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This is a really interesting point: When I was a V.C. at first, I would just ask my questions and kind of poke, poke, poke, poke. And now I’ll say: “Look, I’m

by dceddia 10y ago

This is a really interesting point: When I was a V.C. at first, I would just ask my questions and kind of poke, poke, poke, poke. And now I’ll say: “Look, I’m going to ask some things, and this might be kind of awkward, but I’m just going to say it, and let’s work our way through it. And it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in you and your company. I just want to understand where you are and what you think. I’m going to ask some things and they might be wrong, but let’s figure some things out together.” -- I've noticed that people have different assumptions about what it means to ask questions. Some folks (like the interviewee here) just ask away, because they want information -- their questions have no malicious intent behind them. But on the receiving side, this can cause problems. Some people, when asked probing questions (or any questions at all), will get defensive. Just the fact that someone is asking must mean they think something is wrong. Questions like "Why did you choose Node.js instead of Java?" can be (and I think often are) interpreted as "The questioner thinks I made the wrong choice, so I have to defend my choice now." People in the tech community seem particularly affected by this assumption. Interesting that this VC ran into that problem too.

tchock23 10y ago
Here is a little hack around that to not put people on the defensive. Instead of asking "Why," say "For what reasons." It makes people less defensive. (Source: Was a qualitative market researcher for 10 years, learned this through hundreds of customer interviews).
- ak39 10y ago
  Thank you very much. This is great advice. I will use it for my conversation with my teenage son. I think many times before asking the "why" questions. Many times I simply don't know how to ask. Your suggestion is excellent.
- neom 10y ago
  "What do you think about..." works really well for me. Whenever I'm asking my team why they are doing something, I just ask them to tell me what they think about it. Instead of why did you use node.js instead of java? I ask, what do you think about node.js as a choice instead of java?
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  I'm going to use this when asking about legacy code. Thanks!
  - civilian 10y ago
    My go-to answer for questions about legacy code is: "We did it for legacy reasons." ;)
    - bbcbasic 10y ago
      Or: git blame | grep exployees.txt (pardon my lack of grep/git command line knowledge!)
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- suls 10y ago
  In our post mortems we tried using "How come .." instead of "why" for a while but the wording was a bit to awkward. "For what reason .." is a great starting point I think -- thanks a lot! It really shifts the perspective to objectively look at the "thing", without having too much ego on the line
- jkaptur 10y ago
  A crisis hotline that I worked for simply banned trainees from saying "why" or "I" during training calls. Omitting those two words makes it surprisingly hard to be judgmental or confrontational.
johnfn 10y ago
> People in the tech community seem particularly affected by this assumption. Not just people in the tech community! "Why did you like that movie" almost seems like an accusation and will put people on the defensive. "What did you like about that movie" is much better.
debt 10y ago
people need to stop being so sensitive and emotional. seems a reasonable person can answer any question properly; calmly deriving and ignoring the intent and just simply answering the question as truthfully as possible.
- civilian 10y ago
  I was listening to Joe Rogan and Scott Adam's podcast interview from a few days ago-- Scott thinks that people act irrationally and emotionally about 90% of the time, and are only objective maybe 10% of the time, and under narrow circumstances. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a salesperson at my dad's office space. He said something like: "We're smart people here. And the clients we work for-- even when they're not objectively dumb, they still don't have as much experience as we do in the area we work in. It would be easy to throw up our hands and say 'phe! I can't worth with these idiots! They need to educate themselves and then get back to me.' But that's the thing. If you're the smarter one, you ought to be able to teach them and do a deal with them, despite their flaws." So let's say that you have mastered being objective, but you still have to work with people who are stuck with their emotions. Why not prime their thoughts so that they can think more objectively? That's all John Lilly is doing-- he's recognizing the situation and helping them along.
  - drieddust 10y ago
    > If you're the smarter one, you ought to be able to teach them and do a deal with them, despite their flaws. While I agree with the premises, this is mostly not true in corporate environment. Most of the advice is ignored in favour of unrealistic goals which obviously are not met. But none the less it allows them to keep their jobs a little bit longer and when shit hits the fan, consultants gets blamed. Toxicity of corporate environment is so unbelievably high.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  It's not that simple. These sensitivities don't come out of nowhere. People learn to communicate in different environments, and so in a new environment, they can often make a lot of incorrect inferences. If someone is defensive at what you think are innocent questions, it's probably because they're used to communicating with people who only ask questions like that when they think something is wrong. In that context, trying to work out what the other person thinks is wrong and respond to it is potentially a more effective way to communicate than simply answering the question as posed. So if you encounter such a person, you can sneer and blame their inexperience if you like (and you're probably correct), but it's probably more effective to try and adapt your own communication.
ams6110 10y ago
> The questioner thinks I made the wrong choice There is that implication if the questioner mentions a specific alternative. Compare the simple: "Why did you choose Node.js?"

by dceddia 10y ago

tchock23 10y ago

Here is a little hack around that to not put people on the defensive. Instead of asking "Why," say "For what reasons." It makes people less defensive. (Source: Was a qualitative market researcher for 10 years, learned this through hundreds of customer interviews).

ak39 10y ago
Thank you very much. This is great advice. I will use it for my conversation with my teenage son. I think many times before asking the "why" questions. Many times I simply don't know how to ask. Your suggestion is excellent.
neom 10y ago
"What do you think about..." works really well for me. Whenever I'm asking my team why they are doing something, I just ask them to tell me what they think about it. Instead of why did you use node.js instead of java? I ask, what do you think about node.js as a choice instead of java?
bbcbasic 10y ago
I'm going to use this when asking about legacy code. Thanks!
- civilian 10y ago
  My go-to answer for questions about legacy code is: "We did it for legacy reasons." ;)
  - bbcbasic 10y ago
    Or: git blame | grep exployees.txt (pardon my lack of grep/git command line knowledge!)
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
suls 10y ago
In our post mortems we tried using "How come .." instead of "why" for a while but the wording was a bit to awkward. "For what reason .." is a great starting point I think -- thanks a lot! It really shifts the perspective to objectively look at the "thing", without having too much ego on the line
jkaptur 10y ago
A crisis hotline that I worked for simply banned trainees from saying "why" or "I" during training calls. Omitting those two words makes it surprisingly hard to be judgmental or confrontational.

johnfn 10y ago

> People in the tech community seem particularly affected by this assumption. Not just people in the tech community! "Why did you like that movie" almost seems like an accusation and will put people on the defensive. "What did you like about that movie" is much better.

debt 10y ago

people need to stop being so sensitive and emotional. seems a reasonable person can answer any question properly; calmly deriving and ignoring the intent and just simply answering the question as truthfully as possible.

civilian 10y ago
I was listening to Joe Rogan and Scott Adam's podcast interview from a few days ago-- Scott thinks that people act irrationally and emotionally about 90% of the time, and are only objective maybe 10% of the time, and under narrow circumstances. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a salesperson at my dad's office space. He said something like: "We're smart people here. And the clients we work for-- even when they're not objectively dumb, they still don't have as much experience as we do in the area we work in. It would be easy to throw up our hands and say 'phe! I can't worth with these idiots! They need to educate themselves and then get back to me.' But that's the thing. If you're the smarter one, you ought to be able to teach them and do a deal with them, despite their flaws." So let's say that you have mastered being objective, but you still have to work with people who are stuck with their emotions. Why not prime their thoughts so that they can think more objectively? That's all John Lilly is doing-- he's recognizing the situation and helping them along.
- drieddust 10y ago
  > If you're the smarter one, you ought to be able to teach them and do a deal with them, despite their flaws. While I agree with the premises, this is mostly not true in corporate environment. Most of the advice is ignored in favour of unrealistic goals which obviously are not met. But none the less it allows them to keep their jobs a little bit longer and when shit hits the fan, consultants gets blamed. Toxicity of corporate environment is so unbelievably high.
aninhumer 10y ago
It's not that simple. These sensitivities don't come out of nowhere. People learn to communicate in different environments, and so in a new environment, they can often make a lot of incorrect inferences. If someone is defensive at what you think are innocent questions, it's probably because they're used to communicating with people who only ask questions like that when they think something is wrong. In that context, trying to work out what the other person thinks is wrong and respond to it is potentially a more effective way to communicate than simply answering the question as posed. So if you encounter such a person, you can sneer and blame their inexperience if you like (and you're probably correct), but it's probably more effective to try and adapt your own communication.

ams6110 10y ago

> The questioner thinks I made the wrong choice There is that implication if the questioner mentions a specific alternative. Compare the simple: "Why did you choose Node.js?"