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Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?

• WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
  Minimize the amount of comflict at work by not holding grudges. You won't get a long with every one but that does not mean you have to add to the conflict by constantly bickering with the co-workers you don't get along with. Call a truce and focus on work rather than conflict. Also get to know your boss' boss. Make sure they understand your value to the company. Don't be afraid of them. Lastly we all fall into groups and many times it's a battle between dept a and dept b which is useless. Get to know people outside the group you identify with.
• noname_jabroni 7y ago
  We were born with 2 ears and 1 mouth - listen more than you speak... I found that this drives all other areas of interpersonal interaction: you need to understand where someone else is coming from / what their motivations are before trying to "fix" things or "pitch" them... sometimes people just want to be heard above all else Honestly and simplicity are the best policy. Don't bs, don't overpromise, own up to your failure, and follow-through on the things you say you'll do (and it will be easy to do this if you are honest about what you can / can't do) Favorite book: 7 Habits of Highly Successful People; the title sounds like a business book but it's really about how to be a better person / friend / parent / colleague / etc
  • mparkola 7y ago
    I love the 7 habits. I aspire to implement them as a basic OS for everything I do.
  • ravenstine 7y ago
    > you need to understand where someone else is coming from / what their motivations are before trying to "fix" things or "pitch" them. To extend upon that, I think listening is important in order to understand what people actually mean by what they say. Just because what they are saying is imperfect doesn't mean that the actual point they are trying to get across is invalid. I've noticed that people spend effort coming up with the next response that they only bother to argue against the surface of what the other person is saying without taking into account the actual substance and intent.
    • mparkola 7y ago
      I think this perspective/skill is extremely powerful. It is also extremely hard. I try to repeat to myself "find something to agree with" whenever I encounter a difficult situation. Sometimes I succeed. Other questions I found useful are: "In what circumstances does that make sense?" "What part of that might be useful?" This is also a step in the "Five Secrets of Effective Communication" as described in the Feeling Good podcast.
  • 1PlayerOne 7y ago
    Your sentiment was codified a long time ago in a book[1] Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. [1] https://ctext.org/art-of-war/attack-by-stratagem https://ctext.org/art-of-war/attack-by-stratagem
• Clubber 7y ago
  Don't be an asshole. I can't stress this one enough. I don't care how smart you are, if you are an asshole, your career is not gonna work out. Try really hard not to be negative, even when there is reason to be. Try not to be openly negative about the company or a particular employee. It's poison for you and your teammates and makes you feel worse. Don't get defensive when someone makes suggestions to your code (I still battle this). Don't base your self worth by other people's compliments. They're nice, but the company complements you every time they cut you a check. When someone does compliment you, the best reaction is a simple, "Thanks!" The people you work with are called colleagues, not friends. Sometimes it can hop over, but don't divulge personal information to a colleague that should only be shared amongst friends. Keep your behavior professional, even if the company's culture isn't so much. Also, never get drunk at company parties.
  • mutt2016 7y ago
    This is amazing advise through and through. Ticks all the boxes. For many of us we spend so much time at work that we perceive our colleagues as friends. This is a fallacy. I left a job after 15 years and have maybe 1-2 real friends out of that time. Drinking at company parties is so on point. If you need to drink a lot, make an appearance at the party and go drinking with trusted friends after.
    • reeves23423 7y ago
      Can't stress enough. Never over drink at party. Keep it to single glass.
    • chrshawkes 7y ago
      I thought my similar position was unique, I'm glad to hear others can spend so long at a single place and have next to nothing to show for it as far as friendships are concerned. Who knows? Maybe it's the reason we we're able to stay in the same place so long?
  • azinman2 7y ago
    Unfortunately assholes often do make it to the top...
• johnny313 7y ago
  No one is thinking about you as much as you are. At the end of the day, people are reacting to their own feelings, values, and ideas as much or more as they are to anything you said. Taking yourself out of the debate - no matter how personal it feels - is always a good first step.
  • jdavis703 7y ago
    I had to read this twice. But just to confirm what you mean: We should take our personal feelings out of a debate -- but surely we must still remain in the debate?
    • whiddershins 7y ago
      IMO debating is massively overrated. It really only works well in certain cases and the rest of the time it just makes everyone really frustrated.
      • james_s_tayler 7y ago
        Yeah. What you want is a dialectic. A discussion between two people where neither is trying to 'win' but both are trying to get at what they believe to be true by exploring each others ideas.
    • munchbunny 7y ago
      That might be what the parent poster meant, but I think you should consider the opposite as well: debating is itself the source of the personal feelings. People will generally remember the fact that you debated (almost-argued) more than they will remember your arguments. If you want to keep someone open to what you have to say, debating is one of the more counterproductive things you can do. Instead, if your goal is persuasion, you should remember that, regardless of how we want the world to work, persuasion in practice is as emotional as it is intellectual. The thing that never happens when real ideas are at stake is that someone manages to deliver an argument so devastating that the other side reconsiders. I've never seen it happen. What I have seen all the time is gradually shifting someone's thinking until they eventually come around.
• maroonblazer 7y ago
  The Four Agreements[0] is one of the best "user manuals" for how one should live life, both work and personal: -Be impeccable with your word. -Don't take anything personally. -Don't make assumptions. -Always do your best. [0]https://www.miguelruiz.com/the-four-agreements https://www.miguelruiz.com/the-four-agreements
  • Ididntdothis 7y ago
    I liked this too. Also the sentence "You are entitled to your actions but not the results" from the Bhagavad Gita helps me.
• JamesBarney 7y ago
  How to manage expectations. That communication is incredibly important. That the higher up the org chart someone is the busier they are. So what you spend 40 hours a week thinking about they might not spend 45 minutes thinking about. So over-communicate and remind them of important information about the project. Because they will forget lots of important details, and things that are glaringly obvious to you won't even show up on their radar. How to sell.
  • archon 7y ago
    > Because they will forget lots of important details, and things that are glaringly obvious to you won't even show up on their radar. Something related that I wish I had learned much earlier: Just because that person forgets the details doesn't mean they don't care or that they're just stupid. Expecting someone several levels removed from day-to-day development to remember the exact structure of that table or how exactly we do dependency injection makes me the unreasonable one.
  • shostack 7y ago
    In some cases, it is more important to distill vs. over-communicate. Senior leaders are reliant on you to sweat the details. Finding out what is important to them can be an art form--or a simple conversation sometimes.
  • metaphor 7y ago
    > That the higher up the org chart someone is the busier they are. So what you spend 40 hours a week thinking about they might not spend 45 minutes thinking about. Respectfully, that's a proverbial crock of trite bullshit perpetuated to game the naive/inexperienced. If the next level above me couldn't spend at least 45 minutes thinking about the general problem I've been trying to solve in the past week, then that person: a.) is stretched way too thin (which should be pretty obvious); or b.) seriously needs to GTFO for the sake of the rest of the team. P.S. As a de facto (not even official) technical lead on a US$3mil+ project that I've been assigned to, I spend at least 45 minutes a week sitting on a toilet bowl thinking of ways to improve the performance of my team while literally taking a shit. What's your project manager's excuse?
• acconrad 7y ago
  Not everyone responds the same. I hated when people would use fluffy language: "would it be okay if you could do X?" Dammit...just tell me to do X. I know you're not really asking me you're just trying to be nice for something that has to be done. Well... turns out just because I like to hear feedback or orders directly, doesn't mean everyone else does. Part of why your manager treads carefully is because they have to try and create a shared language across your whole team (and really good managers know how to talk to each of their directs because they know exactly what kind of tone is effective for each of them). Not everyone is the same. Understand that everyone likes to be treated well, but the way you do that is different. Empathy is an extremely underrated skill to have.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • tehlike 7y ago
    This is important. I get along with a bunch of people once they realize when im direct, i dont mean to insult them, but until that relationship is functional, knowing how to say things become really important. For some, you can never be straight and it is ok.
  • profalseidol 7y ago
    Good advice. This is what should be said in place of "effective communication".
  • zerr 7y ago
    The thing is, most of the stuff is [relatively] flexible in this world - and that "fluffy" language is used to navigate through this flexibility. So in your case, it might just be that if you don't feel for doing some particular X, another teammate might do it instead. Besides, politeness matters.
  • sevilo 7y ago
    interesting point you brought up, I also hate "fluffy" languages. Besides "Would it be okay..." the other one that grinds my gears the most is when you ask around for a favour people be like "I'd love to but I can't because <insert bullshit excuse>", why can't you just tell me you can't or rather, not bother responding at all, I'd honestly feel better that way. But perhaps you're right... not everyone is the same and everyone likes to be treated well.
• analog31 7y ago
  An old saying among musicians: "Be careful how you treat people on your way up, because you'll meet them again on your way down." Compliment other people and good ideas. I've become conscious about things like mansplaining and talking over people. Don't let technology get in the way of human interaction. When you do something offensive (it happens, even if rarely), apologize.
  • criddell 7y ago
    > An old saying among musicians: "Be careful how you treat people on your way up, because you'll meet them again on your way down." Speaking of musicians, I wish I had learned to play music. Every place I've worked there have been some very talented musicians working there and I wish I had the skills to play with them. I currently keep an electric guitar in my office and picking it up and playing (unamplified) is a great way to break my concentration when I'm stuck on a problem. I still can't really play though...
    • asdfman123 7y ago
      It's not hard to get good at an instrument, but how you practice is the difference between accelerating skill and perpetual struggle. Don't "noodle around" as a beginner, because practice makes permanent and good form is everything. Do you want to be actually good and not just okay? Take weekly lessons, follow online tutorials carefully, and practice at least 30-45 minutes 6 days a week, giving it an absolute laser-like focus. (More practice is always better, and preferably in singular sessions, but that's the minimum and it's enough to make progress.) Focus on fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. Treat good form like religious gospel and don't deviate from it, even if it's easier that way. And since you already have played for a while, you're going to have to spend the first few months of practice painstaking unlearning the bad habits you've undoubtedly collected, which is not enjoyable because it will feel like you're moving backwards. Do that for a year and people will compliment you on how much better you've gotten. After 3 years you'll be good enough for any semi-decent cover band in town. In 5-10 you'll be better than 95-99% of people who own a guitar and know how to make sounds on it. tl;dr: it's totally possible to be good at an instrument, but it takes discipline and you have to be very intentional about it.
• Ididntdothis 7y ago
  I wish I had learned better how to listen and observe without my own insecurity getting in the way. Also being able to ask for something without apologizing or justifying.
• ajxs 7y ago
  I learned the hard way to not underestimate how competitive and treacherous some people can be in the workplace. I was a long-term contractor in a large company and had an incident where I confided to another employee about some issues I was having negotiating my pay at contract renewal time. I never mentioned any numbers, just that a manager had previously promised me a pay-raise and was not honouring their word. Within two hours I was called into a senior manager's office to be reprimanded for discussing this matter publicly. In retrospect I can see the warning signs exhibited by this employee that I had ignored, and I now see that I should have kept this to myself, however I worked very closely with this employee and felt that this employee would keep what I had told them in confidence. After this incident I saw many other examples of how duplicitous this particularly employee could be when they felt threatened by the ability of others. Ultimately I was not disciplined, but I learned a valuable lesson in the process. For anyone wondering why this was an issue in the first place: It's generally a policy to keep pay and pay negotiations confidential. Employers fear the friction that can result if an employee discovers that they're being underpaid.
  • bnjms 7y ago
    Can you say white kind of warning signs were on display? This sounds like something I would walk into.
    • ajxs 7y ago
      It sounds like I'm being very petty bringing these kinds of thing up, but I'll go into a bit more detail. This particular employee was extremely critical of fellow employees at his own level, and would make extremely overt attempts to ingratiate himself with senior employees and managers. We used to interview potential candidates for junior positions together. One very odd behaviour that he'd exhibit that really rubbed me the wrong way was that when we gave the applicant whiteboard tests, he would make such a concerted effort to demonstrate his superiority to the applicant by painstakingly solving and explaining the problem in gory, patronising detail before their eyes. That was how I saw it anyway, I felt that he would relish in any minor victory over other employees. I guess they call this an 'inferiority complex'. In retrospect, I feel that I should have known that someone displaying traits like these wouldn't miss the opportunity to drag me down to build himself up.
• jdavis703 7y ago
  I was homeschooled from grades K-12 (for those outside the U.S. essentially from age 5 to 18) which in and of itself leads to poorly developed social skills. But I also have ADD. One of the symptoms of ADD is poor impulse control and rejection sensitivity which leads to issues with "emotional intelligence." So I would advise anyone, if you suspect you may have adult ADD, talk to a physciatrist and figure it out. Fixing underlying mental health problems will improve your professional and personal life!
  • steve_adams_86 7y ago
    I'll second this. I spent roughly 2/3s of my life in a terrible ADD vortex of self loathing, hiding, and genuine depression. My sense of self had diminished to a scary degree towards my thirties because I was convinced I was a broken person but had this job to upkeep, kids to raise, a relationship to maintain. I had given up on understanding what was wrong with me. Then I realized my kid had an attention disorder and decided to research it. I realized I fit the description as well. I discovered this is often passed from parent to child and I had no idea how to navigate this myself or how to help my kid... Who I gave this thing to in the first place. In the short years since I figured this out, talked to professionals about it, and generally started setting myself up for success instead of living moment to moment running from failure... Things have changed such an incredible amount. ADD will never go away, I'll always be like this, but now I have some sort of foundation and understanding to work from. I'm motivated to overcome it so I can help my kid, too. There's no way he can have the experience I did. It's so worth talking to someone. I suspected something was wrong for 10-15 years and never did anything and I seriously regret it. What if I had an extra ten years of being aware of this thing? Would my family be happier? Would I own a home already? Would I be happier and have better self esteem? Probably yes to everything. Don't delay, take care of yourself.
    • agent008t 7y ago
      What changed after you talked to professionals? Is it the same, but now you just know what it is and what to expect, so it feels better? Have you learned how to manage it better? Found some chemicals that can make your experience better?
• randcraw 7y ago
  People are 100X more sensitive to negativity than positivity. So if you feel the need to say something negative, either wait for someone else to say it so you can laugh and agree, or say nothing at all. Likewise, offer your opinion as little as possible unless it's positive or you've been explicitly asked for criticism. And even then describe how the thing could be improved, not how it sucked or how much.
  • jamesrcole 7y ago
    If everyone followed that advice, nobody would ever express their opinion and nobody would ever say anything negative. Being able to critique things is really important. It's essential for identifying problems, developing good ideas, and improving systems and products and well as people's personal development. You say to explain how things could be improved rather than talk about the problems with them. The problem with that approach is it's usually important to first identify exactly what the problem is, before coming up with ideas for how to fix it. Sometimes it's not obvious how to improve things. It may take days or weeks to get to that point.
    • onion2k 7y ago
      Pixar use a technique called "plussing"[1] where any critique given is framed as a positive constructive addition. Eg you accept something for what it is and suggest a way to improve it rather than saying it's bad or wrong. I've tried to use it, and continue to try, but it's hard work. When I manage to do it properly it works very well. [1] https://intenseminimalism.com/2015/pixars-plussing-technique-of-giving-feedback/ https://intenseminimalism.com/2015/pixars-plussing-technique...
      • jamesrcole 7y ago
        I addressed this kind of thing in my original comment: it is often important to first clearly identify the problems before trying to come up with solutions, and you may have to go days or weeks without being able to develop possible solutions.
• whiddershins 7y ago
  “How to win friends and influence people” is an absolutely wonderful book I wished I’d read 10 or 15 years before I did. Some important ideas - Just, get along with people. A bit reductionist but if you don’t place a high priority on getting along with people you certainly won’t learn how. It really is a habit, and it’s incredibly effective to remember the Cognitive Behavior insight that when you don’t get along with someone, you are almost always choosing not to get along with them ... you know exactly what to do to get along with them and just don’t want to do it. - Conversly, not everyone will like you and that’s ok. You aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Being ok with that is an important mental tool. - To crib from 12 steps or The Four Agreements, nothing is personal. DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY. Even if someone hates you, it’s not YOU per se. It’s their experience of you. It’s not personal. - It may be fair to say that it’s impossible to win an argument. Getting your way by “winning” an argument seems to come with an unacceptable cost attached most of the time. Try getting good at “yes and” style conversations where you run with the other persons point and build upon it creatively, it tends to make conversations more interesting than debating people. Truly, I find compulsive disagreement to be a boring conversational style. - Take personal appearance seriously, and view it as an ongoing project too. So many people fall in to the trap of thinking they can avoid dealing with signaling, which is silly, you always are signaling so best take a look at what you are sending out there. I think it is very psychologically healthy to care for yourself, the act is good for you, and you can change how you present yourself gracefully as you age, which people screw up all the time and it makes them look older, somehow, instead of younger.
  • cannonedhamster 7y ago
    Just getting along with people is pretty reductionist on that idea I agree. It's a fantastic book and I agree with you on every part other than that bit of explanation. I think a better way to phrase it might be to find a way to say things in ways that aren't offensive, which takes a long time to learn, and don't look for a fight when it isn't looking for you. You're not always going to be able to say the same thing to different people and get the same results, this is a lesson that took me a long time to learn. I would say things I didn't find offensive in the slightest, nor did I mean in any way insulting, however others would take it as a personal insult, even if it was just simply the reality of the situation. A way to meet the second part of don't go looking for a fight is to follow advice that's actually a rule here and assume the best possible interpretation of what's being said. I really love this recommendation.
• raverbashing 7y ago
  How to deal with a-holes. Even better, how to make higher ups realise who the a-holes are and deal accordingly (which might not happen for a couple of reasons)
  • malux85 7y ago
    How do you make the high-ups realize who the a-holes are
    • asveikau 7y ago
      It can be tricky when the high-ups are a-holes.
      • cannonedhamster 7y ago
        Sadly the higher up you go, the higher the likelihood you'll be dealing with sociopaths and psychopaths. While sociopaths can be very effective executives, psychopaths should always be watched it for as they thrive on the drama and power. Sociopaths just lack empathy which makes them highly useful in making emotionally difficult decisions. For a Star Trek reference sociopaths act like Vulcans when it comes to empathy. Psychopaths act like Romulans in nearly every situation. Don't get emotionally invested in either.
        • barking 7y ago
          I thought that sociopaths and psychopaths behave identically. The difference is that one was born that way while bad life experiences made the other that way.
          • cannonedhamster 7y ago
            No, but there's definitely been a muddying of the definitions so it's understandable. Sociopaths actually have a purpose in society. Psychopaths are a detriment. Sociopaths can be very good and productive members of society. There's evidence to suggest that it's both a gene that needs to be present as well as the correct conditions during upbringing to trigger it.
• 01100011 7y ago
  I wish I could figure out how to evaluate a team while being interviewed. Signing up with a bad team has proven to be a costly mistake.
  • mparkola 7y ago
    Not sure if it's possible during an interview (the same way typical interviews suck at predicting the job performance of the employee) but I heard someone suggest using the question "What is something that could only happen on this team?"
• lammalamma25 7y ago
  Not that far into my career, but this one really burned me. Understanding what people's unstated motivations are is really important IMO. I spent a job working tirelessly at something that I valued a lot, but others didn't seem to care too much about. After a bit of time, I realized that most people were looking at the work from how it hurt/benefited them based on a specific (but not widely publicized) bonus structure. People's actions started to make a lot more sense when I looked at them through this lens. I was still able to do the type of work that I valued, but fitting it into other people's frameworks of what is important made a huge difference.
  • bitcoinmoney 7y ago
    This is very generic. You need to elaborate.
• aszantu 7y ago
  Marshall Rosenberg nonviolent communications
  • mparkola 7y ago
    I found NVC super valuable for opening my eyes to new concepts but challenging to implement in real life. When I tried it for the first time the other person got super angry because they thought I was making fun of them by asking about their emotions.
    • james_s_tayler 7y ago
      I don't think I've ever formally studied exactly what it is... but I feel like I use this technique somewhat naturally. I'll couch things in terms where I'm stating what I think, but in a non-offensive way where I'm just conveying information. I find a lot of phrases like "I'm not convinced that..." soften things in just the right way that people get a lot less defensive or aggressive.
    • carvink 7y ago
      It does take some practice, and best not to overuse it. The book 'Words That Work In Business" by Ike Lasater is a very good guide to NVC in the business world.
    • asdfman123 7y ago
      That's my problem with active listening. I can't do it without it sounding ridiculous. "My god, someone shut down the production server!" "That sounds very upsetting. You must be quite angry." "Are you making fun of me?"
• sprior 7y ago
  Never never never ask someone at work when she's due unless she mentions it first, I don't care if she looks like she's about to deliver a basketball.
  • cbanek 7y ago
    I'm having trouble remembering the quote, but it was something like: "Don't ask a woman if she's pregnant unless you see a baby is coming out of her right then."
    • quacked 7y ago
      I believe that's Dave Barry. “You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.”
  • C1sc0cat 7y ago
    -) I recall working out my boss was pregnant before she had told anyone (Some women have a distinct change in gait when pregnant) I didn't mention it as I knew she had had a miscarriage and dint want to risk saying something and then her lose the baby.
• eight_ender 7y ago
  Admitting I'm wrong or that I screwed up, and likewise praising others when they're correct or have ideas I agree with. You would not believe how much smoother everything at work is when you learn to recognize early the signs that you're holding on to a bad opinion, or that you're headed towards a fuckup, and just saying it out loud. The praising / agreeing thing is a bit more complex. I've noticed more recently that people tend to be quick to disagree but remain silent even when they agree with someones opinion. Specifically calling out when you agree with an idea has some marvellous effects. The silent ones who also agree join in, people who disagree join the fray, and a rough consensus can be reached quickly.
  • mparkola 7y ago
    I agree! ;) I try to make it more meaningful by saying why I agree with or like something in order to clarify the (prefferably shared) values behind my appreciation. I've also recently used a torrent of appreciation (the Mesita strategy) to build up the self-esteem of a person struggling with self-confidence. The trick is it has to be honest and at least somewhat meaningful to them (it's not good to compliment someone on things they don't value). A really over the top example: complimenting a woman in the workplace on her looks. will definitely not be appreciated and these days might get you fired ;)
  • jmts 7y ago
    Admitting I'm wrong or that I screwed up ... You would not believe how much smoother everything at work is when you learn to recognize early the signs that you're holding on to a bad opinion, or that you're headed towards a fuckup, and just saying it out loud. Avoiding judgement of those that have screwed up or have done something wrong, and simply working with them to correct it goes hand-in-hand with this. By the time someone admits they did something wrong, they already know what they did - by dwelling on that you're just wasting time and energy. I wonder occasionally how many problems there are in the world that have become much bigger than they needed to be simply because the person who messed up knows the news won't be received well, so they keep their screw up hidden. Similarly, I wonder how effectively we teach children this kind of dishonesty by teaching them that honesty results in punishment.
• technofiend 7y ago
  I hate to admit it but one of my bosses taught me that building consensus is a double edged sword and it can be used as weapon. Up until working with him I naively assumed we could all get in a room, hash out our technical differences and agree to a solution. That only works when everyone is (from your perspective) not a bad actor. But how do you deal with an Executive Director who will bald-faced lie and say whatever he needs to say to ensure his deadlines are met and your needs are completely ignored? My boss taught me how to pin that ED down and get what I need by documenting everything to exhaustion but also by building consensus around the bad actor so his peers were on board with forcing him to comply. I hope to never find myself in that situation again.
  • iandanforth 7y ago
    Can you provide a detailed (even if fictitious) example?
  • shostack 7y ago
    Can you share more details of the situation? I'm curious what they were lying about and how you pinned them down.
    • technofiend 7y ago
      Yes but it's 1 AM here. I'll reply in the morning when I can give a cogent answer.
      • james_s_tayler 7y ago
        When you wake - i'd love to read it too. I want to second the opinion that learning to build consensus is a very, very valuable skill. It's how a lot things really get done. I've never gone so far as to document things extensively or really need to, but it sounds like you learned some very interesting tactics on how to build consensus effectively because you were forced to. Not a fun position to be in, but if you could share the tips that would be valuable.
        • 7y ago
• gHosts 7y ago
  1. Remember the person you are talking to does not have the same things in their head, and they are not looking at (or seeing) the same things you are.... So no matter how much you disagree with them, from their perspective it makes sense and is ethically correct. 2. Most people are in perfect agreement on most things eg. Motherhood and Apple Pie are Good Things. Most conflict arises from differing priorities being assigned to various "Good" things. 3. There are precisely two things and ONLY two things you can change in this world. What you do and how you react. No matter how important it is, those are the only two things you can change.
• closeparen 7y ago
  Maybe not skills, but habits: - Give glowing, public praise to the work and behavior I want to see more of, rather than complain about what I want to see less. - Perform the necessary rituals with a smile, and not reveal any worry about their lack of purpose / fitness for purpose. - Use videoconferencing only for presentations, never for substantial interactive discussion. (Travel, make the decision locally, or write documents). - Be away from my desk when I cannot tolerate interruption, rather than risk a curt or dismissive response to a tap on the shoulder. - Do not mention small problems to people who overreact (but do mention big problems when you need airstrikes).
  • elevenoh 7y ago
    >- Perform the necessary rituals with a smile, and not reveal any worry about their lack of purpose / fitness for purpose. This as a habit explains a lot of unsavoury corporate behaviour. ;)
  • lapnitnelav 7y ago
    The airstrike one is brilliant. (I may have been a B52 pilot in the past, indiscriminately bombing left and right)
• issa 7y ago
  The hardest lesson for me is that, especially at large companies, things don't happen for good reasons. Meaning if you are used to the world making sense, you're in trouble. One example that jumps to mind is the flak I took for deciding to change my team from subversion to git. It sounds crazy even typing that!
  • mparkola 7y ago
    "Logic is not a great tool for understanding reality" as my mother used to say ;) Another way to look at it is that there's always a perfectly good reason _from a certain perspective_.
  • cannonedhamster 7y ago
    Something I've had to learn with larger organizations is that the logic at the top isn't always conveyed to the bottom. Perverse incentives play heavily into this. An example of this is executive bonuses. Everyone knows that for long term health of a company short term gains should be subservient to long term gains. Bonus structures are typically structured for short term, which means that in order for an employee to get a bonus they have to do something that farms the company long term. Another example is RIFs (reduction in force). An executive in IT gets a bonus for cost containment by not hiring appropriately. This leads to longer hold times, poorer service techs, and less training. Overall it costs the company more time lost and wasted effort, but this isn't tracked, only bottom line. The exec gets his bonus for cost cutting and the company gets less efficient and effective for it. This is a major problem in large corporations and why CEOs are really useless employees in most cases, and almost universally overpaid compared to results. Generally a company could do without a CEO it choose one at random and get the same results.
    • james_s_tayler 7y ago
      This. I have several mental models for this. The first goes "most people are wrong about most things". You have to include yourself in that one or it just sounds arrogant, but it's true. Mostly we have a toy understanding of how anything really works if we are asked to scratch any deeper than the surface and the sheer amount of mental models required to begin to somewhat accurately map to reality vs. the search cost of finding those abstractions vs. the probability any individual is sufficiently motivated to pay the search cost. It's abysmal. So basically no one has truly good ideas. Yet some how the whole thing still grinds along. You get what you incent. That would be another key model. Behavior follows incentives. Period. Conflict of interest. That's another thing to watch out for. Loosely related to the idea of "subtext". People will say one thing but often mean the exact opposite of what they say. For example when someone says "I believe it is" this is a contradiction. The sheer timidity of the statement actually indicates that they harbor a hint of doubt. The subtext says "I acknowledge there is a possibility that it might not be and I cannot be 100% sure". Power of ideas vs. Power of people. These are the fundamental two types of company culture that exist. If you're a thinker, you will be eternally frustrated in a power of people culture. I'm probably rambling now, but there are a good many "human factors" that make companies awfully questionable at times.
• the_resistence 7y ago
  Cut toxic people out of your life asap. they can't be fixed or reasoned with. Avoid like the plague.
  • anonymous5133 7y ago
    second this one
• manasgarg 7y ago
  Accepting people as they are. I haven’t found anything more powerful when it comes to interacting with people. I worked my way through personality types, influence, negotiations and a bunch of other so called soft skills. Wholehearted acceptance of people; their motivations and fears; their habits and aspirations. When I am able to exercise this superpower (which does not happen often), I am able to open them up and change their trajectory. And in process, I myself learn and grow.
  • asdfman123 7y ago
    Man, that feels so true to me. If someone shows me that level of genuine kindness I'll go to the ends of the earth to help them. I'll give them my full, unwavering support. I find often when I've been difficult and uncooperative it's because people have been not quite so accepting. I guess I've typically felt like the "weird kid" (as many of us technical people have growing up) and if you make me feel like that again I really, really don't like it.
• anonymous5133 7y ago
  Soft skills - how to deal with anxiety, stress and how to stop procrastinating such that is causes problems down the road.
• cannonedhamster 7y ago
  Learning to effectively communicate with others is the single most important skill you can learn. It will help you improve your relationships with others, clearly communicate your own ideas, and address areas for improvement in ideas and others in a way that is constructive. There's been quite a few great books on this thread already. Here's some I haven't seen. * The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes - good even if you're not in sales * The Effective Executive - Peter Drucker - Great book overall * The Phoenix Project - good for understanding project flows and silos. * Thinking in Systems - good for how to set up processes so that even if you step away the job still gets done. Essential for getting promoted, no one can promote you if you're impossible to replace.
• leeeeenaaa 7y ago
  Everybody in life will have their own goals, own dreams, things that they want to do, the way they want to do. You cannot define it for someone else. What you can instead do is help them with their goals, the way they want to get help. The best kind of things are organic, you can push someone to do better, but only if you know that they need the push. Not if they are okay wherever they are.
• surfsvammel 7y ago
  I wish I learned to apologise earlier. It is the right thing to do in most situations. It effectively defuses disagreements and arguments, it shows that you are no longer an immature and obstinate teen. You always come out ahead when you apologise.
• watwut 7y ago
  1.) Assert yourself more against peers. A lot of advice around is a lot about how to be pleasant (listen, admit mistake, cooperate). There is very little advice on what to do when you have not done mistake but someone is still trying to convince you or others so. Or when difference of opinion is casted as your mistake. How to recognize that situation. 2.) How to recognize when people bluff and pretend knowledge they don't have. 3.) How to promote yourself without becoming asshole. Again, I read all that be humble advice and it fired back. 4.) All in all, I would like to have more realistic advice about communication and not the overly naive "be humble, nice and admit mistakes and everything will be rosy". 5.) Right now, I would like to know how to deal with manipulative sociapath/narcissist.
• tehlike 7y ago
  - get to know your bosses boss, and develop relationships. Your boss might eventually hit his limits, or might get in the way, but one way to resolve is having that connection. - if your bosses boss doesnt understand/know of how to resolve a conflict that is making a fleet of people unhappy, and they are backing the person causing the conflict (in my case, a person that takes credit for everything everyone did by frontrunning their work to them), just leave. Dont wait too long, it doesnt get better. - your career is important, and make it align with your boss'. If you do, he'll back you up. If he feels threatened, he will wear you down. If your boss is not a competent person, this is the only way to survival in such an org. - you cant usually change people, the ones that are willing to admit their mistakes and want to improve wilk usually be very obvious. Lean on them, learn from them. Run away from the ones that wont ever change. - things usually dont get better, be careful, learn to move on.
• known 7y ago
  Protect yourself from Machiavellianism(manipulate/deceive others) Psychopathy(lack of remorse/empathy) Sadism(pleasure in suffering of others) Narcissism(egotism/self-obsession)
• mytailorisrich 7y ago
  Hiding contempt behind a smile.
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• throwaway-q2232 7y ago
  Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma problem and the Evolution of Trust - see Managing Your Manager by Ken Kousen. Essentially, Ken uses game theory to illustrate what behavior prevails in various situations and surveys various ways to deal with different personal. Also, the Game of Trust, as reviewed by Ken in his trainings. Also, Robert Greene's The Laws of Human Nature.
• jmkni 7y ago
  Showing up on time. I spent way too much of my early career being that prima donna asshole who would show up when they felt like it. I'm a bit older/wiser now, I apologize to anybody who had to work with younger me.
• 0xB0D 7y ago
  Being nicer to people. Earlier in my career I was too competitive with other people in team's I worked in. Trying to do all the work, exclude others. It was a function of insecurity maybe. I've learned, you need to uphold your teammates, make friends and allies. Lonewolf teams are only ever as productive as one person. Large companies, Intel, Google, want you to act as a multiplier, not an asshole. After all they are paying everybody, not just you. If you are perceived as individually great but rotten in a team, you are simply perceived as rotten in a team. Learn to make your team and everybody in it look good and you will see your greatest successes.
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• alo75 7y ago
  Touchtyping
• codeful 7y ago
  understanding people group dinamics from a social psychology perspective has been eye-opener for me. Rekommended reading - social identity theory and then a book: Social Groups in action and interaction. 2nd ed. Charles Strangor.
• sarcasmOrTears 7y ago
  Assertiveness. Seriously, you can be the best programmer in the world, humble, caring and even able to understand other people needs but if you're not assertive you gonna get screwed BIG time, especially if you are good
• teekert 7y ago
  I was always "overly social", wanted people to be happy, worried about what others think. As it turns out, knowing what you want, having a vision for yourself and sticking to it and being able to respectfully say "No." actually makes you an even more pleasant person to be around. More predictable, dependable and interesting. It will cost me some Karma but for me the first step in this change was reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I don't agree with everything but her vision on rational self interest stuck with me and made me feel like a more balanced person. I still have my struggles though. I recently experienced a lot of stress negotiating 2 job options. But a coach (provided by the company I worked for, very nice) helped me see the benefits of clearly and respectfully communicating my own interests in that situation. You are the only one in such situations who has his own interests as a top priority, don't think for others, especially not in a business setting.
• 8bithero 7y ago
  "The truth will set you free" Despite the cliche, I found the quicker you admit you've made a mistake, the quicker someone with more knowledge can jump in and resolve the problem before it gets worse.
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• collyw 7y ago
  Salary negotiation. (Not great at it now, but I don't feel embarrassed to ask for more).
• vmlinuz 7y ago
  The two things I've been working on most, recently: Giving credit where due, particular to more junior colleagues when they have made a good contribution to a team effort. Speaking in a more straightforward way - I'm English, and it's common for us to speak indirectly and suggest stuff, rather than say it outright, but I'm working in a mostly non-native English environment, and it has lead to issues once or twice.
• CalRobert 7y ago
  Some people use anger as a way to manipulate others and get what they want. This means that if you're never annoying _anybody_ you're probably a chump. (Now, if it's more than a rare occurrence that's a problem, but sometimes, some people will be angry at you. And that's OK).
• dgellow 7y ago
  Virtually everybody consider what they are familiar with to be normal or standard (often based on the country where they got their education). That was a big lesson to learn for me. Being in an international working environment makes you extra aware of that.
• Xelbair 7y ago
  Admit mistakes, and acknowledge if someone is right(even if you hate that person, or he or she is below you in the ladder) Don't yell and judge the fuckups, unless someone does the same mistake over and over again. The only one kind of person does no mistakes - the one who dosen't do anything. Try to help people around you, sharing knowledge etc. It makes everything go smoother. Tl;Dr Be professional, keep calm, and leave your prejudices at home. Work shouldn't affect(nor care) about your private time, and vice versa.
• barking 7y ago
  To be myself in public. I still haven't learned. I had an uncle who was like that. He didn't give a shit what anyone thought, he was such fun to be around even if it embarrassed the hell out of you sometimes.
  • nothrabannosir 7y ago
    Alternatively, it is possible to be yourself while still caring a great deal about what other people think, but not letting it influence your behaviour. Only your emotions. I think “not caring what others think” gets too much credit, honestly. It’s fine to care, because that also brings joy, for example I bet your uncle was damn proud that you liked him so much for whom he was :) that only works if you care. Which I’m sure he did. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable in public is a laudable skill.
    • barking 7y ago
      Thank you, yes he definitely had people he cared about and I was lucky enough to one. but not letting it influence your behaviour. Only your emotions That sounds really really hard! Allowing yourself to be vulnerable in public is a laudable skill. Absolutely, it requires a lot of courage imo.
  • tootie 7y ago
    I if I were really being myself, I wouldn't be in public. I prefer being alone 99% of the time.
• DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago
  Active listening. Empathy Collaboration mean compromise All decisions have emotions behind them
• f00zz 7y ago
  Spoken English, it's not my first language and communication is a struggle. This wasn't much of a hindrance on my career as I've mostly worked within my country and can read technical English just fine, but now that I'm working remotely for a foreign company I'm kicking myself for not having paid more attention to it earlier in my life. I'm a disaster at conference calls. Lately I've been extracting audio from YouTube videos and shadowing, this helps. Spoken fluency is mostly muscle memory, I think.
  • asdfman123 7y ago
    FWIW, if you didn't say you weren't a native speaker here I wouldn't have known you weren't. Your grammar is totally fine (other than a few minor mistakes, but your grammar is better than most native speakers).
    • f00zz 7y ago
      That's definitely not the case, but thanks.
• austincheney 7y ago
  I wish I had learned to call out frauds early on. There are those occasional few developers in the corporate world that are hired but can not write any code. They spend most of the day being social and generally delightful but contribute nothing to the work. They are frustrating in meetings when they inject uninformed opinions in order to justify their existence, to themselves mostly, as thought leaders. I also wished I had learned to be assertive to sensitive people. In the military world honesty is king. If you hold on to sensitivity in conflict to honesty you absolutely will not advance. In the corporate world kindness is far more important, even if that means lying to people. This is sometimes understandable in purely social contexts, but not in product or engineering discussions. Bad ideas are bad ideas. I wish I learned to take the kid gloves off and simply be more honest about really bad decisions in the corporate world instead of being tacit or accepting. It’s hard when you really want to be a team player but some people’s number one priority is face-saving behavior and find disagreements grotesquely disgusting.
• cloogshicer 7y ago
  For everyone here recommending "How to win friends and influence people" (HWIP), I'd like to offer a counter point and recommend "The Art of Loving", by Erich Fromm. The basic idea is that love and affection are not just feelings, but actual skills that need to be learned and cultivated. It also introduces the distinction between being lovable and being loving. HWIP largely teaches how to make yourself lovable, whereas the Art of Loving teaches the theory behind actively loving and embracing other people. I think it's a vital skill to have in any area of life, including business.
• Intermernet 7y ago
  Embrace being proven wrong. It's the foundation of the scientific method, but very difficult to do in reality. I now genuinely love being proven wrong. Smarter everyday and all that :-)
  • boohoojangles 7y ago
    and realize that not being proven wrong doesn't mean one is right. A lot of times I just don't even debate with whoever doesn't want to listen.
    • Intermernet 7y ago
      "and realize that not being proven wrong doesn't mean one is right" That's the other foundation of the scientific method. A thousand times yes!
  • ben509 7y ago
    The other skill that helps there is to not box yourself in by staking your reputation on a thing you believe to be true.
• Dowwie 7y ago
  Intertemporal decision making is really challenging. Future outcomes are undervalued relative to immediate ones. Further, we look to the future with rose-colored glasses that let us see a possible, yet unlikely future that we half-heartedly commit to today, without considering the reality that circumstances and motivations evolve over time and will influence future events from ever happening. See the book,"The Economics of Self-Destructive Choices": https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Self-Destructive-Advances-Japanese-Business/dp/443155792X https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Self-Destructive-Advances-J... Research keywords: "intertemporal discounting"
• exabrial 7y ago
  For the life of me, one thing I struggle with is pointing out issues that a non-technical person is causing. I think for the most part, engineers and the like are used to having their work critiqued and it's not a big deal to receive that sort of feedback; so being direct is the most efficient and frictionless path. I continuously struggle with how to present that to a non-technical person. Being direct almost always invokes a self-defense response, usually redirecting towards a [legit] inadequacy of the speaker (which is fine, that needs to be received). But for the problem at hand, it is neither helpful nor my intention: I was trying to solve a problem in the best interest of everyone. It seems the response of most technical people in this situation is to just avoid it all together.
  • snarf21 7y ago
    That is surely a challenge. It seems similar to the structure of how do you convince someone their position on a topic is mis-informed (not that they are wrong). Most things I've seen and read are usually focused on getting that person to explain it to you. You ask leading questions and see if they can get to a logical inconsistency thereby changing their own mind. I don't know what "issues" you are referencing but if it is a Product Manager, for example, you could try an approach of referencing external best practices. "Facebook released a template for how to perform and present market research for a new product. This was super cool. Is this something we could do for our products?"
  • asdfman123 7y ago
    If you can find an answer to that that works you'll double the success rate of software projects. Some stakeholders and managers don't understand software, the importance of clean code, and how insidious feature creep can be. They are used to a world where strict deadlines are necessary to keep people accountable. There's no changing people like that. There's only choosing your battles and doing your best to (politely) contain them.
• raxxorrax 7y ago
  Being skilled or competent at something doesn't necessarily make you popular. One of the most important lessons I believe. Aside from picking my battles, I am just myself. Never read a book about it and I am pretty skeptical about them in general. We have several psychologists, mostly training sales people, but I wouldn't say most of them are very proficient in being "people persons", only for people that fail to notice a lack of authenticity. That is a self reported assessment by themselves. We connect some arbitrary skills for being in a leadership position. In an American culture a leader has to be confident and that fact is pretty much treated as a dogma. But how can you have respect for anyone that dances like a monkey may be a question that comes up in other cultures. It seems to be often just about your character traits being fashionable. Many people can read a person after a while, so disguising your character won't always help you anyway.
• jcutrell 7y ago
  How to convince other people that what you’re doing is worthwhile and valuable.
• spodek 7y ago
  After my PhD in physics, I learned starting a company that I needed such skills and devoted myself to learning them. Now I teach the social and emotional skills underlying leadership, entrepreneurship, and initiative at NYU (student reviews: http://joshuaspodek.com/this-is-one-of-the-greatest-classes-i-have-ever-taken-it-was-engaging-thought-provoking-challenging-and-fun http://joshuaspodek.com/this-is-one-of-the-greatest-classes-... and videos of them describing the courses: http://joshuaspodek.com/nyu-students-speak-joshua-spodeks http://joshuaspodek.com/nyu-students-speak-joshua-spodeks). I made book versions of the courses. Amazon makes the first chapters of each available free, which goes into more detail on what I learned and its value: Leadership Step by Step: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person-Others/dp/0814437931 https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person-Others/... Initiative: https://www.amazon.com/Initiative-Proven-Method-Bring-Passions/dp/1733039902 https://www.amazon.com/Initiative-Proven-Method-Bring-Passio...
  • blablablerg 7y ago
    Cool! Will check out.
    • spodek 7y ago
      Let me know if you have any questions.
• zimbatm 7y ago
  Learn to relax. It was Bill Murray who was talking about this in an interview. If you relax, people are more relaxed, everything becomes easier.
  • tootie 7y ago
    This is my top feedback from everyone. I am always relaxed and it makes other people feel relaxed. Little do they know that my laid back attitude comes from underlying lack of caring whether or not my projects succeed. If I could have learned one thing earlier on, it's how to be more serious. It's hard to be the chill, no worries guy and also the guy to be taken seriously and not be crossed.
  • asdfman123 7y ago
    Learning mindfulness and meditation can give you this superpower.
• dtertman 7y ago
  That it is very important to communicate the strength of an opinion, and moreso the higher up in an organization you go. If you say everything like a Gospel truth, even when you're just brainstorming, the two end-states I've found are constant argument or constant acquiescence, and neither one is healthy for collaboration. Conversely, if you always hedge your opinions, even ones that are against your moral code, you may end up unhappy, doing some unsavory stuff, etc. A book that goes through this in detail is "Opening Doors To Teamwork and Collaboration". They have a very jargon-heavy approach to it ("notion", "stake", "boulder", "tombstone"), which I don't agree with, but the concept is important.
• sebastianconcpt 7y ago
  That I could EASILY make A LOT more money if I would not use my favorite programming language :(
• gradschool 7y ago
  Approach every conversation with an attitude of wanting the other person to be happy.
• mooreds 7y ago
  I wish I had internalized this truth: "Each person you are talking to or walking by is as important to themselves as you are to yourself. Everyone is the hero of their own story." It is easy to get intellectually, but to really internalize this leads to empathy and understanding.
• carusooneliner 7y ago
  Talk less and listen more. Learn to ask good questions. You can have an interesting conversation with anyone and life won't be boring.
• tomxor 7y ago
  This is going to sound absurdly simple: empathise more often. Everyone can do it, but not everyone does it. If you make an effort to actually imagine yourself in others shoes, your boss and your colleagues, and then feel it... Do this especially whenever any negative emotions or uncertainty appear in response to a colleagues actions or words. I think all of the so called "people skills" are just side effects by comparison. If you empathise, it's genuine, and so called people-skills will emerge naturally. This also goes beyond the mere appearance of people skills, because it will make you better understand the needs behind the demands of others, and make it more likely they take the effort to understand yours when they see you understand theirs (subconsciously). Like I said, as a premise, it's absurdly simple, but in practice it's a big deal.
  • kevstev 7y ago
    This has been the hardest for me- Some people are truly incompetent. The VAST majority are not though. They are solving the problem in the most optimal way they see fit for the constraints given to them. Constraints that you may have no awareness of, and not understanding of. Some of those constraints may not seem rational- "We have to get this out the door by next week." What you may not have a full understanding of, is that feature is going to bring in an extra 50k a week of revenue, it makes a TON of sense in that case to just hack it together and throw it out the door. From a business perspective, you can go back and rewrite it later, the economics are there. Its very difficult to understand the top down view sometimes, or the view of someone in a lateral position. I used to fight against decisions I thought were bad too much. I try really hard to understand their perspective these days- its still a struggle, I am not always successful. To be honest though, instead of getting emotionally invested (and pissed off), its super helpful to say "ok, this is not what you would do. Lets step back and try to understand their circumstances as to why they are doing this?" Immediately everything becomes depersonalized, and its just a system to model and understand how to put your input into it to try and get the outcome you want. My stress and emotional involvement go down, happiness goes up. I personally found it very difficult to start actively empathizing, but its really helped, and I feel is what will take me to another level in terms of leadership.
    • 7y ago
• blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Technical: I wish I learned Perl and Python earlier. Scripting is powerful. Non-Technical: Learning to speak the Will-to-Power language of executives; coded Power-Talk and all that. Once you start getting to the Senior Manager / Director / VP level whole battles are won and lost based on being able to play their games. I got burned a couple of times before I caught on, and lament not picking it up sooner.
  • adonnjohn 7y ago
    Any suggestions or recommendations for those attempting to improve those nontechnicals at earlier stages in their career?
• unoti 7y ago
  1. “Shooting from the hip” or saying exactly what’s on your mind isn’t always a virtue. 1b. Seize every opportunity to give an honest compliment 2. Look for a way for everyone to win. 3. Build people up and help them succeed. 4. Pick your battles, and only engage in conflict when it’s truly important. 5. You may get upset, but the character you play doesn’t. 6. It only takes a moment to make a good impression but it can take years to overcome a bad impression. Books: - Influence by Caldini - growth mindset - How to win friends and influence people - the war of art - 48 laws of power - 50 rules for aging - the like switch - what every BODY is saying (book on reading body language) - the prince (Machiavelli) - art of war (if you only get one idea from this book, it’s that the great general wins without fighting a single battle)
• raj_khare 7y ago
  Recursion. I see it everywhere
• LostInTheWoods2 7y ago
  I would recommend watching GroundHog day with Bill Murray. The key takeaway from this film I think, was be the brightest light in the room, be your most attractive self, and everything/everyone else will sort itself out.
• tqwhite 7y ago
  Three things... 1) The purpose of talking to people is not to figure out the right answer. The purpose is to figure out the next thing we can all agree is a decent idea. 2) Almost no one has bad motivations. When I think someone is trying to be a jerk, I now realize that I am probably misunderstanding a person who doesn't know how to be nice in a way that works for me. Probably, the person thinks he or she is doing the best they can. 3) Everyone is fighting battles, internal and external, that I cannot see. It is always right to be generous and sympathetic.
• notus 7y ago
  Always be constructive with your feedback or don't give any at all.
• hessp 7y ago
  - How to understand people and present ideas and opinions to them in a manner that they will respond to positively. Or judge how they will respond to an idea and make an informed decision about whether to present it based on your judgement of both the person and situation. - Understanding that emotions drive people often much more than logic. And that many people already know this and temper their communication based on the emotions it will provoke. And that participants in a conversation can know this about others and infer more than what is said by them. The first time I was able to read into a conversation between a few others and see that their (apparently irrational) discussion was really a different form of communication built on top of theory of mind was mindblowing for me. - The corollary of the above is learning how to use a sense of people / theory of mind to more effectively disagree. Either focusing on not creating a barrier when disagreeing. Or focusing on effectively convincing the other party based on pathos in addition to logos. I found the following most helpful while learning this: 1. Podcast: Career Tools / Manager Tools. 2. Book: "Secrets to Winning at Office Politics: How to Achieve Your Goals and Increase Your Influence at Work" - Note, she quickly redefines 'winning' as 'benefiting both yourself and the organization'. I thought it sounded slimy at first before I read that.
• resters 7y ago
  Some important things to remember when dealing with humans: - If people under you on the org chart are being friendly with you, laughing at your jokes, etc., it is partly due to their desire to get ahead in their careers. - Every person is the hero of his/her own personal struggle. This self perception explains a lot of human behavior. - If you are managing people and you don't think you can fire someone because your own boss would not be supportive, then you will never succeed as a manager in that company. Find a new boss. - The more a startup becomes successful, the more it will attract Slytherins and the more hostile it will be to Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. This is not a value judgement about the different houses, just an important reality to keep in mind. - When hiring, the "weekend test" works very well. Would you want to spend a weekend in the office working alongside this person? - Be upfront with people about their own personal goals and time horizons. Collaboration can exist when everyone's incentives line up, but that doesn't entail that everyone's incentives will always line up. Being honest about this will make people feel respected. Trust your gut feelings about people, they are usually right. Figure out what kind of work culture you want to work in, and do your best to make your job match this culture, or find a new job that is a better match. Invest in your friendships, and develop habits and hobbies that let you continue to make new friends even once you start to settle down a bit. Read books like "How to negotiate anything" and "Impro" to better understand the way interpersonal dynamics influence negotiations and the perception of a person's behavior. If you are a thinker, spend time cultivating the ability to listen to your own feelings and to use your emotions and hunches as valuable input into your more rational decision processes. Realize that your mind and body are one and that you will be more complete if you treat your body well (food, exercise, sleep). Leadership is a force, not a title. Regardless of the situation or who is officially in charge, bring leadership to the world wherever you go. This does not mean bossing people around, it can mean many things depending on the context. edit: not sure why this got downvoted, maybe something I said struck a nerve. I'd be curious to find out what it was rather than just have this downvoted.
• nick007 7y ago
  I’ve really enjoyed using https://www.createcapsule.com/ https://www.createcapsule.com/ for this. Has been helpful with everything from practicing better CBT, to relationship communication in both personal and professional settings. They do an amazing job of condensing down a lot of material into very succinct and digestible lessons (aka missions). Everything is also referenced so if you want to deep dive into a specific topic you can. The whole course is short enough to finish in an afternoon, or can also be broken down in 20 minute slots.
• RoadRunner_23 7y ago
  Ability to listen when people talk and pick the best ones. Then apply the best ones slowly and permanently so that it becomes a habit. Make sure the tip is positive and constructive.
• jshowa3 7y ago
  Ask for help and communicate your concerns. Number one thing I wished I learned a lot earlier.
• zachrose 7y ago
  Just care less. Don't worry too much about doing the perfect thing or building your product the right way. Whatever organization has hired you and your peers is by definition less knowledgeable, critical, and aesthetically sensitive than you are. Their goal isn't the "A-to-B" thing that you might think it is, because they don't really know what "B" is. Their goal is more like: hire some people, keep them happy, do some things that have a chance of bringing in money, and hopefully keep the lights on long enough to hire more people and take more chances at bringing in money. However valuable "B" might seem, it's still finite. Comparatively speaking, culture and morale are infinitely valuable because they can get to so many other places than just "B." Whatever shortcomings you perceive in your implementation of "B" are at the end of the day are shortcomings of your team, and if there was a shortcut to get a perfect result out of imperfect people then capitalism as we know it would have already collapsed into something else. The only way to improve "B" (or "C" or "7" or "^" or whatever you do next) is to improve the team that's already there. So relax. Have fun with the people you're stuck with. Try to do things better, sure, but don't blow out the engine trying to win the day's race. Read Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse.
• cr0sh 7y ago
  If there were any I would list - and I learned these early on (long before I even started my career) - it would be these (and they apply in general, not just the workplace): 1. Taking responsibility for one's mistakes. 2. Knowing how to actually apologize for a mistake, and when to do so. 3. Actually learning and improving from those mistakes. The ability to say "That was my fault, I apologize for it, and I will correct it and make sure it doesn't happen again" is something that is seemingly lost on a lot of people. Instead, most will tend to deny responsibility, deflect blame, put it on someone else, argue that other's do the same thing so why can't they, and more. It's a child's strategy, and is very transparent to the adults in the room. It is also maddening to see people, especially those in positions of power who should set a better example, get away with it on a daily, if not hourly basis.
• tracker1 7y ago
  Don't be afraid to acknowledge what you don't know. Feel free to point it out and that anything you may be speaking to is an educated guess and estimation only.
• zn44 7y ago
  Understanding that I can ask people senior to me directly for things I want and they would do everything they can to help me
• logari 7y ago
  The ideas in Getting More, by Stuart Diamond. And many others...in particular books written in foreign languages, which I cannot share here due to linguistic barriers.
• ryannevius 7y ago
  Mindfulness / awareness meditation. Seriously, if there's one thing I could tell my 18 year old self, it would be to learn to meditate and trust in the process. I tried very unsuccessfully to start a few times (guided meditation really isn't my jam), but quickly formed a habit once I found what works for me. It has been seriously life changing and has improved my relationship with myself and others at work and at home.
  • tmaly 7y ago
    Could you expound on what worked for you?
    • nefitty 7y ago
      Not parent commenter, but what helped me was to track my daily meditations on a big calendar by marking them with an 'X'. My meditations started at 20 minutes. I would listen to some meditative bowl music or rain sounds and set it to end after 20 minutes. Alarms are startling and could ruin a good session. I also had a little corner of my house with a pillow to sit on. I would change into comfortable sweatpants and pop in my headphones and start just counting my breaths. I hope this helps you start!
• ulisesrmzroche 7y ago
  Dang, what a mess this thread. Anyway, the first one is to never speak of what one does not know. I always get into trouble when I open my fat stupid mouth. So always think twice before speaking, and if so, speak wisely. The other one, tho related, is to never lose your temper. Never ever. This can get you in so much trouble that it is basically suicidal. The satisfaction of a little rage is never worth the cost.
• lispytriz 7y ago
  I wish I had learned to disagree politely, convincingly, and respectfully. The trick is listening and really understanding the "opposite" view How to Win Friends and Influence People
• rubbercasing 7y ago
  Photoshop and other Adobe editing features.
• HelgaM 7y ago
  Having mentors is so so important. My advice to me younger, find the right mentor to follow
• michelinman 7y ago
  Be yourself not who you think they want you to be.
• tony 7y ago
  There's lots of freedom and flexibility in things that are okay: - Being trustworthy and getting along with workmates is sometimes more valuable than being a favorite / teacher's pet to a manager. You ideally want to be amicable with both. - Say nice things about your colleagues when they accomplish things - It's okay during interviews to ask for time to show and tell projects, talk about your experiences. There's no rule written in stone to follow their format to the point you can't showcase strengths directly related to the job description. Things that you can do that don't help you always: - Being proactive: Taking responsibility for preventative things when not asked to. I fixed / averted many headaches that have gone totally unacknowledged over the past decade+. Here's the thing: I'd feel dishonest / unprofessional to not be proactive if something is breaking CI loops, typings, etc. It's hard for colleagues / managers to see the value until you wait for it to be a blocker. This is frustrating to me, because I haven't found the solution to reasoning about it. I don't like the idea of waiting for a problem to rear it's head and all developers are blocked by a problem. Things to not do: - Don't bring up any political discussion with colleagues, including outside work. No matter how moderate, harmless you think your viewpoint is. It can only do damage to you, never help. - Even in unfair situations, e.g. it's untenable and you need to end the relationship, to take the route to ending it amicably as possible. Say you're moving to the next place. Whenever in doubt / under stress: default to being professional as possible.
• bigfont 7y ago
  These are the books and resources that have been of the most use to me: # Assertiveness: Alberti, R. E., & Emmons, M. (1995). Your Perfect Right. San Luis Obispo, California: Impact Publishers. Paterson, R. J. (2000). The assertiveness workbook: How to express your ideas and stand up for yourself at work and in relationships. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications. # Anger Management: McKay, M. & Rogers, R. (2000). The Anger Control Workbook: Simple, innovative techniques for managing anger and developing healthier ways of relating. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications. # Social & Emotional Intelligence: Bilsker, D., Gilbert, M., & Samra, J. (2009). Antidepressant Skills at Work: Dealing with mood problems in the workplace. Retrieved from http://www.comh.ca/antidepressant-skills/work/workbook/pages/worksheets-01.cfm http://www.comh.ca/antidepressant-skills/work/workbook/pages.... McKay, M., Davis, M., & Fanning, P. (2009). Messages: The Communication Skills Book. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications. # Some High Level Take Home Messages - negotiate your own behavior - everyone is doing the best they can - communication is goal oriented - humans make more sense when we understand the hidden variables - it's possible to use social skills and to be authentic I built https://socialarts.club https://socialarts.club as a side-project for my own use; it might someday be useful to others once I have added privacy measures.
• deleted 7y ago
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• paskos1 7y ago
  I wish I had acknowledged the fact that I suffer from severe anxiety disorder instead of believing that everybody else was wrong. For most of my work life (20+ years) I suffered from severe anxiety that led to fits of anger, resentment, self pity. After facing enough consequences (being fired, quitting in anger) I finally looked at myself hard in the proverbial mirror and asked for help and went to therapy. My favorite books are from Jocko Willink: - Extreme Ownership - The dichotomy of leadership - Discipline Equals Freedom Mainly leadership books that I use to be better at leading myself.
• somedaysoonenuf 7y ago
  How to listen to people: Realizing that there is something all people need, and that is to be heard. You can use the skill of listening to people to have an advantage in any situation. I think I learned this best in workshops on effective communication, where we could role play.
• bonoquak 7y ago
  Came here for tips on improving people skills. Saw mostly 'self inspect' mechanisms.
• edisonjoao 7y ago
  keys open doors