You're Not Listening
randsinrepose.com
randsinrepose.com
I suppose they do it because it catches attention. A slap in the face catches attention too. For me the two work similarly. (At least I think they do; I can't remember being slapped in the face.)
Usually I just grin and bear it and feel like a schmuck for giving them their damn pageview, but this case is interesting. It's not only rude, it's incongruent in a post that ostensibly is about how to treat people decently. Evidently the author's highly developed empathy doesn't extend to his readers. Once you see that, the whole post appears coated in a thin slime of managerial manipulativeness.
Once you see that,
You should have said "if you see that." Here's what my eye saw as I was scanning the HN news page:
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Blah blah (randsinrepose.com)
I see we also have different definitions of slap, slime, empathy, and manipulative.
Or you can decide to not do any of those things. I honestly think that's the choice that will serve you best in the long run.
P.S. Why do people talk this way? It is a style people have for many reasons, mostly because it is more effective - where effective can mean "Makes more people understand quicker", "Gets my point across more succinctly", "Makes people agree with me", or even "Gets more pageviews". You might not like all the reasons, but there are probably at least some valid reasons for talking in this way. Why assume the worst from the author?
He can't, but he's probably right for 9 out of 10 readers. That's just Sturgeon's Law, applied to listening skills in the general population.
I guess I'm emphasizing a lesser point at the expense of the greater one (how to listen), but somehow the two feel related. Both have to do with habit.
I often go to meetups for people who like to travel and it seems like the majority of people don't create moments for them to be the receiver of a question (meaning it's hard to ask them a question). Perhaps it is a nervous thing where, instead of the possibility of there being 'uncomfortable silences', they just keep asking (me) questions. I never know how to handle this because after the conversation has gone on a bit, there's the feeling that it's time to excuse oneself in order to talk to someone else/new. If I use that 'closing' time to ask them questions then the conversation goes on and on and it becomes harder to meet a variety of people. What it seems to come down to is directing the conversation and creating openings where the end of any of my sentences should probably be immediately followed by the asking of a question. Basically, not allowing for the other person to ask their next question.
Seriously. Be explicit. People love talking about themselves. They are probably just being polite asking you all of those questions.
Sturgeon's Law. 90% of everything is shite. Most music is dreck: popular, alternative, classical, whatever. Most writing is dreck: genre, "literary," whatever. Most "listeners" -- aren't really.
> In what is one of the more advanced listening moves, my advice is: shut up.
This is very key. Underlying this move is the simple notion: You. Don't. Know. Everything. Sorry, but you don't. How many departments and companies have been run into the ground or miles down the paths of mediocrity by well meaning people? Tons. Assume you don't know everything. Learn. If your mental models aren't significantly changing, you aren't really learning.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/jx/we_change_our_minds_less_often_th...
I have 3 people reporting to me. Designing product. I have them cause this is how you grow.
Each design review is painful. They present. I shoot 500 holes in their designs by asking questions. Then I gently outline how design could solve the actual problem. Essentially I could design myself and be 10 times quicker. Create a pixel-perfect mockup? what the fuck is taking you so long!? paint.net, gimp, my god pick a tool and do it.
if you are a manager, i have the following advice: hire only candidates that are smarter than you are. they will make up the greatest team ever. they will challenge, teach you a trick or two. if a candidate does not challenge you in your authority, he or she is crap.
sounds easy, very hard to accomplish. but remember, one rock star has the output of 5 average people. take your time to hire. your first two picks are SHIT.
i'd like to have time to listen all day long. but there is shit to accomplish, life is short. if you don't have good arguments, right now, we're moving on. if you can't prove me wrong, I am right.
noticed how Linus acts? Steve Jobs? FUCK patience. FUCK feel good touchy feely discussions.
my CEO scares the crap out of me, that's how smart he is. I'll follow him, through fire, because he can prove me wrong, in 5 secs. not a lot of people can. this is how i treat my team.
Unless you are wrong, that is.
Good listening mitigates against information censorship, and improves coordination. Your reports might do better if they listened better, and they might listen better if anyone else at the company set a proper example.
I guess what I'm saying is I like my boss better than the hypothetical boss outlined by the grandparent poster. He is also sharp as a tack and quickly spots weaknesses in bad plans, but I would hardly describe his approach to communicating those flaws as "scaring the crap out of me." Too often people in software management (or really, any power relationship) think gentleness and efficiency are antithetical.
>> "Essentially I could design myself and be 10 times quicker."
The first claim here makes no sense in light of the second. If you could do the work 10 times quicker, then do it and keep all three salaries to yourself and use less time than you do right now. There is no "growth" going on if the three people working under you are ten times slower than you could - unless the work they're doing isn't really important to the growth of the company, in which case why are they there?
And then you say this:
"if a candidate does not challenge you in your authority, he or she is crap."
... which makes me thing that either (a) you have not hired good candidates at all, since they are ten times slower than you; or (b) you're leaving out the part of the design review where they show you that you're an idiot and challenge you by producing something you never would have thought of.
In general, though, the feeling I get is that you approach these design reviews knowing that they will be painful, and that all designs presented will be wrong. In which case, again, this seems like an exercise in utter futility.
So - yeah. I don't really understand your point. Maybe you're saying you wish your CEO or whomever had done a better job hiring the people that report to you?
Are you Linus or Steve Jobs? Are you as talented? And also the head of some important effort that people are desperate to join?
If not, then perhaps you shouldn't model yourself on people who are widely regarded as total assholes.
5 seconds is the maximum allowed thinking time? That must lead to comprehensively great decisions.
but yes, i enjoy that style of environment, i can guess it is like professional sports. your feelings are worth crap.
maybe it is a very male worldview. or a nerdy male one. i don't know.
my CEO is a nice person. but he is sharp like a razorblade. have a suggestion? be prepared to have it cut, but never just so, but with publicly stated reasoning - that no one can dispute. it impresses me. i respect it and him.
Are you impressed, or intimidated? In the type of work environment you describe, the former can be mistaken for the latter. You say nobody can dispute his reasoning when he criticizes them. Is that because his criticism is correct, or because people are too scared to speak up?
I don't manage people, but I'm a senior engineer and am in a position of influence in my department. The junior engineers often come to me for help. You know what though? Before that could happen, I had to learn to become approachable. This meant getting rid of my highly critical attitude, as well as my belief that "I am always right unless proven otherwise." The result is a happier work environment and more productive team members.
Couple of thoughts on this: Good managers have a worldview, and they learn to communicate effectively. Its much more efficient, functional, and practical. That is the art of leadership, vs babysitting (or helicopter parenting, etc).
Consider the counter-example: The worst manager is one is unpredictable, all over the place, capricious. He cannot scale, however smart he is. Beacuse nobody can decipher him. You cannot avoid or minimize a meeting, because you cannot prepare in advance for expected lines of reasoning, etc.
That's part of creating a culture and having values.
The best leaders I have ever worked for all had very stong, idiosynchratic lines of inquiry. They were all very tough, but always fair. You learned to "keep them in mind" as you did your work. Looking back, its very effective to help crystallize your own view in relation. That's how you develop.etc.
So, in some sense this is independent of "approachable". You don't always want to be approachable. You want people to work independently but under a common vision. You want them to internalize things. Then, for the nuance, the edge case, the final decision/s...they can come and have a chat.
Thus one sets out the right time and a right place to be approachable. But the context is critically important to distinguish. The questions and issues you raise need to be thought of inside the bigger picture. For things to make sense. Hope this helps.
Aping emotions, and playing psychological games (like playing dumb, and pretending to be a friend for the purposes of eliciting information) is a dangerous game in our industry because as soon as your reports detect you are behaving in this way the relationship will go south, fast (and permanently.)
Playing mind games like these will cause you to exhibit behaviors more typically associated with psychopathic individuals - and you will set yourself up for having them played back against you.
> Everything I just described can be faked. Anyone who has been pressured into buying something they did not need has been on the receiving end of faked listening skills, but there’s a reason why, when you leave the car dealership, that you feel used. You slowly become aware that you were manipulated with a false sense of familiarity and connection. You realize that while they showed interest in you, they didn’t really listen. They have no clue who you are. It was an empty conversation facilitated by manipulation cloaked as listening skills.
I would say a lot more but as I said, I am not sure I am not being trolled.
Lots of stuff here is based on visual queues and eye contact. Very hard for those of us that work remotely and spend our days on the phone.
My advice to managers: if you use a formula, and some of Rands' are good formulas, tell your people what formula you use, so they understand what you are doing. This worms if your formula is honest. Management is not manipulation.
I used to hate small talk, but it really does put people at ease. To avoid feeling fake, I pick things that really do interest me. E.g., when I'm asking about somebody's family, or their hunt to buy a house, or their art project, I really care about the answers.
Of course, it may feel fake to some people at first, but as long as you're consistent about it, I think it works.
The way the OP talks about "innocuous preambles" reminds me of this guy:
I read him as advocating patience and setting aside one's immediate personal desires to satisfy the needs of the person you're talking with. That is not perfectly forthright, but I don't think holding off saying the most difficult thing for a few minutes of warm-up is in any way false.
I think the alternative, which is to ask your urgent thing and then come around to asking how they are, can also work for some people. In particular, I can make that work with people who don't like small talk and with whom I have a solid relationship.
With most people, though, I definitely follow an escalation-of-intensity pattern, which lets me establish some rapport before getting to the heavy stuff. Key to me is being relatively chill about my own agenda. If I am too agitated about it, then asking how they're doing would indeed be false. Then I agree it's best to come out and say the big thing.
I believe it's important for people to treat each other as equals first, roles second. Any trace of personal identification with an authority role (or a subordinate role, for that matter) acts like a grain of sand in a place where a grain of sand shouldn't be. The trouble with management comes when a person's sense of self inflates to fill the role, something they don't deserve because no one does. This is marvelously illustrated by the experiment that showed that people designated "leader" for no reason whatsoever are significantly more likely to take an extra cookie for themselves. When one is captured by this self-inflation bias, it doesn't make things better to apply trust-building tricks to get people to "say shit"; that is condescension, and it confuses matters.
I'd be interested in reading an article by you on this topic, if you ever write one.
If you're uncomfortable talking about something personal, I'd suggest you just dodge the question. "Oh, it's fine. What's really on my mind is [work thing]." Unless your boss is totally clueless, they'll pick up on that.