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I'm having a severe case of cognitive dissonance here. A positive, supportive environment is one that allows people to speak up, supports people to be critical

I'm having a severe case of cognitive dissonance here. A positive, supportive environment is one that allows people to speak up, supports people to be critical and allows both success and failures but doesn't perpetuate failures - meaning the initiative or product is separate from the person. A negative, unsupportive environment generally makes people feel like shit until they quit or are fired, perpetuates failed initiatives out of ego or spite, or otherwise tosses out people along with a failed initiative, etc.

zzzcpan 10y ago
Obviously, positive and supportive mean different things to different people. I, for example, don't see how you can be positive, supportive, but criticize other people's ideas and work they are doing at the same time. So, at best it's a neutral place, leaning towards negativity, since expressing criticism substantially is a lot of effort, it's easier to simply call bad ideas as bad and move on. The research is actually about two things, safe place to speak up and empathy.
- grzm 10y ago
  > I, for example, don't see how you can be positive, supportive, but criticize other people's ideas and work they are doing at the same time. I think the key is to consider your motivation. Do you want the person to succeed? Do you have their best interests in mind? Assuming you do and your actions are congruent with that, you're being supportive. If you see a way they can do something better, or want to point out a mistake, you should do that, because you believe it's in their best interest to improve and learn. And you'll want to do that in a way that is receptive to them. Generally that's going to be a more positive experience than a negative one. I think we'd agree that ripping into them for making a mistake or telling them they're stupid is unlikely to be effective in the long term. I don't know you, but I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt that that's not how you interact anyway :) I'm using it as an example of something I'm sure we've all experienced or at least heard of. You might argue I'm just reframing it, and yeah, I am, but I do think it's a fair and useful reframe. Your point about the cost of expressing criticism has validity. Thinking deeply and critically in general takes a lot of effort, and there is a cost in empathy as well. After all, you're now thinking about the problem and the other person. I think the empathy part gets easier over time and can become a habit. In a team setting, once there's a common understanding of support and constructive criticism, you've got some slack to give people the benefit of the doubt in everyday interactions. Think of it as a social lubricant, or insurance that pays out when things aren't going so well. Think of it from the point of view of the recipient. If you've been working hard on a problem and it's not working out, you might not be feeling so great. Or maybe the work's just fine but your blood sugar's low and you're feeling a little irritated. Someone comes along and points out problems in your work. You're already at a deficit, so it's extra effort to be empathetic towards them as well. Are they actually being supportive with constructive criticism? Or tearing you down? If that social lubricant hasn't been applied in a while, it might be harder to give them then benefit of the doubt. No one needs to be malicious or overly sensitive for this to lead to a more negative situation, nor do you need to be overly upbeat and cheery all the time. (I'm certainly not and try to keep myself from being critical of people who are :) I might have read a lot more into what you wrote than you intended. It's not my intent to misrepresent what you've said, so please feel free to point out anything I may have unfairly assumed or misread. What do you think?
- david-given 10y ago
  ...I find myself telling this anecodote more or less at weekly intervals, but: Where I work all code is reviewed. Like, it has to be reviewed before it gets checked in. Everyone does reviews, everyone has their code reviewed. One of the people I work with has an amazing talent which is that you go through a review with them, and at the far end you feel enthusiastic and pumped and really keen to throw all your code away and rewrite it from scratch, because they've just pointed out all the incredibly stupid stuff they've done wrong, but they've done it in such a way that you feel really good about all the stuff you've just learned. Meanwhile I've gone through much less severe reviews from other people that have left me depressed and completely unenthusiastic, even though they thought my code was fine. Positive, supportive, constructive, and critical: it's totally possible (and I need to learn how to do it).
- wpietri 10y ago
  > I, for example, don't see how you can be positive, supportive, but criticize other people's ideas and work they are doing at the same time. I think it's the only way you can really criticize usefully. Negative feedback is always difficult to hear, much more so from somebody you don't trust. And trust is built up over time through positive interaction. I am just back from my nephew's soccer game, the last game of the season. The coach gave each kid a card congratulating them on the great season. Each card had detailed, specific praise, as well as a couple of things they need to work on. It's clear he's been doing this all season: gobs of positive feedback, plus actionable negative feedback. And that's appropriate. What they're doing is mostly right, and what they don't do right they generally notice themselves. The small amount of negative feedback they need to hear is about the things they can't see. And for them to believe they are really missing something, it helps if it comes from somebody they really trust. I should also mention that there are other ways to get improvement than critique. E.g., there's a technique called appreciative inquiry which is mainly about focusing on the things in a situation that are going well. Or you can just discuss someone's work and ask people what they see in it. Often they'll provide plenty of criticism on their own; you can then agree with the parts they should work on soon. Or you can set up feedback loops so that they experience quality issues sooner. It's not, by the way, that I'm opposed to critique as a technique. But I think it's a dangerous one, in that a lot of people do it not because it really helps, but because it lets them feel smart and powerful at a colleague's expense.
- elbear 10y ago
  You can be supportive of the person while criticizing something they did. Also, when you criticize, you can do it with arrogance or with kindness. As a signal of good feedback, I would use the number of adjectives in your feedback. Instead of saying that something is bad, stupid, lazy, you can say that a function has too many lines or too many branches, or that 2 modules are too tightly coupled.
rhizome 10y ago
An underlying question is whether the organization treats differing and possibly contrarian views as a positive or a negative. All of your points follow from that.

zzzcpan 10y ago

Obviously, positive and supportive mean different things to different people. I, for example, don't see how you can be positive, supportive, but criticize other people's ideas and work they are doing at the same time. So, at best it's a neutral place, leaning towards negativity, since expressing criticism substantially is a lot of effort, it's easier to simply call bad ideas as bad and move on. The research is actually about two things, safe place to speak up and empathy.

grzm 10y ago
> I, for example, don't see how you can be positive, supportive, but criticize other people's ideas and work they are doing at the same time. I think the key is to consider your motivation. Do you want the person to succeed? Do you have their best interests in mind? Assuming you do and your actions are congruent with that, you're being supportive. If you see a way they can do something better, or want to point out a mistake, you should do that, because you believe it's in their best interest to improve and learn. And you'll want to do that in a way that is receptive to them. Generally that's going to be a more positive experience than a negative one. I think we'd agree that ripping into them for making a mistake or telling them they're stupid is unlikely to be effective in the long term. I don't know you, but I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt that that's not how you interact anyway :) I'm using it as an example of something I'm sure we've all experienced or at least heard of. You might argue I'm just reframing it, and yeah, I am, but I do think it's a fair and useful reframe. Your point about the cost of expressing criticism has validity. Thinking deeply and critically in general takes a lot of effort, and there is a cost in empathy as well. After all, you're now thinking about the problem and the other person. I think the empathy part gets easier over time and can become a habit. In a team setting, once there's a common understanding of support and constructive criticism, you've got some slack to give people the benefit of the doubt in everyday interactions. Think of it as a social lubricant, or insurance that pays out when things aren't going so well. Think of it from the point of view of the recipient. If you've been working hard on a problem and it's not working out, you might not be feeling so great. Or maybe the work's just fine but your blood sugar's low and you're feeling a little irritated. Someone comes along and points out problems in your work. You're already at a deficit, so it's extra effort to be empathetic towards them as well. Are they actually being supportive with constructive criticism? Or tearing you down? If that social lubricant hasn't been applied in a while, it might be harder to give them then benefit of the doubt. No one needs to be malicious or overly sensitive for this to lead to a more negative situation, nor do you need to be overly upbeat and cheery all the time. (I'm certainly not and try to keep myself from being critical of people who are :) I might have read a lot more into what you wrote than you intended. It's not my intent to misrepresent what you've said, so please feel free to point out anything I may have unfairly assumed or misread. What do you think?
david-given 10y ago
...I find myself telling this anecodote more or less at weekly intervals, but: Where I work all code is reviewed. Like, it has to be reviewed before it gets checked in. Everyone does reviews, everyone has their code reviewed. One of the people I work with has an amazing talent which is that you go through a review with them, and at the far end you feel enthusiastic and pumped and really keen to throw all your code away and rewrite it from scratch, because they've just pointed out all the incredibly stupid stuff they've done wrong, but they've done it in such a way that you feel really good about all the stuff you've just learned. Meanwhile I've gone through much less severe reviews from other people that have left me depressed and completely unenthusiastic, even though they thought my code was fine. Positive, supportive, constructive, and critical: it's totally possible (and I need to learn how to do it).
wpietri 10y ago
> I, for example, don't see how you can be positive, supportive, but criticize other people's ideas and work they are doing at the same time. I think it's the only way you can really criticize usefully. Negative feedback is always difficult to hear, much more so from somebody you don't trust. And trust is built up over time through positive interaction. I am just back from my nephew's soccer game, the last game of the season. The coach gave each kid a card congratulating them on the great season. Each card had detailed, specific praise, as well as a couple of things they need to work on. It's clear he's been doing this all season: gobs of positive feedback, plus actionable negative feedback. And that's appropriate. What they're doing is mostly right, and what they don't do right they generally notice themselves. The small amount of negative feedback they need to hear is about the things they can't see. And for them to believe they are really missing something, it helps if it comes from somebody they really trust. I should also mention that there are other ways to get improvement than critique. E.g., there's a technique called appreciative inquiry which is mainly about focusing on the things in a situation that are going well. Or you can just discuss someone's work and ask people what they see in it. Often they'll provide plenty of criticism on their own; you can then agree with the parts they should work on soon. Or you can set up feedback loops so that they experience quality issues sooner. It's not, by the way, that I'm opposed to critique as a technique. But I think it's a dangerous one, in that a lot of people do it not because it really helps, but because it lets them feel smart and powerful at a colleague's expense.
elbear 10y ago
You can be supportive of the person while criticizing something they did. Also, when you criticize, you can do it with arrogance or with kindness. As a signal of good feedback, I would use the number of adjectives in your feedback. Instead of saying that something is bad, stupid, lazy, you can say that a function has too many lines or too many branches, or that 2 modules are too tightly coupled.

rhizome 10y ago

An underlying question is whether the organization treats differing and possibly contrarian views as a positive or a negative. All of your points follow from that.