[ivanbakel]

That presumes that communication is just about people understanding the thing you are trying to say, rather than the transfer of thoughts, ideas, and opinions.

Put another way: the only thing that you can verify when communicating that the sky is on fire is that the other party knows you think the sky is on fire. Whether or not they think the sky is on fire, or whether they think you're blowing hot air, is pretty inscrutable. If they don't agree with you, they're still likely to not show it because you (to them) are a neurotic hothead who they don't want to upset.

The only truth in what you manage to communicate to people is the effect it has on how they act. In other words - they can't tell you anything! They can only show you.

[MichaelZuo]

Methods such as reviewing their work, observing their actions without them knowing, testing them in some form, literally sitting behind them, etc..., will quickly reveal someone's true disposition towards whether the 'sky is on fire', regardless of what might be said.

At least I've never heard anyone that could convincingly fake such a big difference under focused observation, assuming the verifier is competent.

For example, veteran car mechanics can tell in a minute when someone's never worked on a car in their life, just by asking them to do an oil change, or some other quick task.

And they can easily and reliably differentiate the folks who only occasionally work on cars vs those who regularly do with a half hour of observation in the shop.

[ivanbakel]

I agree - as I said, you can see the results in the actions of the other party. But those are all techniques beyond communication: none of them allow you to verify, in the moment, whether or not the other person has "understood" you in the sense of agreeing with what you have to say.

The idea of verifying after communicating is in line with the original article, and the comment by outworlder. What do you think they failed to consider?

[MichaelZuo]

> But those are all techniques beyond communication: none of them allow you to verify, in the moment, whether or not the other person has "understood" you in the sense of agreeing with what you have to say.

Huh?

To clarify, in my example of the veteran car mechanic assessing someone's proficiency, there's no set-up required, they can verify it 'in the moment'.

No special or unusual tools or environmental conditions are needed to conduct verification.

[ivanbakel]

>To clarify, in my example of the veteran car mechanic assessing someone's proficiency, there's no set-up required, they can verify it 'in the moment'. > >No special or unusual tools or environmental conditions are needed to conduct verification.

Well at least some environmental conditions are required: if you ask someone to change an oil filter, there has to be a car in the environment to do it on. To get any value of out of it, you also have to be able to oversee the process - it's no use if you're instructing someone over the phone, for example.

More generally, I think the point of the original post, and the original comment, are that verifying that something was communicated successfully requires out-of-band actions. Physically demonstrating something, or watching someone demonstrate something, are both out-of-band: neither work over all communication channels, like user manuals, or phone calls.

Even in-person communication is often restricted to make verification difficult: imagine if you're in a water-cooler meeting with another developer, and you mention that you think they should take a different approach to a certain problem. Are you going to follow them back to their desk to verify that they really choose to do so? Probably not: it's both incredibly rude, and a bad use of your own time. But there is nothing in the water-cooler conversation that you can really do to check that they'll take your advice.

[MichaelZuo]

> More generally, I think the point of the original post, and the original comment, are that verifying that something was communicated successfully requires out-of-band actions. Physically demonstrating something, or watching someone demonstrate something, are both out-of-band: neither work over all communication channels, like user manuals, or phone calls.

Of course? That's the implication of not just taking someone's word for it in the context of an office environment.

> Even in-person communication is often restricted to make verification difficult: imagine if you're in a water-cooler meeting with another developer, and you mention that you think they should take a different approach to a certain problem. Are you going to follow them back to their desk to verify that they really choose to do so? Probably not: it's both incredibly rude, and a bad use of your own time. But there is nothing in the water-cooler conversation that you can really do to check that they'll take your advice.

That would be the case if it was a trivial matter. But for really important things, then I don't see a problem?