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But you are a smart and socially conscious human being. You know that you can’t just go to Kara’s desk and tell them “Kara, the icon is wrong.” Kara would get d

But you are a smart and socially conscious human being. You know that you can’t just go to Kara’s desk and tell them “Kara, the icon is wrong.” Kara would get defensive and argue for the the icon. I never understood this logic. How is Kara being offended a smart and socially conscious decision? A better way to handle criticism is to ask for people's opinions and not get defensive. After reading couple of negotiation and similar articles, I started to try and reason with people with carefully crafted questions to guide them towards my goal. But the end result always is that once people realize what I am trying to do, have them remove an icon, they get defensive irrespective. And then argument ensues. The only way I found around this was to build trust. And it takes time, you cannot arrive at a company and start a discussion with Kara. Small talk about family etc helps build some trust. Or if systems fails and resolving it without shaming the original developers helps too. This obviously is not perfect because the time you spend building trust, you are also acquiring issues. But it helps in long run.

mseebach 8y ago
> I never understood this logic. How is Kara being offended a smart and socially conscious decision? Because Kara is a human, and humans are weird, emotional creatures. Our primary instinct is to scan any interaction for signs of attack. Thus, your recommendation to build trust is the right one, with trust Kara's prime instinct isn't that you're a potential attacker (and that's the main value of having high trust in teams in general - they are more efficient because they have less friction in communications). But empathy is also important: Kara didn't select the icon because she's a moron, bent on anti-social behaviour. Saying "the icon is wrong" can be understood to imply that, and that implication is, indeed, an attack. Your experience in trying to reason with people might (I obviously don't know you) stem from some measure of lack of empathy - do you enter those interactions with a belief that you're right and the other person is wrong? Try entering them in the spirit of assuming that the other person made the choice they did in good faith, but perhaps did not have all the information you do, then listen, and remember that perhaps you don't have all the information they have, either.
nhaehnle 8y ago
> How is Kara being offended a smart and socially conscious decision? That's not what the article is saying. The article is not saying that Kara being offended is smart and socially conscious. The article does not judge whether being offended here is smart or stupid or whatever. What the article is saying is that it is smart and socially conscious to be aware of the fact that Kara is likely going to be offended. It is certainly true that awareness of others' likely reactions is smart and socially conscious. The rest of your comment is pretty much a restatement of the conclusion of the article :)
BeetleB 8y ago
I've read a bunch of negotiation books as well as conversation books. What the latter heavily emphasized is: Do not ask leading questions What you describe is textbook behavior. People usually will know when you are doing it, and will get defensive. Especially the smarter ones. I look back in all my years and understand a lot of people's reaction to me: Some people have literally shouted at me when adopted the Socratic approach. The rest don't shout, but they do get defensive. The better among them will ask why I'm probing. But the majority will either answer (but internally think negative of me and damage the relationship), or will get nasty. That's not to say you can't ask questions. The key is to ask genuinely curious questions (the opposite of leading questions). If you have a concern, learn how to state the concern in a non-threatening manner. Don't try to lead people to it. The other thing they all say, which the submission has: "If your goal is to change someone (be it internally or externally), the chances of having a poor conversation are high."
- proctor 8y ago
  > I've read a bunch of negotiation books as well as conversation books. i would like to read some good books on negotiation and conversation. do you have any advice on what the best books that you read on the topics were?
  - BeetleB 8y ago
    See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16977911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16977911
- citrablue 8y ago
  A strategy for this is outlined in the (great, IMO) book "Never Split the Difference": treat the interaction as a negotiation, and adopt a EQ-first approach. The book has some good phrasing hacks and other subtle messaging techniques designed to place both people on the same team, solving a common challenge. Yes, it can be exhausting if you do this in every interaction. But I've been picking 1 interaction per day and implementing those techniques to significant success. [edit] Relevant article from the author's site: http://blog.blackswanltd.com/the-edge/the-key-to-disarming-the-attack http://blog.blackswanltd.com/the-edge/the-key-to-disarming-t...
lainga 8y ago
On the other end of the stick from the other explanations here, I've worked in at least one team where there were no Karas. Our boss would come up to us and say "this is totally wrong", and we would discuss it without missing a beat. I think there are benefits to being forthright, but you absolutely have to make sure there aren't any Karas first. And be ready to take the article's suggestions to heart if there are, without grumbling.
- nailer 8y ago
  I once had a UX designer who was tasked with creating, or picking (with appropriate license) an icon to represent the volume of traffic on a keyword on the Twitter firehose. They picked some traffic lights. Keep in mind, the icon represented the amount of traffic, not whether traffic is stopped, started, or pending change. The icon would have been poor for that task too, since it was in two colors. The UX designer required explanation as to why their traffic icon wasn't sufficient. Later, the company folded, amongst the other reasons given were that they should have fired the Kara way earlier than they did (for many reasons, including lack of competance and not being able to handle feedback).
dta5003 8y ago
> How is Kara being offended a smart and socially conscious decision? Well, it did say you are a smart and socially conscious human being, it didn't say anything about your co-worker.
opportune 8y ago
You can't affect her being offended. All you can do is respond to it. Yes, maybe Kara should be less defensive, but that's not something you have control over; and trying to argue your way into convincing someone to not be offended is only going to make things worse

mseebach 8y ago

> I never understood this logic. How is Kara being offended a smart and socially conscious decision? Because Kara is a human, and humans are weird, emotional creatures. Our primary instinct is to scan any interaction for signs of attack. Thus, your recommendation to build trust is the right one, with trust Kara's prime instinct isn't that you're a potential attacker (and that's the main value of having high trust in teams in general - they are more efficient because they have less friction in communications). But empathy is also important: Kara didn't select the icon because she's a moron, bent on anti-social behaviour. Saying "the icon is wrong" can be understood to imply that, and that implication is, indeed, an attack. Your experience in trying to reason with people might (I obviously don't know you) stem from some measure of lack of empathy - do you enter those interactions with a belief that you're right and the other person is wrong? Try entering them in the spirit of assuming that the other person made the choice they did in good faith, but perhaps did not have all the information you do, then listen, and remember that perhaps you don't have all the information they have, either.

nhaehnle 8y ago

> How is Kara being offended a smart and socially conscious decision? That's not what the article is saying. The article is not saying that Kara being offended is smart and socially conscious. The article does not judge whether being offended here is smart or stupid or whatever. What the article is saying is that it is smart and socially conscious to be aware of the fact that Kara is likely going to be offended. It is certainly true that awareness of others' likely reactions is smart and socially conscious. The rest of your comment is pretty much a restatement of the conclusion of the article :)

BeetleB 8y ago

I've read a bunch of negotiation books as well as conversation books. What the latter heavily emphasized is: Do not ask leading questions What you describe is textbook behavior. People usually will know when you are doing it, and will get defensive. Especially the smarter ones. I look back in all my years and understand a lot of people's reaction to me: Some people have literally shouted at me when adopted the Socratic approach. The rest don't shout, but they do get defensive. The better among them will ask why I'm probing. But the majority will either answer (but internally think negative of me and damage the relationship), or will get nasty. That's not to say you can't ask questions. The key is to ask genuinely curious questions (the opposite of leading questions). If you have a concern, learn how to state the concern in a non-threatening manner. Don't try to lead people to it. The other thing they all say, which the submission has: "If your goal is to change someone (be it internally or externally), the chances of having a poor conversation are high."

proctor 8y ago
> I've read a bunch of negotiation books as well as conversation books. i would like to read some good books on negotiation and conversation. do you have any advice on what the best books that you read on the topics were?
- BeetleB 8y ago
  See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16977911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16977911
citrablue 8y ago
A strategy for this is outlined in the (great, IMO) book "Never Split the Difference": treat the interaction as a negotiation, and adopt a EQ-first approach. The book has some good phrasing hacks and other subtle messaging techniques designed to place both people on the same team, solving a common challenge. Yes, it can be exhausting if you do this in every interaction. But I've been picking 1 interaction per day and implementing those techniques to significant success. [edit] Relevant article from the author's site: http://blog.blackswanltd.com/the-edge/the-key-to-disarming-the-attack http://blog.blackswanltd.com/the-edge/the-key-to-disarming-t...

lainga 8y ago

On the other end of the stick from the other explanations here, I've worked in at least one team where there were no Karas. Our boss would come up to us and say "this is totally wrong", and we would discuss it without missing a beat. I think there are benefits to being forthright, but you absolutely have to make sure there aren't any Karas first. And be ready to take the article's suggestions to heart if there are, without grumbling.

nailer 8y ago
I once had a UX designer who was tasked with creating, or picking (with appropriate license) an icon to represent the volume of traffic on a keyword on the Twitter firehose. They picked some traffic lights. Keep in mind, the icon represented the amount of traffic, not whether traffic is stopped, started, or pending change. The icon would have been poor for that task too, since it was in two colors. The UX designer required explanation as to why their traffic icon wasn't sufficient. Later, the company folded, amongst the other reasons given were that they should have fired the Kara way earlier than they did (for many reasons, including lack of competance and not being able to handle feedback).

dta5003 8y ago

> How is Kara being offended a smart and socially conscious decision? Well, it did say you are a smart and socially conscious human being, it didn't say anything about your co-worker.

opportune 8y ago

You can't affect her being offended. All you can do is respond to it. Yes, maybe Kara should be less defensive, but that's not something you have control over; and trying to argue your way into convincing someone to not be offended is only going to make things worse