unreasonable - those are the hard ones to deal with.
At the end of the day, it comes down to "know your audience". You'll have your own preferred way of leadership, and the people under you will have theirs. Your job is to find a synergy whereby your leadership actions inspire the majority rather than repels them. There will always be some who don't like your style, but you can't make everyone happy. And there will always be other leaders with opinions on leadership, but they're usually talking about their people, not yours. All that matters is: Are you effective in moving your organization, and are the majority whom you lead inspired?
In my work environment (in my community) the typical expression is "Could you please". This is clear and nobody takes offence. More importantly, it invites a response. Perhaps the person is already busy doing something else. Perhaps they lack the skill to accomplish the task. Asking instead of telling provides the boss with useful information, so it's about more than politeness.
As for the website being discussed, I find the rankings odd. Quite a few of the discussed alternatives don't seem harsh to me at all, and I think they deserve 0 stars. Frankly, depending on the circumstance and the community, even those rated the harshest would be perfectly okay. "Don't stand there" can save someone from losing a limb in a factory. "Keep your head below the horizon" can keep someone alive. It all depends. And a boss who cannot pick up on how things are communicated in a given team is unlikely to be of much use.
The problem with all these is they’re personal. Like it’s what I want you to do.
But it’s business. The actual raw communication seems like it should be more like an explanation of how your current role relates to this specific task (ie you have to do it) as well as how other people will be involved, if any.
For instance: "That trash better be gone by the time I get back." – "Trash. Now." – "Don't forget to do the trash." .. or, perhaps the ultimate: look at person, point at trash, raise eyebrows and flare nostrils, or maybe that was just my parents.
Maybe this is obvious, but I've learned it the hard way.
Look at the experience of your team and the complexity of the projects. High complexity and low experience cannot be solved with "soft skills" no matter how much the business insists that it can. In that situation you're not a bad boss, just at the wrong place. Don't let incompetent upper management bully you. That's how they've kept their jobs this whole time after all.
Nobody would ever think to be "bossy" in the first place if there weren't some underlying complexity being misunderstood and/or ignored. It's not just a matter of investigating this complexity and telling people what to do in a nice way, nor is it a matter of doing it yourself or finding extra resources to pitch in. Often it's just completely fucked and they want you to sit on the grenade.
That said, “can you do X?” usually always works. The answer is almost always yes. If it’s no, there’s probably a good reason why that lets you rethink the request.
1. Give some context. Not a novel. But some understanding of why. Then be direct.
2. Don’t all the sudden start insulting them when you ask them to do something. I know, sounds easy, but there are a lot of personalities out there.
It happened enough times so that I've asked a few people why they were replying "yes" instead of "no", to which they couldn't give me a clear explanation. This really surprised me at first, but then I understood that the words didn't matter as much as the tone of voice.
Is that something common in Australia? Or in any other country? Or was that only a non-representative sample that happened to make the same mistake?
So some examples, both being “Yes I’ll do it” -
“Do you mind taking out the rubbish” “Nah, that’s fine” (No actually answers the question and then you confirm)
“Do you mind taking out the rubbish?” “Oh yeah, no problem” (Yes just acting as sentiment)
Or
“Do you mind taking out the rubbish?” “Nah yeah, all good”
Or to say you do mind, you might say “Yeah nah, sorry I’m busy”
I argue that a leadership practice that is successful in today's complex environment is
- flexible in style (within the command & control paradigm)
- rooted in the trust & inspire paradig
The latter is kind of orthogonal to what's discussed in the text. I recommend everybody to look into this, particularly those of you who are sitting in a highly complex environment and/or who has/wants to deal with the next generation of (w.e.i.r.d.) talent.
Common sense is one thing, as we don't necessarily want to have to spell everything out (and even here, there generally exists a space of reasonable difference of opinion and approach, and mutual familiarity also breeds implicit context), but it is uncharitable to put people into a position where they must constantly strain their minds to try to determine what you need, only to punish them for failing to meet your preciously specific and indeterminate expectations. This can quickly become abusive, not to mention annoying.
To wit:
Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal language. (Rule 12, William Strunk, Jr.)
Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:37)Since this tech lead and I are both (relatively) mature adults, eventually I simply told him he needed to be more direct with me if he wanted me to understand him, he said that he was not entirely comfortable with that but he would try, and we got by well enough after that.
I suspect, especially in high competence and nominally high trust environments like (much of) tech, mostly when people consider a superior "bossy" it's not because of the way they communicate (though that could contribute) but because they do not trust the communication or the motivations behind it, or question why they (the boss) are getting involved at all.
To put it another way, if there is a high degree of trust anyway you are likely forgiven a harsher communication style, but if the the trust isn't there no amount of wordsmithing that will improve it.
That being said, poor communication styles will ruffle feathers and cause problems, and if you are leading people you should learn to do this better. I just don't think that's at the heart of what being considered "bossy" is, so working on it won't likely fix that.
There is a deeper aspect to watch which is response over time - "tracking what does the boss say to me?" as it transforms into "What are the consequences later on?". A big part of being "bossy" IMO is creating consequences for getting trivial instructions wrong.
What the boss should say to employees needs to be at a high enough level (eg overarching goals) so that a capable employee can create their own plan to achieve it, but not so high level that the employee cannot see the steps needed to go forward.
Ideally this high level goal should push the employee just beyond its capabilities, but the boss knows who to connect with in case they need help.
In practice that matters much more than whether you say please or need or can or want.
1. be straight with people 2. periodically have a discussion about what the people want and how/if your goals are aligned 3. explain how you can help people get their objectives 4. Depending upon complexity, explain perhaps in detail, why a task is aligned
Align goals, if doing tasks is in a person's best then they will do it. Otherwise there will be friction that helps no one.
"The trash needs to be taken out because <x>. Can you look after that <within timeframe>?"
Clarity: 5/5
Harshness: 1/5
In my mind it works perfectly at all levels. It's clear and direct and it invites feedback.
"As part of our customer satisfaction strategy, we need an online portal. Mary, can you take ownership of this stream?"
"We're due to deliver the pie chart feature this week and there's still multiple code reviews outstanding. Bob, Dylan and Charlie, can you work together and get this done by the end of the week?"
"There's a bug affecting two of our top customers. To avoid losing them as customers, we will need to get it investigated and fixed as a top priority. Jane, can you look into this today and give me an update by the end of the day?"
These analogies fail in that the scope of taking out the trash is way too clear.
At that point, it's fine to discuss if the workload can be shared among the team, if appropriate.
The best boss I had either said: Can You help me out by...x Justification, then command...x The room is really messy, can you...x Please do this...
I really agree with the Cialdini's method of giving justifications for requests. It works very well for me personally
> Leaders command people.
No, that’s administration.
Leaders may need to administer, too, but come on, leadership isn’t administration!
In a high performance team, it's more like managing a band. The manager is not the talent. You are Brian Epstein, not John Lennon. You enable the talent. You hire smart people, give them goals and the resources they need, then get the fuck out of their way. They don't take out the trash. You do it. Or hire a janitor, since it seems you value the task; that's someone who didn't need asking, because GC is already in their JD.
That is debatable and part of a fundamental cultural divide between, at a minimum - the USA, the UK and Continental Europe.
I now I come up with the solution, and execute it too.
Why not do it like that? Provide context, making sure people want to do the job to achieve goals.
If you are a leader, then when you simply say 'go do this', the follower actually wants to do it and does not care about how carefully you handle their feelings.
Nope, communicating with humans is the same art whether you think you are a leader or not. Some cultures have a strong sense of hierarchy, which in their business interactions is expressed in the petty, demeaning game of "act like a sycophant insect to those above you and treat those below you as pawns to be commanded", which has the same effect as what you're describing, but civilized people tend to reject that.
Edit: Note that this is not a defense of the article, which starts off incorrect at sentence one. It's easy to confuse the concept of a command hierarchy, like a military, and a cooperation hierarchy, which is the way a healthy business operates (though this is perhaps the minority of businesses, because a command hierarchy is more effective if your employees mostly don't give a shit or are miserable or incompetent, any of which problems may or may not be their fault).
To be civilized is to bend to genteel sensibilities; and nothing inspiring ever comes from that. Logically sound, rational, and convincing sure; but never inspiring.
This understanding is not available to your 'concepts' or however you want to terminologize your gay taxonomy of hierarchies. either you get it - you get that people instinctively want to have someone above them to respect, and even admire (love), while they obey - or you don't.
I need you to take out the trash.