(By the way, I’m writing this from a place of exhaustion and disappointment with the industry, rather than just knee jerk negativity.)
Although I do think it’s worthwhile to try to think and communicate as clearly as possible, over the years I’ve learned in this industry that 90% or more of coworkers and managers are not going to put the same effort into it. You can do everything right and the majority of the time it won’t matter. The only thing that (almost) guarantees good relationships with management is to just do whatever they want even when it is leading the company to ruin, never voice your objections, etc.
There is no common goal with most managers because they don’t usually care about the success of the company, just their own personal success. And with most coworkers, few want to do things better more than they want to just have an easy ride.
If anyone is aware of an environment where meritocracy exists in this industry I’d love to know about it. Where, where can I find a company that cares about making money by providing value? (Obviously some attention is paid to this to make enough money to keep the company going, but it’s second to the higher goal of accumulating their personal status and wealth, and there is misalignment between that and actually delivering value due to usually poor leadership at the top and poor investor oversight.)
Maybe it’s all just a consequence of capital concentration. There are plenty of companies that could be out competed but competitors just won’t be funded, except if they are run by other connected people who don’t have the talent to out compete the existing ones.
> The only thing that (almost) guarantees good relationships with management is to just do whatever they want even when it is leading the company to ruin, never voice your objections, etc.
That is not my experience. When management asks to do something, it doesn't mean it likes any outcome. I am not calling to oppose any decision, but usually there are ways to express concerns. "High risk" for example is language they may understand. I've found that managers many times more confused and disoriented than you may expect. Sometimes asking questions discovers, that there are missing parts in the plan. But it is not easy, even to start questioning you need to have reputation (ex. guy that make things done). Finding right forum ("small group discussion") is another way to communicate concerns.
>they don’t usually care about the success of the company, just their own personal success
Well, people who put "success of the company" at highest priority usually not become manages. Many times managers are blind, because they have to follow orders (directions). Hearing from subject matter expert that the direction doesn't make sense not helping to their mental state.
My general position: I prefer to warn about potential bad outcome of decision without refusing to follow orders.
> Well, people who put "success of the company" at highest priority usually not become manages.
Right, that’s exactly the situation I’m complaining about. (That seems to indicate some kind of problem with aligning incentives in companies, because in theory from top to bottom we would want to achieve alignment of rewards and career success with actions that lead to company success.)
Ask them for more written (email) details before you give an estimate. When you think you have enough details then tell them that you will do a one week sprint and get back to them with an estimate. When you get back to them give them choices of work completed/compromises vs. delivery dates. Confirm in writing/email what you agreed to.
> over the years I’ve learned in this industry that 90% or more of coworkers and managers are not going to put the same effort into it.
What's worse to me, is the <5% (<1%?) that just actively refuse to communicate. I work with one of these right now, and it is frustrating beyond belief. I feel like conversations usually start with claims that are hard to believe, and completely unsubstantiated. Like Occam's Razor points in the complete opposite direction. Requests for evidence to back the claim up are usually deflected ("look I've been looking at this for quite a while now") or can't be provided ("I don't have the data right now" — and it will never be provided, even at a later date. The request is ignored or forgotten about. But inevitably, we should press on making a decision on the unsubstantiated claim!)
And half the time, it feels like the unsubstantiated claim, even if true … literally wouldn't matter? Like, it's then applied in a non-sequitur argument of "unsubstantiated claim A, so we should do B" where there's no logical reasoning that A should lead to B.
Almost all of the time, the amount of words or text involved is just huge, like volumes and volumes of it, using terms that nobody else would use (because, IMO, they haven't taken the time to learn the systems we use…) and most of it, to my ear, sounds like bull. Just nonsense.
Direct questions are usually just ignored, so trying to just ask clarifying questions will get one nowhere. Even simple stuff, like yes/no inquiries, so stuff like "how much space does X require?" are again answered in paragraphs of meaningless gibberish.
That these individuals work in an engineering profession just even further boggles my mind. The most charitable view I feel like I can take is that they feel like I'm attacking them (by pointing out their position is bad) and it's one giant alpha-male fight after that, when really I just don't care about that? (at the end of the day, we could both get promoted? it's not like there's some limitation there) and really I'm just looking to get solid data to help make a good decision, and what I'm getting back just doesn't. make. sense.
It's so hard to describe in a HN comment, since these individuals are just so irrational from my point of view. Like, "fails the Turing test" … interactions seem more like a bad or aggressive Markov chain rather than a thinking person…
> conversations usually start with claims that are hard to believe, and completely unsubstantiated. Like Occam's Razor points in the complete opposite direction. Requests for evidence to back the claim up are usually deflected
In public, you just have to put a stake in the ground as delicately as you can. Something like: "All our research showed that A is the best way to go. We have not seen this data that B is better, so we continue to recommend A." At least then baseless assertions aren't standing entirely unchallenged.
Privately, you may be able to gently escalate the issue... Reminding Mr X's boss or another interested party that you never received the information Mr X promised, and hint at your doubts of the veracity of Mr X's claims.
> it's then applied in a non-sequitur argument of "unsubstantiated claim A, so we should do B" where there's no logical reasoning that A should lead to B.
Any chance Mr X is very familiar and comfortable with "B", and much less with "A"? I have seen this kind of behavior with some people, who don't want to put in the effort to learn something new, or are deathly afraid looking incompetent. The result can be an extremely unpleasant personality.
> never received the information that Mr X promised
If you re-read the above, you’ll notice that Mr X never promised to have the data. He instead said he lacked the data.
One reason a person can end up losing credibility and making lots of excuses is that they are overcommitted. “I do not have time” might sound like an excuse, but it is genuinely possible to work 80-hour weeks on 5 hours of sleep and still be unable to complete ones daily task list or even to remember it.
Solving this requires that they learn to say no and to underpromise so they can eventually have time to overdeliver. This is awfully hard if their “no” to tasks like data collection is reinterpreted as a promise.
> you’ll notice that Mr X never promised to have the data. He instead said he lacked the data.
I don't know what the actual situation was, but what the parent typed seemed to indicate Mr X was implying he could provide his data later (but based on past experience, never will):
> "I don't have the data right now" — and it will never be provided
I'm all for people working a reasonable number of hours and getting plenty of sleep. But if you are steering major decisions, you need to be able to substantiate up your reasoning. Being overworked is not going to make your judgment better so everyone acting on your questionable directions without confirming data is made all the more risky.
I changed teams and went on a meditation retreat. Things are much better.
Your larger point is correct up until the point where the decision is “I, Mr. X am not going to take on that additional work.” Until Mr. X exercises the autonomy to say “no”, he will always be overwhelmed and struggle to think and speak clearly. Until others trust him when he claims something is hard and are willing to take no for an answer, their distrust will make him untrustworthy.
> This is similar to a frustrating pattern of my own behavior over last year. Would you like to know what is behind it?
I don’t understand why someone would take this approach. Why not just explain the thing?
Then again, this seems like more of what was described, so perhaps this is in character. And this makes me wonder if this comment is actually trolling. Please understand that I’m not accusing you of trolling so much as I’m observing that this would be a really well-executed troll if such was the intent.
1. It will take a long time to write the answer so I first wanted to know if it would be at all interesting or if it would be dismissed as whinging and excuses.
2. in the past year, I’ve had severe negative responses to posting a verbose text response. I wanted to avoid that by first asking if people wanted it.
1. Recruited during a massive hiring push. Joined a team whose lead had joined less than 6 months earlier.
2. Encountered weird and unexpected difficulties.
3. Told my team lead that I felt like I wasn’t really delivering. Was told not to worry about impostor syndrome. Was urged to be more confident in standup.
4. During standup, confidently stated what I would get done according to what I thought was reasonable.
5. After overpromising, tried to figure out my current task. Didn’t ask for help because I did not know whom to ask.
6. Expected weird and unexpected difficulties.
7. After underdelivering, didn’t ask for help because I was ashamed to be taking so long at a task the team said was simple.
8. Worked longer hours to try to understand things.
9. Broadcast-Asked for help understanding things as my task dragged on.
10. Didn’t use the help successfully because the timebox for the task ran out. Burnt credibility.
11. At refinement said the next task would be hard. Lacked the information needed to win an argument for a longer estimate.
12. Tried to do tools-improvement work to increase my pace. Got distracted by this.
13. Tried to explain need to improve tools but was too brain-fried to write concisely.
Yeah that sounds pretty bad. If I was you I would refuse to take on more work until you can handle what your current task load is. And always multiply how long you think it will take by 3. Saying yes to more work when you are drowning is bad for you and everybody else.
>If anyone is aware of an environment where meritocracy exists in this industry I’d love to know about it.
Did you know the term meritocracy was originally intended as a negative idea[1]. The value of modern work is so subjective that it's almost impossible to measure. It's probably best to jettison any idea that you will be promoted based on any sort of rational assessment.
"But it was ''The Rise of the Meritocracy'' that made Mr. Young world famous. Written as a doctoral dissertation looking back from the year 2034, the book described the emergence of a new elite determined not by social position but by achievement on the standardized intelligence tests that were a very real, and dreaded, fact of educational life in 20th-century Britain. To name this new elite, Mr. Young forced the marriage of a Latin root to a Greek suffix, yielding ''meritocracy.''
He meant the term as a pejorative, for underneath the mock academic tract lay bitter social commentary. Though the test-based system of advancement emerging in postwar Britain appeared to provide opportunity for all, it was, Mr. Young argued, simply the centuries-old class system in sheep's clothing.
Lacking access to the best schools, underprivileged children routinely did badly on the 11-plus exam, the test given to children after sixth grade that largely determined their professional future. As a result, the disadvantaged remained at the bottom of the social ladder, their poor scores used to justify the status quo. ''The Rise of the Meritocracy'' became an international best seller and was credited with leading to the abolition of the 11-plus in Britain."
> If anyone is aware of an environment where meritocracy exists in this industry I’d love to know about it.
I work in one, but it's the only one I've found so far.
I don't know how it happens. I asked my manager (also one of the founders) about it once, he shrugged, and said "I could make something up that sounds convincing, but to a large extent I think it's about being lucky."
> The only thing that (almost) guarantees good relationships with management is to just do whatever they want even when it is leading the company to ruin, never voice your objections, etc.
This is correct but the implication is that a good career means having the courage to accept the risk of poor relationships with management and to be willing to end an unhealthy relationship.
While this is correct in theory, in practice there are many forms of golden handcuffs that make this a very painful option. In the final analysis, I think that many don't really care enough about the enterprise's overall success. My guess is that there are not that many well paying enterprises out there that are working on things that matter enough to care that much about...
The implication is that a company where a substantial proportion of employees had that view would be more successful, but how does that translate to a good career for those employees?
And that’s why I’m asking, where would those better workplaces be? I’ve worked at quite a few companies at this point, and although it’s true that some teams are better than others, the general pattern has been that incentives are not well aligned in any company I’ve seen.
Any company with proper alignment of incentives would crush the majority of existing startups. But as I said, such a company won’t be funded.
The winners in the current economy are those with access to huge buckets of capital rather than those who can most effectively deploy that capital. And if they’re only competing against others with huge buckets of capital but not highly effective strategies, then they all compete at that same low level of strategy.
Imagine a situation where you have dozens of restaurants all run by people who are mediocre but semi competent chefs and mediocre but semi competent business people. Meanwhile you have great chefs and great business people working a few steps beneath them. And yet the first group has access to buckets of capital to start restaurants and hire people and the second group doesn’t have the right connections. That’s what the software industry looks like to me after a long time working in it.
No problem, start your own. Except the first group with access to buckets of capital will be able to advertise far more, keep prices cheaper, and so on, so you’ll be out competed in the marketplace despite better skills simply due to their access to huge amounts of money. Even if you are far more effective at deploying the smaller amount of capital you have.
Not necessarily. Bad managers will simply pile work on top of you until you drown. You need to learn the subtle art of saying no and/or delaying things without seeming to.
I have no idea what's allowed in HN recruiting terms, but I'm working at a company that is very much worried about making sure we deliver value, and we have several positions open.
I've spent almost all of the last decade as a first and second level manager and recently returned to an IC engineering role. I don't think any company large enough to have a handful of managers has homogeneity in what you're talking about. The worst companies for engineers to work at have pockets of bliss (been there). Fantastic companies have pockets of despair (been there, too). And any given pocket doesn't look the same from different perspectives. From my experience as a manager, I think the vast majority of managers (not all!) care deeply about the success of the company and the team. But there is so much information that can't be shared that we, as engineers, are left to draw sweeping conclusions like "they are incompetent" or "they don't care" or "they only care about their own career". Let me give a little of what I've seen in the hopes it will make things bit more understandable, even if it's not as sensible / hopeful as we'd all like.
What you are expressing disappointment about is not limited to engineers and their direct managers. An effective manager needs to help their reports understand upper management's perspective ("I know that you were hoping we'd prioritize Y, but here's why we're doing X instead") and help their own managers (Directors, VPs, etc.) understand the perspective of their reports ("engineers are consistently raising the same issues about X that I raised during planning, can we reconsider doing Y instead?"). They are very much caught in the middle, and it's the same all the way up - execs have to do this with the board and major investors. If there is anyone in the management chain that either doesn't understand the connection between what is valuable for stakeholders and what ICs can provide, then you are going to experience the things that appear to be frustrating you. The only hope is that there is someone between you and the weak link in the chain that can somehow create space for you to create more value. I've been that "umbrella" at times and it was too taxing for me to sustain - it's a big part of why I wanted to return to being an IC (i.e., to regain my own sanity). Lack of understanding of that connection between value and capabilities can be subjective or objective.
By subjective, I mean that given the same inputs, different people will come up with different strategies for applying capabilities to create value. To the extent your strategy agrees with those above you, things will be easier for you and the decisions that come down will look more sensible to you. Many of the best managers try to reconcile these differences to get the best outcome they can for everyone. They find alignment. That's easier where the gap is smaller (e.g., some ICs' views will be better aligned with upper management to start with) and harder where the gap is larger. A classic source of mismatch here is that upper management is often incentivized to get short term results (e.g., by public markets or just to make payroll) and engineers are often incentivized to get long term results (because we directly experience any cost of shortcuts taken to get short term results).
By objective, I'm referring more to understanding things like what a team is capable of. At one point I managed a team that had a very different expertise than almost everyone else in the company. When there was enough understanding of that in upper management to let it be leveraged, things were great. But when the difference was not understood, then decisions came down that made perfect sense for other teams but not for this team. People in management who don't understand that they don't understand the capabilities (or how leveraging those capabilities looks different from leveraging other capabilities) can do a lot of damage here because they don't know that they should ask/learn/delegate. And they don't know how to interpret the resulting problems that they see. When that manager who doesn't understand is a front line EM, I've seen significant confusion from engineers as they try to understand what they are seeing (e.g., my performance reviews appear random, my manager doesn't care about the quality of my solutions, I'm the only one on the team who knows/enjoys doing X and and X is never assigned to me, etc.).
Also keep in mind that feedback loops can send people in bad directions. I've seen front line managers move up to have 2 or 3 levels of managers beneath them very quickly because of a simple, well intentioned technique that can lead to terrible outcomes. The technique is to pick a single metric for each team and tie people's performance evaluation (and therefore pay) to that one metric (sometimes the entire team, sometimes just EM and/or PM). That metric goes up quickly because people are highly motivated. Initially it happens by picking low hanging fruit with good results. But soon it means cannibalizing other metrics and at some point the trade-offs no longer make sense for stakeholders, but they keep going because somebody will get a bad performance review if they don't (side "benefit" - performance reviews are easier for management and appear objective if they only have to look at one metric). And all along the way it shifts the focus from a mix of short and long term investments to purely short term investments. The metric also loses its value as a metric in the process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
All of this is just the tip of the iceberg. Management is an incredible maze of things like the above. Many managers, including some who are doing a fantastic job, aren't even aware that they're grappling with all of that and much more. With all of that going on, it's impressive that many manage the kind of empathy the article talks about. I think the majority of managers are well meaning and making things much better for most of us. But the human problems are so daunting that it's hard to see the upsides (which are often just a reduction in the challenges inherent in working with tens/hundreds/thousands of people) from where we sit as engineers. The worst managers are adding to those challenges and are a disaster, but they tend to be a self correcting problem because their reports often don't to stick around very long.
So, in many ways, the deeper view of management is both better (there are certainly exceptions, but many care and are impressively competent) and worse (many of the problems are inherent in human interaction and management is left to pick solutions that address a strict subset of those problems, with minefields of misleading feedback loops) than you might be thinking if you haven't seen it from the inside at different levels.
I did read your whole comment and I appreciate the time and thought and effort you put into it.
Even so, this isn’t the situation I’m describing or that exists in most of the industry. You’re describing an idealized version of a possible honest misunderstanding developing due to incomplete information filtering through the organization.
I don’t believe that accounts for a large percentage of the problem I’m describing. The situation you’re describing would be far more functional than many places I’ve worked. If most management were capable of introspection and analysis at the level you’re demonstrating, the problem I’m talking about would be significantly reduced. It seems you’ve worked in some unusually capable companies.
Feels strange to read on the title header: PRODUCTIVITY TIPS AND APPS by PRODUCTIVITY HUB like if it was an original article from the website but at the very end there is the note 'All Rights Reserved for Dave Bailey'
without any link to the original source:
I think the observation vs evaluation examples are sloppy (yes, that’s an evaluation).
I understand this is not a general assessment of the value of observations over evaluations outside of the framework of NVC.
Most of the examples would be perceived - at least by me - as impersonal and dishonest.
Voicing observations such as “you were ten minutes late this morning” to someone who’s knowingly been late already before could be easily perceived as passive aggressive. Passive aggressivity is, I believe, the most subtly violent form of communication, and it really leads to nothing useful or constructive.
Most of the examples read as passive aggressive to me, because you’re renouncing to a very direct evaluation that doesn’t require a specific knowledge framework and present instead your interlocutor with an emotionless remark about their actions.
I think some missing context here is that the "observation" phase of an NVC communication:
1. Is in large part for you, the speaker. It forces you to get clear about what you really know to be true. I'm surprised at how often I'm trying to communicate some reaction I'm having, and it's really hard to even say what triggered it. In the process of figuring that out I get a lot of clarity about hat I was expecting or hoping for, what was missing, what the other person actually did, and just by virtue of the reflection, often some "free" insight into what they might have been thinking.
2. Is always followed by a feeling, need, or request (or some combo of those). This, I think is the key to making it not passive aggressive. If I start with "I need for you to not be late anymore," it's a bit disorienting in the conversation for the other person. What caused you to say that? Why now? Providing an objective observation as context for the rest of what you say allows both people to be on the same page about what the subject even is. Being late is a bit of a trivial example, but just like making the observation alone leaves a lot of work on the listener to infer what you expect to happen as a result of the observation, making the request alone leaves a lot work on the listener to infer what generated the request in the first place, ie. what you think has been happening, what matters to you, etc.
I think the strongest move is actually: observation, then impact, then request. Like:
> Hey, you were ten minutes late this morning. We had to push back the client meeting because you weren't there, and I'm afraid we looked disorganized and untrustworthy as a result. I need you to be on time from now on.
It's quite direct that way.
Also much like the observation step triggering useful self-reflection, the impact step requires you to know why the request matters to you at all. Like if there was no client meeting, what do you care if the other person was 10 minutes late? Maybe you still care, but you need to reflect enough to actually understand why, so that you can say it.
> Voicing observations such as “you were ten minutes late this morning” to someone who’s knowingly been late already before could be easily perceived as passive aggressive.
I can see your concern, because it's not clear from the article. It is passive aggressive if you leave it at that. NVC does not recommend leaving at that - you have to state all 3: Observation, Need and Feeling[1] - and the book explicitly calls out what happens if you omit any one. In that sense, your position is in line with the NVC book.
A more complete NVC approach is:
> You were ten minutes late this morning. I was annoyed at having to wait for you and lose productivity. Could you explain why you were late?
And no, I should never assume you know you were late, or how late you were. Because I may well be wrong to begin with (my clock is wrong, got you confused with someone else, etc). Without stating this fact, you would be confused.
Or in this conversation we may discover that your watch was off, and the simple correction is to fix your watch. Or you may know you were 10 minutes late, but you also know that others tend to be 15 minutes late and you may want to bring up with me that I hold them to the same standard as I'm holding you. If any of these is true, the conversation is tougher if I don't mention that you were late by 10 minutes.
> Most of the examples read as passive aggressive to me, because you’re renouncing to a very direct evaluation that doesn’t require a specific knowledge framework and present instead your interlocutor with an emotionless remark about their actions.
Definitely true if you merely make the observation.
Edit: Another commenter raised a very good point. One of the benefits is to make the observation (without judgment) clear in your own head. It's quite easy to have your brain quickly jump to "lazy" or "tardy" - particularly for repeat offenders. And if you do that, it becomes equally easy to vocalize it, which would be a very big mistake.
In most cases, there is no good reason to make that judgment. If someone is always late, it's quite fine to fire him because he cannot be on time, without having to portray him as a "tardy" person. You and your business have your needs and he couldn't meet them. What he is need not enter into the discussion or narrative.
> You were ten minutes late this morning. I was annoyed at having to wait for you and lose productivity. Could you explain why you were late?
Honestly, this sounds even worse to me than just the observation. IMO a good test is "Would I say this to my boss? If not, then probably I shouldn't say it at all.". I would not say this to my boss. Not even close.
How about instead:
"Hey, I noticed you were a little bit late, which is unusual for you. Is everything OK?"
And if the pattern continues:
"Hey, I noticed you were a bit late in the last couple of meetings. I think it is somewhat important to be on time. Is there anything I can do to help you avoid being late next time?"
> "Hey, I noticed you were a little bit late, which is unusual for you. Is everything OK?"
"Yup."
> "Hey, I noticed you were a bit late in the last couple of meetings. I think it is somewhat important to be on time. Is there anything I can do to help you avoid being late next time?"
Below are very real (and somewhat common) responses I've seen to this type of question.
"Nope." (single word answer)
Also:
"I wasn't late" (person believes being up to 5 minutes late doesn't count as "late").
"We don't discuss anything important in this meeting."
"I have real work to do."
"I'm not needed in the meeting."
"You have plenty of topics you can discuss where I'm not needed. Just save the stuff you need me for till I arrive."
"No one's going to die if I'm a few minutes late."
Granted: Many of these responses would come with my phrasing as well :-)
I'm not opposed to your phrasing other than you never explained what the problem is with my being late. While it may be clear to many that you have a problem with being late, I assure you from experience that many (ordinary) people will not pick up on that. Why is being late a problem? Not in general, but for you and for this meeting.
You instead try to appeal to some kind of norm: "I think it's somewhat important to be on time." I can assure you many don't share that norm. Academic/tech/science people tend to avoid personalizing and prefer making statements that feel objective, like this one. I did this all the time, and it often led to arguments. This is one key thing I learned from all the books/courses I read/took on communications: Do personalize and do be specific. Don't invoke norms unless it's a company value without exceptions or your 100% sure the other party shares the norm. And don't make general statements.
I would take your statement and say it as:
"I noticed you were more than 5 minutes late in the last couple of meetings, and the meeting cannot proceed without you. It can be annoying for us to interrupt our work to attend the meeting and lose productivity while sitting and waiting. Would you be able to find a way to arrive on time? Is there anything I can do to help (e.g. change the meeting time to a more convenient one)?"
As for saying it to your boss: I have no problem saying it to mine. If my boss is consistently late and it affects my work, I do make sure to let him know. I've had to set up private meetings with my boss to let him know that his behavior in a working group meeting was causing problems. If you're not comfortable with these discussions with your boss, then I suggest you change your communication style or change your boss.
I think you touch on an important point: you have some expectation and the person doesn't share it. But here is the rub - maybe they are right, not you? Why do you assume you are right? Maybe that person indeed is not needed on that meeting. Maybe by being late they are trying to communicate to you this meeting is in fact a waste of everyone's time. Did you consider this?
For me that's one of the main failing points of NVC as I see it represented here - it starts with "I am right, and you need to adjust" instead of "let's find the underlying root cause of the problem together".
Your points are valid, and are well within the framework of NVC, so I disagree that this is a failing point of NVC.
> But here is the rub - maybe they are right, not you?
That is actually to be expected, and the book is full of such examples. The point is to get the conversation going. If their response is "You complain about productivity? The meeting is a whole hour long and I'm usually needed for only about 10 minutes of it. I do not see the importance of me being on time when I'm losing most of the hour for your meeting" then we're now in negotiation territory. Maybe I should change the format of my meeting. Or always have his item first on the agenda so he can come on time and just leave. The fact that he gave me this answer is helpful.
> it starts with "I am right, and you need to adjust"
I'm too lazy to reread the article, but a key aspect of NVC is that a request is just a request. If you make a request that is denied and get upset about it, then you never made a request to begin with - it was a demand. There's no "You need to change" in it. One thing that I find articles like these don't stress enough is that body language, tone, etc needs to match. You could take my original NVC formulation and speak it in a hostile way, or in a very non-confrontational manner. Of course, since we are communicating using written communication, this aspect is lost and different readers will imagine it with different tones/body language - which may explain some of the polarization I've seen when NVC is discussed in the written form.
And again, I have no disagreement with starting with "let's find the underlying root cause of the problem together" - it's not as if that violates NVC. I could state that in a horrible way as well:
"You and I are going to sit down right now and come up with a solution to this!"
If I wanted to say what you said in a more NVC way, it would be:
"This morning you arrived ten minutes after the meeting start time. I was disappointed that we couldn't go through the whole agenda and thus lost productivity. Would you be willing to discuss ways we can make these meetings more effective?" (this could include alternative times, alternative formats, etc).
(This time I dropped the word "late" because although I view it as a "fact", others tend to attach judgement to it).
People are forgetting that this is a guide to difficult conversations, not a guide to all conversations pointing out a problem. Difficult conversations are occasionally necessary when all else fails.
Glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. While the article had good nuggets of information, I didn't find it credible enough for me to take a chance on applying in real life. Maybe it's the general negative tone.
On the topic I often recommend the great book Hard Conversations, and another by the same authors Thanks for the Feedback. They give a detailed breakdown of how communication actually works so that my overly technical brain can apply it.
After searching a while for the first title I tried the second one (as the plural authors made me question my results).
Did you mean: "Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most" by Douglas Stone, Sheila Heen, et al.?
and: "Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well" by the same authors?
Not the original commenter. Difficult Conversations is a great book for understanding the dynamics of communications. It has a lot of overlap with the NVC book, but it's very poor in terms of giving actionable advice. The NVC book has the opposite problem: Great in terms of giving actionable advice, but poor in explaining the "why" behind the advice.
a google search turns up some thorough summaries. I would best sum it up with “The most common error made in communication is incorrectly assuming that it has occurred”.
Communication is a skill that I see mostly taken for granted once people have a functional level, but it goes deep. It’s tied up with your self awareness, blind spots, etc. and so debugging your speaking and listening skills is a lifelong thing. These books lay out all the layers of assumption, bias, and miscommunication that happen by default in most conversations, and how to recognize them and take charge of a conversation and fix them.
I very rarely focus on the person but rather on the output. I try hard to deliver feedback genuinely, respectfully, and with an interest in elevating our collective work product. I try to offer advice or potential resources for the improvement that needs to happen. In addition, if I ever had a similar issue with my own work product, I definitely share the story and what I did to improve it.
What not to do? Make snarky comments, laugh, put down, say "dude...". Things my current boss does. :)
These methods for NVC are useful because (a) they decouple analysis from emotions, and (b) they protect the target from feeling attacked, so it is possible for the target to receive the analysis instead of going into defensive mode.
Daniel Dennett takes the paradigm further by adding a prequel, which is to clearly articulate the other person's logic and state of mind empathically first, before going into the analysis. Done well, this enhances possibilities for cooperation because it elevates the status of the receiver through respect, even when, or especially when the parties views are not aligned.
This is a very common dismissal in these circles (as referenced by many previous NVC and related HN discussions). I am saying the following to ask you to think a little more about this:
First off, "manipulative" is not an emotion. You could exchange "feels" with "seems" because language is important. It is not slightly ironic that programmer types can tend towards imprecise language when discussing EQ skills :-)
And sure, If by my words I am trying to avoid triggering your flight/flight/freeze response, I am technically "manipulating" you. In this context though, the manipulation is not obviously coming from a place of trying to get you to do something you don't intrinsically want to do (which is really the connotation you imply in your dismissal).
I had a coach teach me a valuable EQ skill that helps in these situations:
You made up a story in your head that the speaker was trying to manipulate you into doing something that you didn't want to do. That's one story. Now come up with 5 more stories that could also be accurate. Sure, the 1st story could be the right assessment, but the other 5 have possibility as well. Why are you jumping on the 1st story as the only real one? By making that assumption, you have changed the energy of the whole exchange into a negative one unnecessarily.
Another perspective you could take when confronted with stilted language is that the person is trying (however ungracefully) to communicate with you in a way that shows they care about your emotional reaction. No matter the reason, it at least shows that they are taking your perspective into account, which is inherently better than not.
You just spent an entire post dismissing someone as incorrect, but you did it in a very ambiguous way that makes it impossible to directly attack - you've created a motte and bailey where you can say "Well, I'm just suggesting that the assumption MIGHT be wrong" but you never actually entertain the possibility that it might be correct.
Why are you dismissing the possibility that you're doing violence? Why have you jumped on the first story that came to mind, instead of giving u a post that lists 5 other assumptions?
And why should I assume that someone creating a fuzzy, unaccountable attack against me is making any sort of effort to take my perspective in to account? If you were trying to take a perspective in to account, you'd actually address "this feels manipulative" instead of just dancing around and insisting that there are alternative perspectives.
You can't completely ignore someone's perspective and then claim you're a good, empathetic listener! And if you can't see how that's manipulative, I'm not honestly sure I can help you.
As much as it is manipulative per se, and might likely seem unnatural ("false"/"calculated"), it's at the same time quite effective. This form of communication accomplishes its stated goals, and being a natural, ummm, bloke is not it.
I've met quite a few other people who don't react well to NVC, so it seems at least worth giving NVC the caveat that it doesn't work universally.
I'm not really sure what the difference is, but I expect tact filters (https://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html) probably play a big role. In particular, NVC seems fanatically about "speaker needs to apply tact", and geek culture is often deeply rooted in "listener needs to apply tact". That's just me guessing in the dark based on anecdotes, though.
Could you clarify which aspect of it is manipulative?
The commenter's advice is emphasized quite a bit in negotiations books/courses. If you want the other person to listen to you, it really does help if you can summarize his stance in his voice - such that he will say "This guy gets what I'm trying to say."
Probably the majority of heated discussions I've witnessed is where they are talking past one another, and as a 3rd party observer it's very clear neither side understands where the other party is coming from, and they waste most of the time addressing things the other person isn't saying.
NVC is less explicit about it, but the principle is there:
"So it sounds like you're frustrated because the script takes an hour to run and you believe it can run in 10 minutes, thus saving you some time?"
(Feeling: Frustrated, Needs: Competence and efficiency, Observation: Takes an hour to run)
On the contrary, I see it as good leadership. One could argue that getting a group of people aligned on a single objective manipulation, but knowing the right words to say to elicit actions from them is the hallmark of a good leader.
Yep, I was reading the examples thinking "god, I'd really hate someone talking to me like that". It feels very "corporate training speak" or something, very smarmy and false.
1. Observations should be specific, not generic ("you are lazy" vs "you have not accomplished any of the tasks you've been assigned"). They should also be objective - third party witnesses should have consensus. We can agree that you've not accomplished your tasks for the week. We will likely disagree on whether that means you're lazy.
2. Feelings are internal and should not involve someone else. "I feel cheated" is really just saying "I believe I've been cheated" - it's accurately portraying your inner narrative (which may be OK), but it is not portraying your feelings. Instead, you may feel sad, depressed, upset, nervous, whatever. Another way to think of it: Feelings are always legitimate - they are never wrong. The narrative in your head, though, may well be wrong. If someone can reasonably dispute it (assuming he/she is not a jerk), then it probably was a narrative and not a feeling.
3. Needs: This, in my experience, is easy for tech people to state. If you think someone cheated you out of money, you probably need things like integrity, honesty, security, etc. If your report at work seems unreliable to you, you probably need consistency, peace of mind, etc.
4. This is making a request. A request is not a demand or a command (so yes, NVC is not appropriate/relevant in contexts where orders make sense). If the person declines your request and you're upset a fair amount by it, you probably were not sincere in making the requests. And finally, your request should also be precise. Not "Could you rephrase that in a respectful manner", but "Could you rephrase that and address me as Mister instead of Dude?"
A few other tidbits from the book (also in Crucial Conversations): You are not responsible for other's feelings. Relieve yourself of that burden/guilt. However, if you want to take things to the next step and have better relations with people around you, do care about their feelings and use techniques to have them feel better - but out of empathy and not out of responsibility or guilt.
In general, the book is about realizing that you have a choice in most things - even things like whether you want to earn money to feed your kids. Likewise, it's about eliminating the language of obligation from your internal dialogues. This may be offputting to people who have a strong sense of obligation.
The above is likely about 90% of the book. The rest of the book are specific, concrete strategies related to the above.
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Personally I've been studying this stuff for years yet still haven't been able to use it in real life. Not for want of trying or of opportunities. It's damn hard when the other person isn't playing along or interested in being understood or heard, when they just want to vent at you about you.
> However, if you want to take things to the next step and have better relations with people around you, do care about their feelings and use techniques to have them feel better - but out of empathy and not out of responsibility or guilt.
This might be a very stupid question… Aren’t responsibility and guilt and empathy somehow very intertwined? At least you’re probably empathetic if you feel guilt or responsibility, right?
One thing to say here is that empathy is basically putting yourself in another person's shoes. Often when you do that you also find room in your heart to forgive them, ie. when you see the way their behavior makes sense from the inside, most of the time there's less blame and more "that makes sense, if I look at it that way."
And I guess you're right that by having a policy of caring about people's feelings and acting on that care, you're "taking responsibility" in a broad sense. But there is a difference between acting out of obligation or coersion vs acting out intrinsic care or even out of even-handed consequentialist reasoning (ie. "what communication will cause the outcome I want?").
There's a lot to say about what that difference is, but--just in terms of outcome--"empathizing" out of obligation almost never works. It's because that obligation is kind of lurking within our motivations and comes through in various ways that disrupt the process of actually, really, understanding what's going on with the other person. Plus it disrupts communicating that understanding in a way that comes through to them.
If there's unspoken blame and contempt in the interaction, it'll almost always come through and make the communication fraught.
Have you ever righted a fallen bicycle? It wasn't your responsibility, you probably didn't feel bad or guilty, maybe you just wanted things to be right/nice. I think that might be the emotional tenor under discussion. Being in an emotional state where you take action because you have some investment in the outcome and not because you are trying to soothe a negative emotion.
They are somewhat orthogonal. You can have guilt with or without empathy. You definitely can have empathy without guilt.
If I give charity to a beggar, it is not because I feel guilty. I just want the help out the guy and I hope his condition improves. If I don't give charity to him, I don't feel guilty.
Guilt and responsibility often arise from cultural constructs, and indeed they partly exist to compel people who are not having empathy to act. Often it's a case of "You are a bad person for not giving money to that beggar" and so I give money to avoid being a "bad" person. NVC eschews the notion of "good" person and "bad" person, and encourages you to remove it from your internal dialogue. Give the guy money because you want to, not because of how others may perceive it.
The only times I've actually been able to use this kind of stuff is when explicitly telling a person I work with, "Hey, I want to start improving myself and our processes. Can we set up some time for talking about feedback?"
And then like once a month you do a feedback meeting, but the first one is talking about nvc/radical candor/etc and how the future meetings should go.
This has only ever worked for me with people at the same level as me but on a different team (account managers, where I'm their technical AM) and literally never has worked with a superior. I think my managers don't like someone else suggesting a management/feedback style for them.
Your intent and persistence is enough. A team-game's outcome is dependent on the entire team. In a team-game, you alone can't do the change alone. Expect real change to take about a decade, and mostly driven by other people than yourself.
Focus on what is in your control and on the longer plays.
The best advice I can give is to start investing into it early on.
For example, I try to make sure my team understand that I have always team's best interest in mind, that I am first to admit if I make a mistake and that I am always ready to evaluate my position as new information comes.
It goes really a long way to help in a difficult situation but it also prevents a lot of difficult situations from happening in the first place.
It also tends to make other team members and management to be on your side which may help in a lot of situations (but not always, not with the most stubborn people).
In my own life, I have spent many, many years, dealing with some of the most difficult people on Earth. Many, who have yet to learn the tools of nonviolent (as in "Not picking up a chair, and breaking it over your head" nonviolent) feedback.
There's something to be said for trying to confront someone that could break you in two, has severe psych issues, and Bic-pen-ink tattoos. It sort of helps you to focus on outcomes.
In my experience, starting by laying out a platform of common goals and achievements is always a great icebreaker.
i.e.
ME: "We've really made a lot of progress on the fundraising, but we still have to get the registration packets done, and the catering menus finished, in time for the conference."
I've found that ignoring personal insults and blamethrowing is useful.
BIG BUTCH: "Well, you were so busy riding your high horse, trying to impress Cathy, that you never checked on my team."
ME: "You're right. I should have checked in to see if you could use help. So here we are, and I need your help to deliver the packets to Joe's committee. How can we get this done?"
Note how I sidestepped horses and Cathy? She'd probably be crushed that I ignored her, but she was irrelevant to the conversation.
Also, it always helps to give them some authority and "upper hand."
Then, there is the firing conversation:
ME: "I'm afraid that I can't work with your team, any longer. I've found that I can't be productive in our work. I'll need to find someone else to work with."
There's really no need for "constructive feedback," since The Die Is Cast. If they want that, I am happy to give it, but the main subject needs to be made clear and unambiguous. The relationship is at an end. The time for negotiations and bargaining is over.
I've learned that "weasel words" can be incredibly self-destructive. They leave the appearance of "gaps" that aren't actually there. They are dishonest, and paint me as a coward; which can be taken as weakness. If the decision has been made, then I can't allow it to be second-guessed or misinterpreted. Plain vernacular is worth its weight in gold.
If I need to have a couple of bruisers with billy clubs available, then I can have them file in quietly, after we're settled.
I think that treating people with respect, at all times, is really, really important. Choosing the venue (like not confronting them in front of others) can go a long way towards helping to reach my goals.
Everyone deserves respect; even those that refuse to give me respect.
I like that conversation style when I see other people apply it, but in a specific situation it's hard for me to say what the main point is. In the Big Butch conversation, it can lead to totally different outcomes if you choose to do something for Butch (instead of "riding the high horse"), check in with Cathy, or focus the conversation on the topic you entered the conversation with.
All are possible paths, all lead to different outcomes that might interest you. How do you know on the spot that the issue you came with is more relevant than the new information you just learned from Butch?
In my experience, human interaction is always complex. It’s only in sitcoms and Dwayne Johnson movies, where people are 1-dimensional. Everywhere else, people (and situations) are a bit more complex.
This means that I have found “hard and fast rules” to be of limited utility, and I always need to exercise discretion.
There's something odd about communicating feelings without the thoughts that gave rise to those feelings. It seems like the assumption is that the "observations" directly give rise to the "feelings", which I don't think is accurate. It's just leaving steps out, which is kind of not as candid and forthcoming as a difficult conversation should be IMO.
I think you should explain how the observation clashes with your expectations, so the person you're talking to isn't having to guess at that link between observation and feeling.
It's generally agreed that the Sandwich Technique is manipulative and condescending. If the purpose of a meeting/conversation is to deliver negative feedback, your reports/teammates will almost certainly be able to figure that out. If you're using this technique, I'd highly recommend spending some time figuring out if people actually appreciate this aspect of the conversations you're having with them.
I think the sandwich technique is flawed. Probably not worse than many alternatives, mind, but in my mind it only serves to highlight the criticism. When I notice it I laugh because, well, its the sandwich technique, and this person is trying to be nice when what I need is for them to be critical. I think it has its place where you are giving feedback to many people sequentially to help ensure no one is going to get accidentally picked on. Like when teaching, you don't want to have only negative things to say to the slow student (whose work in comparison will appear even worse).
The 'non violent communication' stuff feels useful as a pattern of conversation when you need to strengthen and clarify your own communication. It helps lead to statements that can't be quibbled with or creatively re-interpreted. Have you ever noticed some one making a big deal out of an offhand remark that wasn't really core to your point anyway? Sandwich technique can't help with that, but the meat of the article does.
Anyway, thanks for the spring board! Hope you enjoy the soliloquy.
I've yet to find someone who like receiving those sandwiches. Only those who give it tend to like it. I work with a nice person who gives feedback in sandwiches. The upshot is no one believes his praise even when given without a sandwich. Beware.
I've gotten to the point where I wince at compliments because of the shit sandwich technique. When I get one, I know I'm dealing with a passive-aggressive person and limit my interactions from then on.
Although I do think it’s worthwhile to try to think and communicate as clearly as possible, over the years I’ve learned in this industry that 90% or more of coworkers and managers are not going to put the same effort into it. You can do everything right and the majority of the time it won’t matter. The only thing that (almost) guarantees good relationships with management is to just do whatever they want even when it is leading the company to ruin, never voice your objections, etc.
There is no common goal with most managers because they don’t usually care about the success of the company, just their own personal success. And with most coworkers, few want to do things better more than they want to just have an easy ride.
If anyone is aware of an environment where meritocracy exists in this industry I’d love to know about it. Where, where can I find a company that cares about making money by providing value? (Obviously some attention is paid to this to make enough money to keep the company going, but it’s second to the higher goal of accumulating their personal status and wealth, and there is misalignment between that and actually delivering value due to usually poor leadership at the top and poor investor oversight.)
Maybe it’s all just a consequence of capital concentration. There are plenty of companies that could be out competed but competitors just won’t be funded, except if they are run by other connected people who don’t have the talent to out compete the existing ones.