How to Talk to Human Beings | Hacker News Reader

How to Talk to Human Beings

codinghorror.com

179 pointsstalled76 comments

Read the comic of the kid in the high chair as the panels being oriented like:

  1 2 3 4
  5 6 7 8

rather than:

  1 2  1 2
  3 4  3 4

It's much more surreal that way.

I was very confused by that, thanks for clearing up the order.

Ah thanks. No wonder it didn't make sense to me when I read it

As a parent of a 3 year old boy, I can tell you you may as well read it 8, 5, 6, 3, 1, 2, 4 for all the difference it makes. When his sister destroys his latest Lego construction, no amount of mirroring will stop him from having the mother of all tantrums.

Agreed. One of the first things you learn as a parent is that all children are different and not all the advice that gets heaped on you will work. (Though the advice givers are usually certain that it will).

In fact, the constant advice and even "you're doing it wrong" comments are one of the more frustrating parts of being a parent. I was quite disturbed when my friends started having children and I found myself trying to give them advice -- I now force myself to just keep quiet most of the time.

I get hit by this all the time. Many times when I'm talking with my girlfriend I realize that what she wants is not for me to leap into "problem-solving" mode which I naturally tend towards, but understanding/empathy mode (similar to the "That's frustrating" example in the post). Realizing that during a conversation dramatically changes the flow for the better :)

The long held philosophy is that men are problem solvers, and when someone comes to them with an issue they want to solve it. Often what people really want is just for you to listen. So when your wife says "I hate this tap", she doesn't actually want you to fix the tap, she just wants you to nod in agreement.

So the secret to a happy marriage, just always nod in agreement, and try and pay enough attention in case she asks what she was just talking about.

I find this is true for people in general, not just women. People just want to be understood.

I think it's a balance. You don't want to be the know it all, but you also don't want to be the yes man. Providing valuable perspective of your own, as well as listening and learning is contributing to the relationship, just as much as being supportive and an echo chamber. I think a great relationship is about balance and getting through things together. Emotionally supportive and providing practical help or your opinion at times.

Exactly.

I guess many, men in particular, are better at problem solving and need some advice like this from time to time.

On the other hand, no-one want's to hear "I see you're drowning. That must be tough." We sometimes need a little problem solving.

I guess I shouldn't mention the ex-gf of mine that with one simple mention of anything that wasn't right, I was supposed to immediately be on it, plan in hand and know how to go about fixing it. Zero excuses. Period.

Yeah, she was fun.

Is this venting, or a bug report?

Not quite sure what you're asking, sorry. If you want to know if it was an actual problem specific to the situation or if it was transference (ie, you have a bad day at work so you go home and kick the dog), then I'd say both.

He is basically asking if you wanted to vent, or get help fixing the problem.

Since you said she was an ex, I guess you just wanted to vent.

See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4115372

At times I've interrupted such a complaint to clarify: "Is this venting, or a bug report?" Once the person (not always female, but usually) understands the question, it helps a lot, and as a bonus they feel a lot more listened to than they otherwise would.

No no no! She actually DOES want you to fix the tap. Even if she didn't tell you she hates it. You MUST fix the tap!! PLEASE, FOR YOUR OWN WELLBEING!! FIX THE TAP!

Fix it only AFTER you are done being supportive and the current conversation and any followups on different subjects that may appear end.

Disagree.

The secret to a happy marriage is a dishwasher, two if you have room and means.

Also don't try to analyze arguments in an incident report manner, "which misunderstanding started this, why did it escalate, how can we avoid it". Doesn't work.

It is going to be really tough for me to avoid that since that is exactly the behavior that I am drawn to when a problem presents itself.

You can do that for yourself, but you should not discuss it in that manner.

Once you have a fix, just roll it up to production and see how it does. If the fix involves the partner, first think about how to introduce the conversation properly.

Yeah, I find it's easier just to put my brain into Eliza mode and think about something else.

You might want to at least pause before delivering a "you are being a bit negative," though.

Like much general-purpose advice, it's only good on average, but damaging for those more than a standard deviation away from the average in either direction. Parroting doesn't work on me, and it doesn't work on several people I've tried it on. (Other times for other people it does work, though. If you've tried it and it does, I guess keep doing it, if you've tried it and it doesn't, stop.) For kids, I observe kids from the same parents in the same household and city grow up to be completely different, and so what techniques might have worked on one child to accomplish a goal would fail for another child. I was pleased when I listened to Feynman describe this experience with his own children in one of his videos. Anyway, if I had a child I'd try this technique and see if it works or not and decide from that whether to keep using it.

The technique has been known about for a long time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening regrettably doesn't include a history section), and I see the old related gender joke of "women just want to hear their own opinion in a deeper voice" reoccurring in the comments here. My favorite relatively recent comedic take on the technique is from an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, S02E15:

    Malcolm: Mum, I have a problem, I need to talk.
    Lois: Good, you can talk, and I will listen.
    Malcolm: This football player wants to use an essay I wrote for his college
             application and pretend it's his own. I know it's dishonest, but I
             might be making too much of it. I wanted to get your advice.
    Lois: You're hoping I can help you.
    Malcolm: Yeah, I just said that. So, I don't think he should get into college
             under false pretenses. But are they really false pretenses if nobody
             thinks he's smart anyway? I don't want to be a part of his cheating,
             but also don't want to take away his shot at going to college.
             I just don't know what to do.
    Lois: You're uncertain what action to take.
    Malcolm: Yes. Why are you talking like a robot?
    Lois: You want to know why I'm talking like a robot.
    Malcolm: I have a problem and I need your help! All you're doing
             is mindlessly parroting back what I say.
    Lois: You say one thing, and I restate it.
    Malcolm: Forget it, if you're not going to help me, you don't have to mock me!
            (gets up and leaves the room)
    Lois: (calling too late) We did not come from a family of criminals, you
          do not let him turn in that essay! Oh god, I knew listening to our
          kids would be a mistake.

I think it's for dealing with emotions. Malcolm doesn't seem upset at the start of this exchange.

It's helpful when dealing with emotional people, but is not strictly for dealing with emotions. The whole point of parroting is to repeat back to the person, in your own words, what they are saying in order to ensure both parties are on the same page. When frustrated, people want to be understood. Yes, if you merely repeat back to them what they said you're doing it wrong. It needs to be in your own words and you need to reflect bullet points, not everything they say.

You wrote a nice, long comment, but one of the key points about both the post and the book is that you specifically don't parrot them. In fact, they explicitly state they are against parroting. Instead, you acknowledge and share in a child's feelings in a way that's supposed to develop their coping skills.

I agree with you Jach.

I think the advice needs to be abstracted one more level out to make it useful: deeply internalize what other people are saying, and the feelings that might be behind what they are saying.

If everything flows from there then you can adapt your listening-style to each individual. Some people really like to hear that you understand them. Others just need to feel that you understand them.

That book, How to talk so kids will listen, and listen so kids will talk has been a staple in our (childless) household since we discovered it decades ago. The extent to which we recommend it to new couples and new parents is embarrassing.

It's partially about empathy, but it's also about taking smaller steps to communication. E.g. I see Legos all over the floor rather than look what a mess you made!.

You may also find "taming your outer child" to be beneficial. I came from a rather disruptive household, and this book is how I know now how to be a good parent and not pass that stuff on, and also to be a "fully functional" human being.

I've this book, and I'm in same situation as yours. Do u want to discuss more books on this context ? gtalk ?

I'm not sure the correct lesson is being learned here. He gives a set of things you can do to calm the situation down, but I don't get the feeling that he knows why.

First, people want to know that you understand them. Repeating back what they said helps. But even better is to rephrase what they said, so that they know you understand. And if you don't understand, that can be corrected before you go any further.

Second, people want you to listen. Once you've established that you understand, repeating everything back is really, really annoying to both sides. Gentle noises show you're still listening, if you use them at the right time. You may have to return to repeating if things get complicated.

Third, you identify their problem so that they can see it clearly. In this case, he's labeling their emotions, which is just part of the problem. But it could lead to them realizing that they need to fix it in a way that relieves that emotion. "It would be nice if there was another way to do that" is another way, but the other option can't be too obvious or it comes out as sarcasm.

And last, you either solve their problem, of let them solve it on their own, inception-style. You've led them by the nose to the problem in part 3, and now it's time to let them solve it. If they just can't, you'll have to help them with the solution a bit.

Until this point, I guess I didn't understand just how little of this other people understood. I've been empathizing with people for years and helping them solve their problems. It was especially helpful when I was doing phone tech support, but continues to be helpful in software development and personal relationships.

When you get good at this, you don't even think about what you're doing. You just do it because it's fairly obvious what the right response is at every moment.

Gentle noises show you're still listening, if you use them at the right time.

The key being "at the right time." I used to know a guy who had the strangely off-putting habit of doing this with the completely wrong rhythm, giving the impression that he wasn't actually listening – and I don't know, maybe he never really was. It was as if he was counting down a random number of seconds to mutter "mm-hm" in a vacuum.

Without having read the book in question, I feel this advice is good but partial. A lot of what he mentions in this post is mirrored in Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People". I feel that Carnegie goes much more in depth than this blog summary.

One thing: the deli example he gives makes it seem (whether on purpose or not) that you should just say the words to get what you want rather than to actually care about what the other person is saying. You aren't trying to manipulate the other person; instead you should sympathize with them. I personally prefer this attitude change rather than a strictly behavioral change.

Agreed. I think "How to Win Friends and Influence People" is a must read for everyone. And yes, its not about using it to get what you want, it is more about making engagements with other people more pleasant. If you instinctively sympathise with other people, even if they in the end don't "sway" to what you want, you had a great experience with another person.

I find "How to Win Friends" a bit dangerous. It's great if you use it in moderation, but the people who are most likely to need it will not understand that.

After reading it, it suddenly became very clear to me why certain people, particularly aggressive salespeople, are so annoying: they take the stuff in that book (e.g. "use people's names when you talk to them") and turn it up to 11, where it's very obvious how they're trying to manipulate you with it.

I'd also highly recommend the book Crucial Conversations: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes-S...

It's a little on the dry side but it provides guidance on some very straightforward to pick up skills which are unimaginably important in business and personal relationships.

"because I want to freakin' kill this kid at least three times a day"

Nice. I just don't relate to this.

  > Nice. I just don't relate to this.

You don't relate to this? Mmmm. That's frustrating.

I see what you did there.

If you have a child that you have never found to be frustrating or infuriating then you are a indeed very lucky.

I get frustrated often enough, and infuriated once in a while. But I don't want to freakin' kill my child multiple times a day. That's very sad, and a bit worrying. And if, as we all suspect, it's just to make a point, then it's still sad to hear a parent say something like that in such a public way, in a medium that may be preserved until one day the kid is reading this and turning red with shame. Or maybe it's all OK and I'm just being too sensitive.

Hyperbole.

It's weird, every time a blog post uses hyperbole or (even mild) dark humor someone on HN flat-out doesn't get it, spawning a large comment thread. I've not seen this elsewhere...

I think it's because of the karma points we get for comments that other communities don't get. Plus, karma is more than a status symbol here since it lets you downvote.

At least, I've found myself fishing for comment material before because I wanted to "be one of the cool kids."

Makes me think of that aspergers nerd stereotype.

Jeff used a rhetorical device called hyperbole. He does not literally kill a child multiple times each day.

Also, as long as we're being literal about everything, it would be impossible to kill a child (or anything else..) multiple times.

The 'multiple times' annotates occurrence of desire, not the subject of desire. He doesn't "want to kill him many times", but many times a day he "wants to kill him".

You're being too sensitive, and a bit sanctimonious too. Kids learn to communicate from their parents, so Jeff's kids, should they ever read this, will know he is being hyperbolic.

Perhaps you're right.

The children in question are from what he's said exceedingly small so far; possibly being thrown up on repeatedly and not having any idea which particular pattern of rocking is going to make your child stop crying this time is something he finds far more frustrating than you do - geeks often do feel that way because they want to be able to apply rational approaches to fixing things, whereas with such a small child that doesn't exactly work.

I really like children from about the age of 2.5-3 up, but before that they're ... impossible, not in a sense of "impossible to deal with" but in a sense of "this is so completely unmodelable logically that I am unable to it it into my headspace". I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to deal with this if I eventually decide to attempt to procreate.

If you really like kids that young and you're not a parent, then you probably don't have much to worry about. I never understood the nonchalance of parents who had just been puked on. But when I found myself there I understood.

Yet kids that young are logical. They want food and love, and they want to know that they will get those things. If they have those and still cry, they're sick. Later, it gets more complicated.

Plus, when they're your kids, they have half your genes (usually), and it's easier to grok them. I had that "no idea how to deal with a kid" geek/engineer perspective, and it went OK (kid was colicky, so it wasn't easy, but it wasn't irrational). But also note that in the grokking is the empathy (no need to fix anything other than the food and love and providing them consistently)--raising and loving a child is not rational.

I don't usually do this but I am going to officially tell you:

Yes, yes you are not only being too sensitive but you are freakin' blowing this completely out of proportion. Wanting to "freakin kill someone" is a very common figure of speech and isn't necessarily to be taken literally. Actions definitely speak louder than words and for all we know, he is likely a fantastic father who tries really hard to do a good job of raising his kids, as demonstrated by his attempt to find a better way of communicating with said children.

Also, the most purest form of obnoxious and selfish is definitely little children but that's ok, they cannot help it and as a parent you still find it adorable and probably don't want to admit the truth.

Thanks for saying it explicitly this time. And I mean that.

I did not intend to make a huge deal of this. Witness my original content, which was very brief. I wanted to convey that though the hyperbole was meant to garner a "yeah, I know exactly what you mean," it instead jarred me. Others obviously did not have this problem, but I don't think I'm alone here. Whatever you write, you're not going to please everyone. But in this case I'm not sure the hyperbole was even needed at all. The point could easily have been made in other ways, with just as much economy.

That seems normal. If you related to the desire to kil Jeff Atwood's kid then I'd be worried tbh.

I stumbled on that as well and had to pause and reread. I wonder if it's simply a matter of the way people process information. I'd peg Atwood as more of the extroverted type, and those with that style of thinking tend to exaggerate quite a lot in ways that otherwise would be seen as very peculiar to introverts unfamiliar with other styles.

Of course, it's likely not quite that simple. There are probably more personality dimensions involved. Go peruse your local grocery store's gift card section and see how many you relate to, then consider that in order to be profitable most of those cards must relate to most people. (Those that don't are replaced by those that do.)

> Go peruse your local grocery store's gift card section and see how many you relate to, then consider that in order to be profitable most of those cards must relate to most people. (Those that don't are replaced by those that do.)

But... but they're all atrocious. There must be some covert dynamic that counters that selection pressure. Maybe they're supposed to look attractive when people are actually looking to buy them on a specific occasion, as opposed to impulse purchases such as candy usually placed near the registers.

I love babies. I just can't eat a whole one.

In a sense this is what good designs do. It's a bit about problem solving, and a lot about emotional understanding.

This one time I saw a mother and a child maybe three years old entering a bus I was riding. The child behaved nicely until the bus took of, and then he begun crying and fooling around. The mother tried to invent every kind of amusement for the boy, so that he would not bother other passengers.

I so don't want this when I have kids. The boy was so obviously using the situation to get attention. I thought that the best way is to ignore him. But maybe the best way would have been to tell him why it's so annoying that he cries in a bus. So this text definitely had something to consider.

There is also "People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts" and several other books that cover this topic. And no, the title does not fail to deliver.

This should be communication 101. For kids, it's crucial - don't speak to them like idiots, they're actually constantly figuring things out and are probably more observant than we are. But for everyone, it's a great approach that really works, and will widen your understanding of any particular situation as well as theirs.

I know if someone had pulled that cell phone signal conversation parroting trick on me, I'd have gone into a murderous rage. Everybody's different.

The "we're out of cereal" trick seems interesting though. But at what point are you not letting kids learn how to be confrontational? It's annoying, but it's an important life skill.

Really? I'd say it's the opposite. Being confrontational is easy and the important skill is training yourself not to interact aggressively with other people - in my experience at least, the success rate for getting what you want is much higher if you don't turn an encounter into a fight.

Sure, the virtue of Empathizing come as a surprise to those who are strong at Systemizing.

Active Listening is somehow ok with kids, with adults it smells manipulative to me. For women, as always, it's a different story (kidding).

active listening works with everyone when done correctly. If done incorrectly, it's horrible and blatantly manipulative. You reflect, not repeat. it's to indicate you're listening and done right is very natural and what gets people to talk their heads off for hours on end.

should have been titled "How to Talk to Kids". I was sorely disappointed.

kids are people. people are kids. People are just as out of control as kids are when it comes to dealing with their emotions or the emotions of others. You may need to make the implementation more sophisticated but the general theory is all there and all correct.

I felt the same way. It is worse still in that I have never considered children as human beings -- I've always seen them as monster like. I then came back and re-read the post and had a realization. This is how I have learned to talk to my supervisor! I think I will now have to read this book in case it helps with other human beings.

> He calmed down.

Is it just me or does this example conversation feel really horrible, not-involved and distant? I can see how this technique of mirroring and showing empathy can work well in certain situations but it is less "communication" as it is basically getting someone to shut up and take care of themselves, like in the example. No further conversation after that. Sure this would be great to empower your children but let's see you try that in a heated project discussion with "requested feature A is missing" instead of "cereal" or anywhere else outside of a parental context...

Not just you. Also it reminds me of Eliza...

Can you elaborate on that? Why do you say that?

Good communication is universal. Weather you are dealing with kids or coworkers the formula is often the same. Things like justify the emotion but not the behavior. "I understand you're upset that feature A is missing, but you do not need to raise your voice in order for us to listen to you."

When people get frustrated they get an emotional build up of energy that must be discharged, typically behaviorally. Similar to flight-or-fight, acting before thinking. The connections between emotional and behavioral is very strong while the connection between cognitive and behavioral is weak. The ability of their "adult-self" to step in and take control is hindered.

So you'll find more often than not that a heated discussion is sometimes two different discussions entirely, each side trying to assert their point to the other that is trying to assert a different point on them. But yes, even in these situations, reflective listening is the key to changing it from a battle into a healthy exchange.

> Good communication is universal.

That's the point - IMHO this was NOT "good communication". There were some techniques in there that could be helpful in general but this was by no means a good conversation or a good example of communication. This was an example of how to not get involved and get people off your back - if you do this with your angry customer, trying to make THEM come up with their own answer, well good luck with that.

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