7 ms·

Bad sign. If the rank and file are afraid to give honest internal feedback, they have a management problem. At least for me, that's a time-to-leave signal.

by _jal 7y ago

baby 7y ago
And this ladies and gentlemen is the over reaction of the year!
- wpietri 7y ago
  Not at all. Why stay at a place that doesn't value your ability to think? Or, worse, doesn't value the thoughts of anybody below a certain rank? Not only is that a miserable experience, but I think it's also a recipe for a product that only gets worse.
  - hanspeter 7y ago
    > Why stay at a place that doesn't value your ability to think? Or, worse, doesn't value the thoughts of anybody below a certain rank? That's the over reaction part. The fact that two engineers feels uncomfortable expressing their feelings, says very little about the culture or values in their company. It could be that they are just too introverted or insecure to speak up about most things, or that they have a good relationship with the fellow engineers in that other team, and don't feel like ruining it by telling them, that their contributions to the product sucks.
    - wpietri 7y ago
      If the original commenter had said, "if any two engineers feel uncomfortable, you should definitely quit right away", then you'd be right. But that's not what was said. It was correctly described as a possible management problem, a signal. If your notion is that one should leave at the first signal, that's something you bring to it. Anyhow, we have evidence that the problem is more widespread. It's obvious from the HN reaction that quite a lot of people hate this feature, engineers especially. But still it was released. If you want to hypothesize a situation that makes that unimportant, you have to dream up a lot more than two extremely insecure engineers.
- thsowers 7y ago
  While I can appreciate some healthy skepticism on how widespread the practice is, welcoming honest input from rank and file members of any company can be extremely valuable to improving the quality of products, and many successful companies realize this and encourage such feedback
- anyfoo 7y ago
  In my company (not a small one) and in any previous ones, I’ve never even thought that people could be afraid of giving honest feedback. I’ve seen internal feedback causing change, I’ve also seen it being ignored (sometimes to be listened to later after all, sometimes it turned out that things weren’t as bad as they seemed), but I’ve never perceived any potential for negative repercussions. So if that is indeed the case here, then it does indicate some problems.
  - baby 7y ago
    Sure, my point is that it makes little sense to jump to these conclusions with so little information, especially since this is not the point of the article. I’m amazed that I’m still talking about this :)
  - toyg 7y ago
    Uh, that’s actual the default behaviour I’ve witnessed at small and large companies I’ve worked for: complain or be critical of the shiny bright path that executives push you onto, and you’ll be branded a nuisance to suppress. Rule n.1 of survival has always been “don’t rock the boat”. The one time I felt safe enough to speak my mind without filters, I eventually paid the price for it.
- jraph 7y ago
  Nice self-reference :-)
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
*Slack, not signal.
- umeshgmrl 7y ago
  he might meant to say 'sign', not the company name
chris_wot 7y ago
Given that Microsoft Teams is literally an existential threat, they really want to listen to feedback internally!
- sharken 7y ago
  Not until Microsoft Teams gets the layout fixed, see https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/17408641-compact-mode https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/su...
  - syshum 7y ago
    Not really. Teams biggest "Feature" is that is part of the Office 364 Suite, a lot of the layout and other issues are simply forgiven since there are no additional licensing or costs to use it over Slack if you are already on Office 364 Enterprise Teams is "good enough" for most organizations and is improving, That is microsoft current plan, be "good enough"
    - tremon 7y ago
      That has always been Microsoft's plan, to be "just good enough" to make the cost of switching outweigh the cost of muddling on.
      - chris_wot 7y ago
        In this case, it’s also their competitors plan! Slack seems to have the same ethos.
    - fbnlsr 7y ago
      What happened to the last day of Office 365?
      - syshum 7y ago
        Ask Microsoft, they seem to think there is only 364 days in a yer based on their availability
grumple 7y ago
It's a company with non-unique tech run by salespeople, of course they have a management problem.

Bad sign. If the rank and file are afraid to give honest internal feedback, they have a management problem. At least for me, that's a time-to-leave signal.

by _jal 7y ago

Bad sign. If the rank and file are afraid to give honest internal feedback, they have a management problem. At least for me, that's a time-to-leave signal.

baby 7y ago

And this ladies and gentlemen is the over reaction of the year!

wpietri 7y ago
Not at all. Why stay at a place that doesn't value your ability to think? Or, worse, doesn't value the thoughts of anybody below a certain rank? Not only is that a miserable experience, but I think it's also a recipe for a product that only gets worse.
- hanspeter 7y ago
  > Why stay at a place that doesn't value your ability to think? Or, worse, doesn't value the thoughts of anybody below a certain rank? That's the over reaction part. The fact that two engineers feels uncomfortable expressing their feelings, says very little about the culture or values in their company. It could be that they are just too introverted or insecure to speak up about most things, or that they have a good relationship with the fellow engineers in that other team, and don't feel like ruining it by telling them, that their contributions to the product sucks.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    If the original commenter had said, "if any two engineers feel uncomfortable, you should definitely quit right away", then you'd be right. But that's not what was said. It was correctly described as a possible management problem, a signal. If your notion is that one should leave at the first signal, that's something you bring to it. Anyhow, we have evidence that the problem is more widespread. It's obvious from the HN reaction that quite a lot of people hate this feature, engineers especially. But still it was released. If you want to hypothesize a situation that makes that unimportant, you have to dream up a lot more than two extremely insecure engineers.
thsowers 7y ago
While I can appreciate some healthy skepticism on how widespread the practice is, welcoming honest input from rank and file members of any company can be extremely valuable to improving the quality of products, and many successful companies realize this and encourage such feedback
anyfoo 7y ago
In my company (not a small one) and in any previous ones, I’ve never even thought that people could be afraid of giving honest feedback. I’ve seen internal feedback causing change, I’ve also seen it being ignored (sometimes to be listened to later after all, sometimes it turned out that things weren’t as bad as they seemed), but I’ve never perceived any potential for negative repercussions. So if that is indeed the case here, then it does indicate some problems.
- baby 7y ago
  Sure, my point is that it makes little sense to jump to these conclusions with so little information, especially since this is not the point of the article. I’m amazed that I’m still talking about this :)
- toyg 7y ago
  Uh, that’s actual the default behaviour I’ve witnessed at small and large companies I’ve worked for: complain or be critical of the shiny bright path that executives push you onto, and you’ll be branded a nuisance to suppress. Rule n.1 of survival has always been “don’t rock the boat”. The one time I felt safe enough to speak my mind without filters, I eventually paid the price for it.
jraph 7y ago
Nice self-reference :-)

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago

*Slack, not signal.

umeshgmrl 7y ago
he might meant to say 'sign', not the company name

chris_wot 7y ago

Given that Microsoft Teams is literally an existential threat, they really want to listen to feedback internally!

sharken 7y ago
Not until Microsoft Teams gets the layout fixed, see https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/17408641-compact-mode https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/su...
- syshum 7y ago
  Not really. Teams biggest "Feature" is that is part of the Office 364 Suite, a lot of the layout and other issues are simply forgiven since there are no additional licensing or costs to use it over Slack if you are already on Office 364 Enterprise Teams is "good enough" for most organizations and is improving, That is microsoft current plan, be "good enough"
  - tremon 7y ago
    That has always been Microsoft's plan, to be "just good enough" to make the cost of switching outweigh the cost of muddling on.
    - chris_wot 7y ago
      In this case, it’s also their competitors plan! Slack seems to have the same ethos.
  - fbnlsr 7y ago
    What happened to the last day of Office 365?
    - syshum 7y ago
      Ask Microsoft, they seem to think there is only 364 days in a yer based on their availability

grumple 7y ago

It's a company with non-unique tech run by salespeople, of course they have a management problem.