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I find this pretty disgusting. So the expectation for everyone else is to behave as though you're in a safe space and speak no ill of another person, but if yo
by chroem- 11y ago
I find this pretty disgusting. So the expectation for everyone else is to behave as though you're in a safe space and speak no ill of another person, but if you have enough money you can just throw all common courtesy out the window?
- jerf 11y agoYou might want to re-open the tab and do a browser-find for "Encourage Your Whole Team to be Radically Candid" and read the part of the article you skipped. You may still not agree, but you speak as if the article is about management only, which is objectively untrue.
- smacktoward 11y agoI would submit that anyone who thinks employees are ever going to feel 100% free to bluntly criticize the person who approves or signs their paycheck to their face is an idiot. (Does that qualify as radical candor?)
- jerf 11y agoIsn't that exactly why it's worthwhile to point out that bosses need to go out of their way to encourage it? Humans come equipped with instinctive hierarchial behaviors, but they're optimized towards producing functioning tribes, which is not quite the same thing as high-functioning modern cooperatives (which includes, but is not limited to, for-profit corporations). They're close enough that they're a potent starting point (or humanity would not have even come this far), but the optimal point in the modern world requires a bit of conscious effort to attain.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI didn't feel comfortable being candid with my employer until I was financially independent.
- ath0 11y agoWhich makes sense, sure. But equally consider: did you miss out on opportunities to learn more, quickly from your employer by not being direct about where you disagreed and trying to understand whether she was wrong or you were? As 'kimscott is trying to point out in thread -- there are ways of being candid that aren't simply "you're wrong and I'm right, so shut up and listen" -- which is not how you should behave, either with your boss or with your subordinates. All things being equal, candor (with empathy toward the recipient and openness to being wrong) leads to better results than keeping your opinions to yourself and stewing silently.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago> Which makes sense, sure. But equally consider: did you miss out on opportunities to learn more, quickly from your employer by not being direct about where you disagreed and trying to understand whether she was wrong or you were? Yes. And in some cases, I left jobs out of fear of losing mine for being candid. Better to leave on your terms than someone else's. I'd share my concerns in my exit interview, and move on. > All things being equal, candor (with empathy toward the recipient and openness to being wrong) leads to better results than keeping your opinions to yourself and stewing silently. I agree. I don't think this will happen in at-will employment environments though. Are you going to be candid, even when told your job is safe, if you can be fired at anytime with no recourse? NOPE.
- kimscott 11y agoYou are right, that is HARD. That's why bosses have to work so hard to get their employees to criticize them...To GET criticism. Will have a bunch of suggestions in the book I'm writing for this. Open to others that you have. That's also why I recommend a bunch of things that put bosses on a more equal footing with employees.
- jerf 11y agoYou're getting priceless feedback on the first-order misunderstandings people have about this idea here. :) Do you have a mailing list or anything for when the book is done? (If you look at my HN profile I've got an email address you can stick on it, if you set one up later.) I do find myself wondering if perhaps the book will face an issue from missing tone & body language that naturally happens in a talk. If I were to go kinda far out on the crazy idea scale, I would consider borrowing something from the indie video game world; you can do a lot of setting the tone of a long series of text snippets by recording high quality voice samples. Once we have the sense from high-quality voice acting, we can fill in the gaps from there. It might be interesting to experiment with pairing the book with a presentation given on the first chapter in video form, which would then set the tone for the rest of the book. (I think people, rather understandably, have a lot of preexisting emotion they are bringing to this topic, and it may be worth taking extra steps to try to defuse it, so you have a chance of communicating your points.) Crazy thought, anyhow.
- kimscott 11y agoYou are right, these comments are really helpful! It's so easy to say something that gives people the idea quite opposite to what I'm trying to say... Yes, adding you to mailing list... Love the idea of turning the book into a kind of video game; also thinking of building some tools that will make it easier to implement ideas, and buidling community around the book...
- jerf 11y agoWell, I just meant a recorded video to set tone, but if you get a good idea off of "video game" far be it from me to discourage that.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago> if you have enough money you can just throw all common courtesy out the window? Empirically, the answer appears to be "yes".