4 ms·

The way I see it, there are two choices: Choice #1 is debating with engineers who have strong but loosely held opinions. This path is the way of 'moving fast a

The way I see it, there are two choices: Choice #1 is debating with engineers who have strong but loosely held opinions. This path is the way of 'moving fast and breaking things'. Choice #2 is debating with engineers who have mild convictions at best. This is the path of endless bike-shedding and yak-shaving. Option 1 implies that people aren't afraid to take leadership of an idea and accept responsibility for its consequences if things go wrong, which is conducive to iterative development and innovation. It implies that the person making the strong case for a decision has done thorough research on the matter and has good reason to be confident in their approach. Option 2 is more of an ego-preservation mechanism where people hedge their opinions to protect themselves from criticism if things go wrong. You don't know how they really feel about the matter because everyone is walking on eggshells in order to preserve one another's egos. People don't want to say anything with conviction and most of the time would rather say nothing at all. Anyone who has ever tried to elicit candid feedback from option 2's engineers will know what I mean.

BeetleB 7y ago
Your comment is a classic example of a "strong opinion", and I thought quite a bit about whether I should bother to engage. And this is precisely what people will do when you state something they don't agree with: "Is it worth my time to engage with you?" >Option 1 implies that people aren't afraid to take leadership of an idea and accept responsibility for its consequences if things go wrong, which is conducive to iterative development and innovation. It implies that the person making the strong case for a decision has done thorough research on the matter and has good reason to be confident in their approach. Yet I've come across too many people who have identical behavior to Choice #1, and have not done enough due diligence in their research, and whose reasons are strongly biased towards their own comfort. >Option 2 is more of an ego-preservation mechanism where people hedge their opinions to protect themselves from criticism if things go wrong. You don't know how they really feel about the matter because everyone is walking on eggshells in order to preserve one another's egos. People don't want to say anything with conviction and most of the time would rather say nothing at all. Yet I've come across too many people who have identical behavior to Choice #2 who don't have any egos at stake - they just do not speak in a confidence signaling manner. Their tone is no reflection of the accuracy of what they say. >Anyone who has ever tried to elicit candid feedback from option 2's engineers will know what I mean. I have, and have often succeeded. Anyone who has tried and failed with option 2 is strongly encouraged to study the art of communication. I assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior. Your description of the situation is incomplete, and is missing quite a few other Choices. Amusingly enough, in the book Crucial Conversations, they start off early with people who have the same view as you on Option 2. They call it The Fool's Choice: "Either I state what I think and damage the relationship, or I preserve the relationship at the cost of not getting what I want." They discuss it early in the book because people will simply not become better communicators while they believe in the Fool's Choice. After reading 2-3 different books on communications, you'll generally see communication problems in the wild as, frankly, textbook examples of bad communications. Almost all scenarios are in one of these books.
- tepidandroid 7y ago
  > Your comment is a classic example of a "strong opinion" What can I say, I practice what I preach ;) I'd like to point out that your comment has many characteristics of a "strong opinion" as well, which I appreciate. For example, strong statements "i.e - I assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior" and research based evidence. It will be of use to me in formulating a judgement on my own strongly expressed opinion. If you had instead said something like "The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior... but this is based solely on my own personal experience and might not apply here", it would have been a much less convincing argument leading to dead-locking opinions at best. With respect to your point about The Fool's Choice, I would think that in an ideal world, stating what one thinks about a technical matter should not be damaging to a relationship at all (unless truly fragile egos are involved). One should be free to state strong opinions in the best interest of the organization, but not be afraid to back down in the face of contradicting evidence. It should also not be about 'getting what I want', but 'getting what's best for the organization'.
  - BeetleB 7y ago
    >I'd like to point out that your comment has many characteristics of a "strong opinion" as well, which I appreciate. For example, strong statements "i.e - I assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior" and research based evidence. It will be of use to me in formulating a judgement on my own strongly expressed opinion. Well, I come from an academic background, which is rife with debate. The style you prefer is natural to me. And yet, despite that, I had to think and see whether it is worth the effort to engage with you. If someone who enjoys debate has that thought, then people who do not enjoy debates are even less likely to engage with you. That's the point I'm trying to get across. For me, debate has a low cognitive load. For most humans, that's likely not true. Yet for most people, simple discussions have low cognitive load. So in general you'll get more out of people if things are not framed as a debate. Putting the onus on the other party to counter is framing at as a debate and is working against human nature. I also want to touch on: >but this is based solely on my own personal experience and might not apply here", it would have been a much less convincing argument leading to dead-locking opinions at best. It need not lead to deadlock. You're allowed to disagree with people. You're allowed to say "This sounds like your world view, which doesn't match mine. Do you have any resources to support your view?" (Also, bearing in mind whether you have any to support your own). And at the end, "It seems this is a matter of opinion, and at the moment I am going with X. Thanks for your input." (Not saying it's easy to talk like that if not used to, even I don't do it all the time - or even 50% of the time - but people do learn it and become good at it). And even worse than a deadlock is people simply electing not to give you their opinion, an option I almost took. One last tangential point. People in the HN crowd tend to have very strong analytical skills. One thing I've learned to be mindful of is if someone doesn't have good arguments for their position it does not mean they are wrong. Lack of good arguments from a person is a very poor signal of whether they are correct! I learned the hard way when on a number of occasions, I turned out to be wrong, and yet someone had told me the correct thing - they just were not good at articulating their reasons. I've realized that, time permitting, it is my responsibility to explore their suggestions. I cannot hide behind "Yes, he didn't explain it well." >With respect to your point about The Fool's Choice, I would think that in an ideal world, stating what one thinks about a technical matter should not be damaging to a relationship at all (unless truly fragile egos are involved). That is what the Fool's Choice says: One should believe they can state their perspective without hurting relationships. The problem often arises in the purpose or intent. Is your goal to state your perspective, or to get feedback on it? What you've described is the former. Is your goal to tell people, or to have a discussion? For a lot of people, unless it is clearly phrased as the latter, they will assume the former, even if it wasn't your intent. We don't live in an ideal world. (Off topic, but I had a manager who often said "In an ideal world, we would...". At some point I cut him off and said "In an ideal world, I wouldn't need to work". Ideality has its degrees.)

BeetleB 7y ago

Your comment is a classic example of a "strong opinion", and I thought quite a bit about whether I should bother to engage. And this is precisely what people will do when you state something they don't agree with: "Is it worth my time to engage with you?" >Option 1 implies that people aren't afraid to take leadership of an idea and accept responsibility for its consequences if things go wrong, which is conducive to iterative development and innovation. It implies that the person making the strong case for a decision has done thorough research on the matter and has good reason to be confident in their approach. Yet I've come across too many people who have identical behavior to Choice #1, and have not done enough due diligence in their research, and whose reasons are strongly biased towards their own comfort. >Option 2 is more of an ego-preservation mechanism where people hedge their opinions to protect themselves from criticism if things go wrong. You don't know how they really feel about the matter because everyone is walking on eggshells in order to preserve one another's egos. People don't want to say anything with conviction and most of the time would rather say nothing at all. Yet I've come across too many people who have identical behavior to Choice #2 who don't have any egos at stake - they just do not speak in a confidence signaling manner. Their tone is no reflection of the accuracy of what they say. >Anyone who has ever tried to elicit candid feedback from option 2's engineers will know what I mean. I have, and have often succeeded. Anyone who has tried and failed with option 2 is strongly encouraged to study the art of communication. I assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior. Your description of the situation is incomplete, and is missing quite a few other Choices. Amusingly enough, in the book Crucial Conversations, they start off early with people who have the same view as you on Option 2. They call it The Fool's Choice: "Either I state what I think and damage the relationship, or I preserve the relationship at the cost of not getting what I want." They discuss it early in the book because people will simply not become better communicators while they believe in the Fool's Choice. After reading 2-3 different books on communications, you'll generally see communication problems in the wild as, frankly, textbook examples of bad communications. Almost all scenarios are in one of these books.

tepidandroid 7y ago
> Your comment is a classic example of a "strong opinion" What can I say, I practice what I preach ;) I'd like to point out that your comment has many characteristics of a "strong opinion" as well, which I appreciate. For example, strong statements "i.e - I assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior" and research based evidence. It will be of use to me in formulating a judgement on my own strongly expressed opinion. If you had instead said something like "The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior... but this is based solely on my own personal experience and might not apply here", it would have been a much less convincing argument leading to dead-locking opinions at best. With respect to your point about The Fool's Choice, I would think that in an ideal world, stating what one thinks about a technical matter should not be damaging to a relationship at all (unless truly fragile egos are involved). One should be free to state strong opinions in the best interest of the organization, but not be afraid to back down in the face of contradicting evidence. It should also not be about 'getting what I want', but 'getting what's best for the organization'.
- BeetleB 7y ago
  >I'd like to point out that your comment has many characteristics of a "strong opinion" as well, which I appreciate. For example, strong statements "i.e - I assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior" and research based evidence. It will be of use to me in formulating a judgement on my own strongly expressed opinion. Well, I come from an academic background, which is rife with debate. The style you prefer is natural to me. And yet, despite that, I had to think and see whether it is worth the effort to engage with you. If someone who enjoys debate has that thought, then people who do not enjoy debates are even less likely to engage with you. That's the point I'm trying to get across. For me, debate has a low cognitive load. For most humans, that's likely not true. Yet for most people, simple discussions have low cognitive load. So in general you'll get more out of people if things are not framed as a debate. Putting the onus on the other party to counter is framing at as a debate and is working against human nature. I also want to touch on: >but this is based solely on my own personal experience and might not apply here", it would have been a much less convincing argument leading to dead-locking opinions at best. It need not lead to deadlock. You're allowed to disagree with people. You're allowed to say "This sounds like your world view, which doesn't match mine. Do you have any resources to support your view?" (Also, bearing in mind whether you have any to support your own). And at the end, "It seems this is a matter of opinion, and at the moment I am going with X. Thanks for your input." (Not saying it's easy to talk like that if not used to, even I don't do it all the time - or even 50% of the time - but people do learn it and become good at it). And even worse than a deadlock is people simply electing not to give you their opinion, an option I almost took. One last tangential point. People in the HN crowd tend to have very strong analytical skills. One thing I've learned to be mindful of is if someone doesn't have good arguments for their position it does not mean they are wrong. Lack of good arguments from a person is a very poor signal of whether they are correct! I learned the hard way when on a number of occasions, I turned out to be wrong, and yet someone had told me the correct thing - they just were not good at articulating their reasons. I've realized that, time permitting, it is my responsibility to explore their suggestions. I cannot hide behind "Yes, he didn't explain it well." >With respect to your point about The Fool's Choice, I would think that in an ideal world, stating what one thinks about a technical matter should not be damaging to a relationship at all (unless truly fragile egos are involved). That is what the Fool's Choice says: One should believe they can state their perspective without hurting relationships. The problem often arises in the purpose or intent. Is your goal to state your perspective, or to get feedback on it? What you've described is the former. Is your goal to tell people, or to have a discussion? For a lot of people, unless it is clearly phrased as the latter, they will assume the former, even if it wasn't your intent. We don't live in an ideal world. (Off topic, but I had a manager who often said "In an ideal world, we would...". At some point I cut him off and said "In an ideal world, I wouldn't need to work". Ideality has its degrees.)