[morgancmartin]

> Some people might be offended or sensitive to direct questions, but that's for them to work through with their therapist.

It's a fair position to take, but in some cases where successful communication is a necessity, that stance doesn't cut it.

My go-to heuristic is "the wordier the question, the more likely it is to be perceived as well intentioned."

So if I'm wondering why someone didn't use sshd, I might say, "So I'm wondering if you considered using sshd for this? You probably did, I'm mostly curious about how you think it fits into things."

Wordiness works in my favor in two ways. One, the extra words help me to be precise in my _intent_ behind what I'm saying. Fewer words may, in some cases, technically be more precise, but have a tendency to leave the other person considering whether their initial interpretation is really the correct one or if there is some other implication to the words they're not seeing. Using more words cuts down on that effect quite a bit. It narrows the search space, so to speak.

The second way is that because I'm presumably actually speaking the question, it allows me to closely shape my intonation to be as neutral as possible. I say neutral rather than non-threatening, because non-threatening makes me think of how one speaks to a child, which is definitely not what you want when speaking to a colleague. And of course, you don't want to sound like you're coming from a position of superiority either. I like to think of it as an adventure between me and the listener to solve the puzzle. That takes the focus off some implied power struggle between me and them and instead frames things as the listener and I teamed up to slay the puzzle-dragon.

Number two doesn't apply if you're communicating through text, which is why it's important for those who communicate through text very often to have a tendency of always assuming the best intentions of a given piece of communication until proven otherwise, or by intentionally asking for clarification when necessary.

I was born when my dad was about 41 years old. The significant generational gap between us caused some difficulty in the way we communicated with one another and so I was forced to adapt my approach to communicating with him as I grew up. Now that I'm older, I find that I'm exceptionally good at communicating with other people where cultural differences between the communicators might otherwise result in issues for someone without the same type of "training" as me.

The downside is my written communication tends to be annoyingly wordy. Ironically, my high school English teacher didn't like me very much.

EDIT:

And knowing your audience is important too, of course. The direct, "Did you consider using sshd for this?" would be fine if I were talking to a senior dev, or someone I know is unlikely to take offense to a direct question. Actually, in the particular case of a senior dev, I'd probably reword it to be, "Why didn't you use sshd here? I would've thought it would be useful because of x, y, and z." This frames it as me asking for guidance from the master. I like to bring the wordiness technique in for cases where I know the listener has a tendency to take things the wrong way. Definitely not to be used all the time or else you get a reputation for being a wordy speaker.

[beaker52]

> My go-to heuristic is "the wordier the question, the more likely it is to be perceived as well intentioned."

Just wanted you to know that I have a conflicting heuristic (which admittedly may or may not be unique to me): "the wordier the question, the more likely it is that the intention is being hidden from me".

Inefficient, wishy-washy, wandering questions set off my spidey sense that tells me I'm not getting the full picture. Earlier in my career, such an interaction would have left me with some risidual anxiety, feeling unsure that I'd been given honest feedback and questioning whether I'd done a good job.

I'm speaking only from the point of view of a review situation of course.

[nkrisc]

At the end of the day, if I need something from someone, I'll contort my discourse in any way necessary to achieve the end I need. Even if it means tip-toeing around someone who's extra sensitive. I'm not out to make my life harder. And to be clear, when I say "direct" I'm implying neutrality. I'm not talking about direct, yet antagonistic, questioning (which I'd argue is less direct than neutral questioning).

In person communication is less of an issue because you can use things like body language and tone to take the edge off.

However I've found through experience that the more words you add, the number of possible interpretations increases, and the likelihood you get a relevant answer decreases. Back to the example at hand, maybe it would make sense to chain two distinct queries together: Did you try sshd? If so, what was the result?

It's my belief that in written communication, clarity of purpose is king.

[Kalium]

> My go-to heuristic is "the wordier the question, the more likely it is to be perceived as well intentioned."

Are you familiar with "How To Make Friends And Influence People"? It trades on exactly this idea.

Specifically, it trades on this idea to both seem well-intentioned and manipulate people. It uses this presumption of good intentions to cover the true intentions. It buries everything meaningful under an endless sea of noisome, excessive verbiage to lull the reader to distraction and smuggle its actual point past the listener.

Wordiness is what you do when you're worried about slipping something past someone's defenses, for fear of being unable to have the required conversation otherwise.

[beaker52]

I've actually read this book no fewer than three times. I disagree that it trades on excessive verbiage. I think people were far more eloquent when the book was written and the excessive verbiage is an artifact of that. The book's real value stems from it's ideas around expressing honest interest in other people and making proposals in terms of other peoples needs, for example.

[morgancmartin]

Maybe a little embarrassingly, but I've tried to read it a couple of times and usually bailed around chapter 3 or so due to boredom.

I think I know the type of wordiness you're referring to and my term for the type of person that uses that technique is a "snake". The kind of unconscionable person that, like a magician, draws the audience's focus to one point while enacting their trick with the other hand.

I had a particular person in mind when I wrote my other comment. It was a guy I used to work with who initially didn't like me despite my very team-oriented spirit. I think he thought I was a snake.

Eventually our boss noticed our inability to collaborate and forced us two, along with a more senior team member to brainstorm a solution to a particular problem afflicting the project that day.

I have a tendency to relentlessly refine on a solution or quickly reject solutions I don't see as tenable. Sometimes when someone first meets me, they get the impression that I "shoot down" their ideas because of some desire to appear superior.

I do sometimes shoot down ideas but only because I am an umcompromisably honest person, at least with respect to work, which I take seriously. Which isn't to say I'm Dwight Schrute and I go out of my way to shoot other people's ideas down. I just won't lie and say I like something if I don't. I also am aware of this aspect of my personality and go to lengths to suppress it for the sake of those around me. But it is who I am at the end of the day, and I don't intend to change that.

Anyway, at first the guy wanted to butt heads with me, but I did my best to project a patient and collaborative vibe and the senior member encouraged the dude to look at my ideas in a more removed fashion rather than in an emotional way and my teammate eventually came around and began working with me.

That coworker and I went on to become, if not friends, solid collaborators for over a year after that until the point at which I left the company.

I think some people have an initial dislike for overly straightforward people like me, but most usually come around to it and even appreciate it eventually. You don't have to worry about me double crossing you. I'm predictable.

The rest who don't can pound sand as far as I'm concerned.