5 ms·

I can't bring myself to watch the video. "Kindness Engineering" just radiates Orwellian vibes. People aren't being "kind" enough, and so we're going to apply sc

I can't bring myself to watch the video. "Kindness Engineering" just radiates Orwellian vibes. People aren't being "kind" enough, and so we're going to apply scientific processes to people to "engineer" "kindness". What a sinister title. Doing a quick jog through the video... - "Be yourself, because who you are is brilliant..." - Psychological safety - No blame What a load of toxic advice. Engineering is not an affirmation cult. I have the feeling that we got to this place by putting the sum of our existence into our git commits. And if people criticize your git commits, they're criticizing your existence, and this is "harmful", so we need to engineer "psychological safety" into our engineering reviews. The real psychologically unsafe practice is making your code the sum of your existence. Accept that you can fail as an engineer, and still have worth as a person. That's the solution, not "kindness engineering".

ropeladder 5y ago
You have built up a terrifying straw man based on a video you admit you didn't even watch. You're right that we should put less emotional stake in our code--the video actually lays some healthy ways to do this. More generally, it's important that we recognize that people have emotions, otherwise it makes it easy and convenient for us to treat them like shit. (hint hint)
- bjt2n3904 5y ago
  I've been reading things the "inclusivity" crowd writes for some time. There's nothing really new in anything that's said, it's all the same. They promise a better, kinder, more "inclusive" world. They deliver "cancel culture", and self censorship under fear of public struggle sessions. No thank you. If it's truly a choice between "psychologically safe cubicles with padded walls" and caustic code reviews where people trash every line of code I've ever written -- I'll take the latter.
  - hobs 5y ago
    There's no enforced dichotomy here, and tbqh you can take the sliding slope right out the door. Nobody delivers "cancel culture" and those railing against the consequences of their actions are generally assholes.
topkai22 5y ago
I read the deck not the videos, but their is a section on “nice” versus "kind" slice that is the complete opposite of your straw man. Direct feedback about your work that covers both the good and the bad is considered kind and encouraged. In fact, psychological safety is what creates an environment where actions and decisions can be discussed and critiqued rationally rather than emotionally. The blameless part is shorthand for focusing on the system rather then the person. After all, if Alice took down production by modifying a config file she thought was on the dev environment it makes far less sense to focus on blaming Alice did versus discussing why someone was able to modify production without appropriate checks in place. The "bring the whole person" and "be yourself" concepts need work though. There are fair number of people I know who I really would not want to just "be themselves" at work. edit-- minor typo
- bjt2n3904 5y ago
  I've never considered a good code review to be "kind" -- and I don't think much will change that. Helping an old lady cross the street. Buying a friend a coffee and listening to their troubles. That is kindness: an ethical consideration for others, and a pleasant disposition. It's absolutely essential to have design reviews be rational, and to untangle complicated emotions. The reason flight travel is so safe today is because of these principles -- crash reviews are not about assigning blame, but finding the cause of the crash to prevent further loss of life. But "kindness" does not come into play here, and introducing it will create problems, not solve them. I agree with you, that the "bring the whole person" and "be yourself" part is unrelated good engineering practices. But these are the grounding framework of "psychological safety", which puts the responsibility for my well being in your hands. That's a responsibility that no one can (or should) bear.
  - throwaways885 5y ago
    I think you're conflating kindness and niceness. People are nice to protect the feelings of others, whereas kindness has a more logical component, e.g. being honest when the truth can hurt. You can be kind without being nice. But I believe you're right that people need to take their emotions out of their work.
justanotherguy0 5y ago
Psychological safety is so critical. I'm almost certain you have, at some point in your career, correctly implemented a feature, only for an operations or product counterpart to blame you for some piece of out of scope functionality not being there. How did that make you feel? Did you alter your behavior to be less helpful in the future? Did you start recording meetings so that you had a source of truth on explicit scope? If team members think or feel that they "need to cover their ass," that hurts the company's mission, and wastes resources. Worse, it can lead to managers pushing for excessive due diligence, which saps the motivation of ICs. Blame is ultimately a waste of energy. Every team member is going to make mistakes if they are taking sufficient risks. You can fire people who have a negative contribution level or chronically underperform without leaning on blame.

ropeladder 5y ago

You have built up a terrifying straw man based on a video you admit you didn't even watch. You're right that we should put less emotional stake in our code--the video actually lays some healthy ways to do this. More generally, it's important that we recognize that people have emotions, otherwise it makes it easy and convenient for us to treat them like shit. (hint hint)

bjt2n3904 5y ago
I've been reading things the "inclusivity" crowd writes for some time. There's nothing really new in anything that's said, it's all the same. They promise a better, kinder, more "inclusive" world. They deliver "cancel culture", and self censorship under fear of public struggle sessions. No thank you. If it's truly a choice between "psychologically safe cubicles with padded walls" and caustic code reviews where people trash every line of code I've ever written -- I'll take the latter.
- hobs 5y ago
  There's no enforced dichotomy here, and tbqh you can take the sliding slope right out the door. Nobody delivers "cancel culture" and those railing against the consequences of their actions are generally assholes.

topkai22 5y ago

I read the deck not the videos, but their is a section on “nice” versus "kind" slice that is the complete opposite of your straw man. Direct feedback about your work that covers both the good and the bad is considered kind and encouraged. In fact, psychological safety is what creates an environment where actions and decisions can be discussed and critiqued rationally rather than emotionally. The blameless part is shorthand for focusing on the system rather then the person. After all, if Alice took down production by modifying a config file she thought was on the dev environment it makes far less sense to focus on blaming Alice did versus discussing why someone was able to modify production without appropriate checks in place. The "bring the whole person" and "be yourself" concepts need work though. There are fair number of people I know who I really would not want to just "be themselves" at work. edit-- minor typo

bjt2n3904 5y ago
I've never considered a good code review to be "kind" -- and I don't think much will change that. Helping an old lady cross the street. Buying a friend a coffee and listening to their troubles. That is kindness: an ethical consideration for others, and a pleasant disposition. It's absolutely essential to have design reviews be rational, and to untangle complicated emotions. The reason flight travel is so safe today is because of these principles -- crash reviews are not about assigning blame, but finding the cause of the crash to prevent further loss of life. But "kindness" does not come into play here, and introducing it will create problems, not solve them. I agree with you, that the "bring the whole person" and "be yourself" part is unrelated good engineering practices. But these are the grounding framework of "psychological safety", which puts the responsibility for my well being in your hands. That's a responsibility that no one can (or should) bear.
- throwaways885 5y ago
  I think you're conflating kindness and niceness. People are nice to protect the feelings of others, whereas kindness has a more logical component, e.g. being honest when the truth can hurt. You can be kind without being nice. But I believe you're right that people need to take their emotions out of their work.

justanotherguy0 5y ago

Psychological safety is so critical. I'm almost certain you have, at some point in your career, correctly implemented a feature, only for an operations or product counterpart to blame you for some piece of out of scope functionality not being there. How did that make you feel? Did you alter your behavior to be less helpful in the future? Did you start recording meetings so that you had a source of truth on explicit scope? If team members think or feel that they "need to cover their ass," that hurts the company's mission, and wastes resources. Worse, it can lead to managers pushing for excessive due diligence, which saps the motivation of ICs. Blame is ultimately a waste of energy. Every team member is going to make mistakes if they are taking sufficient risks. You can fire people who have a negative contribution level or chronically underperform without leaning on blame.