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The formative years of my career were spent as a software engineer at Microsoft where communication was direct and sometimes harsh. Code reviews could be partic

The formative years of my career were spent as a software engineer at Microsoft where communication was direct and sometimes harsh. Code reviews could be particularly harsh with comments like "this code is bad because..." or "this is unreadable." At first it was really hard, but eventually my skin got pretty think. I even came to love the efficiency of direct communication in programming. When I became a founder, the communication style I had developed as an engineer DID NOT work for communicating with other disciplines like sales, marketing or customer success. At first I thought it was the people I hired just being overly sensitive. After some time I realized that it wasn't them, it was me. I needed to unlearn many of my engineering communication habits and adopt a different style.

gowld 8y ago
It's an anti-pattern to call abrasiveness an "engineering" habit. It's an orthogonal axis. "saying things are 'unreadable' or 'bad'" is not efficiten -- that's not actional feedback. Skip the "this code is bad", and the unsupported univeral claims of "unreadable" (obviously the author and the compiler could both read it, and get directly to the point of your concern with the code -- this code has a logic bug, or is inneficient, or you can't follow the changing state or don't know what this variable refers to, or what have tou.
- tashian 8y ago
  I agree. I think talking about code is a critical skill, but not everyone has a strong practice of doing it. When I was first learning to code I never had anyone to talk to about my code, so I didn't get to learn the vocabulary until later.
jdsully 8y ago
Microsoft of the 90s/early 2000s was a much different place then it is now. The closest example today would be a trading floor (but not quite as aggressive). It took a certain type of person to do well there - but if you survived your first few months the open communication was amazing. You were allowed to express negative emotions instead of pretending everything is great all the time. If you thought a decision was bad you could say so. There's nothing quite like seeing someone who rarely gets angry say, "If we don't fix this we might as well not fix another F'ing bug ever again" to make you reconsider your triage decision.
- woodandsteel 8y ago
  But Satya Nadella is a big NCV fan he has really turned Microsoft around in recent years. Maybe that style worked for a while, but it became very dysfunctional. I recall a famous cartoon with the organizational structures of Apple, Oracle, and MS, and the MS one had everyone pointing guns at each other.
  - jdsully 8y ago
    I don't claim it was perfect, and Ballmer wasn't the right fit to lead that type of organization. The culture came from BillG himself, his favourite line being "That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life". But BillG would listen to you if you were right, you just had to fight back. The company modeled its culture on that example. Again it was a different time, place, and culture. Its not the right thing for Microsoft right now. But I do dislike when people talk as though it as pure abrasiveness for abrasiveness sake. People talked that way because they cared and were invested. It was a nice time and I remember it fondly.
tome 8y ago
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft for a few years now, has changed the company culture and his interest in Nonviolent Communication has been a part of that.
deleted 8y ago
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thrav 8y ago
I strongly disagree. Sales, Marketing, and CS people are perfectly capable of handling direct conversation, if it’s done with genuine respect and a desire for mutual benefit. Your approach, based on some of your examples, sounds outright dismissive and disrespectful. I’ve spent time around lots of engineering leaders and lots of their CS, Sales and Marketing teams. The good engineering leaders recognize that those people excel in many ways they never will, and have genuine respect for that, and ask more questions about their approach. The bad ones think they know everything, treat complex issues like a code review, and carelessly dismiss their work when it’s not what they would’ve done. I think using one of these strategies probably changed you as much as it changed them.

gowld 8y ago

It's an anti-pattern to call abrasiveness an "engineering" habit. It's an orthogonal axis. "saying things are 'unreadable' or 'bad'" is not efficiten -- that's not actional feedback. Skip the "this code is bad", and the unsupported univeral claims of "unreadable" (obviously the author and the compiler could both read it, and get directly to the point of your concern with the code -- this code has a logic bug, or is inneficient, or you can't follow the changing state or don't know what this variable refers to, or what have tou.

tashian 8y ago
I agree. I think talking about code is a critical skill, but not everyone has a strong practice of doing it. When I was first learning to code I never had anyone to talk to about my code, so I didn't get to learn the vocabulary until later.

jdsully 8y ago

Microsoft of the 90s/early 2000s was a much different place then it is now. The closest example today would be a trading floor (but not quite as aggressive). It took a certain type of person to do well there - but if you survived your first few months the open communication was amazing. You were allowed to express negative emotions instead of pretending everything is great all the time. If you thought a decision was bad you could say so. There's nothing quite like seeing someone who rarely gets angry say, "If we don't fix this we might as well not fix another F'ing bug ever again" to make you reconsider your triage decision.

woodandsteel 8y ago
But Satya Nadella is a big NCV fan he has really turned Microsoft around in recent years. Maybe that style worked for a while, but it became very dysfunctional. I recall a famous cartoon with the organizational structures of Apple, Oracle, and MS, and the MS one had everyone pointing guns at each other.
- jdsully 8y ago
  I don't claim it was perfect, and Ballmer wasn't the right fit to lead that type of organization. The culture came from BillG himself, his favourite line being "That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life". But BillG would listen to you if you were right, you just had to fight back. The company modeled its culture on that example. Again it was a different time, place, and culture. Its not the right thing for Microsoft right now. But I do dislike when people talk as though it as pure abrasiveness for abrasiveness sake. People talked that way because they cared and were invested. It was a nice time and I remember it fondly.

tome 8y ago

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft for a few years now, has changed the company culture and his interest in Nonviolent Communication has been a part of that.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

thrav 8y ago

I strongly disagree. Sales, Marketing, and CS people are perfectly capable of handling direct conversation, if it’s done with genuine respect and a desire for mutual benefit. Your approach, based on some of your examples, sounds outright dismissive and disrespectful. I’ve spent time around lots of engineering leaders and lots of their CS, Sales and Marketing teams. The good engineering leaders recognize that those people excel in many ways they never will, and have genuine respect for that, and ask more questions about their approach. The bad ones think they know everything, treat complex issues like a code review, and carelessly dismiss their work when it’s not what they would’ve done. I think using one of these strategies probably changed you as much as it changed them.