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Comment by Closi | Hacker News Reader

This ignores the human side of things - people want relationships, empathy and sometimes just to be listened to.

A call with your manager where they say "yes, I agree with everything you said - go ahead and do it, I trust you" can mean much more than the same thing said in a text message.

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For me the best moments at work have been when the direct manager was sick or on a very long holiday. We're adults, why would I need someone to tell me 'I agree with you', 'go ahead, I trust you'. Maybe if you don't know what you're doing, or you can't manage the stakeholders, but otherwise, the manager just gets in the way, unless they know how to make themselves invisible, or they have the connections and will to propel your career forwards I've had plenty of managers in 20+ years

Expecting everybody else to be like you is the issue.

> why would I need someone to tell me

This isn't about you. It is about working with others that are not exactly like you.

> Maybe if you don't know what you're doing . . .

Making up insulting reasons doesn't help either.

So you think most engineers are not capable to work in a group, without supervision? Who's insulting? "If you don't know what you're doing" = "You're out of depth and you need someone to guide you through"

> So you think most engineers are not capable to work in a group, without supervision?

You're doing exactly the same mistake again that I was bringing to your attention.

I think nothing close to your assumptions about others or myself.

Ok, keep it a mystery then.

> why would I need someone to tell me 'I agree with you', 'go ahead

You might not, but that's just an example where a different style of communication might help some people. It's great that you would be happy without validation, but I can safely say some people do flourish when given it! Lots of people need to be given a bit of confidence, particularly when they are new to a role, and in my experience that's easier over a call.

As another example if I ask people on Slack how busy they are I will often get a different answer compared to calling them and checking in, asking if they need support, particularly if I can hear that they are stressed.

Or while on a text chat someone might say they understand a problem, on a phone call it's much more natural to get them to play it back to you so you can work out when they miss some nuance.

I think it’s good if the phone call heavy people can find their way to phone call heavy managers, while the people who communicate well without constant phone calls can group together and work that way.

There’s a third category of people who actually need a lot of communication for different reasons (constant reassurance like you highlighted or maybe contestant management to keep them on track) but who also avoid communications like the plague. These are the hardest to manage without some rhythm of mandatory check ins.

There have been times when a founder was constantly on calls but allowed me to manage teams without them. He also continued to hold occasional calls with the team, but I wasn't present for those calls. I provided him with written progress reports. I didn't try to convince him to stop holding calls, and he didn't try to convince me that calls were mandatory. But such cases are rare.

I hate video calls, but sometimes is so much easier (and really faster) to align with someone over a complicated issue. feels almost counter intuitive but the more complicated the matter the easier to align over voice / video than text in my view

I think it depends on the person. For me, for example, text work best for any kind of question, no matter how complex. On the other hand, for simple questions, when I just want to chat, I'll opt for a call or meet in person.

I have almost never needed video but certainly a voice conversation is much, much faster for two or three people to work something out.

Four+ people and someone is either being held hostage to others and/or just tuning out. The more participants, the more of this that’s happening. And that translates pretty directly to lost time, money, and focus.

I don’t think Teams supports it, but it would be interesting to see studies where orgs go “max participants = 4” without high level approval.

Video meeting invites shouldn't even include people who are there just for FYI stuff and aren't expected to give their opinion.

They can just read the AI transcript of the meeting - or the minutes if someone writes them.

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