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OTOH, it’s useful to know when your colleagues are struggling, either professionally or personally. It puts their reactions into context and helps anticipating

OTOH, it’s useful to know when your colleagues are struggling, either professionally or personally. It puts their reactions into context and helps anticipating their performance. If they’re struggling, they will not be giving their best show, as will you and as will I. We’ll all drop the ball, be slower,… and knowing I should expect that helps me, because I can try to cover some of their bases, as will they when I’m struggling. There may also be some unresolved conflict in the workplace that could be lowering everyone’s performance. There’s no need to get into details or cross over into therapy territory, but a “hey, I’m currently not doing perfectly fine” is a much appreciated heads up for me. Showing that you do care to a certain extend helps people share those feelings.

UncleEntity 4y ago
> Showing that you do care to a certain extend helps people share those feelings. Unless you don’t actually care and can’t tell them “get your shit together on someone else’s time, dude” because that would be a micro-aggression since they don’t like being called dude.
cxr 4y ago
If you can provide those kinds of affordances to someone after they've informed you that they're "struggling, either professionally or personally", then you can do it without making them have that conversation as a precondition to your charity. If someone is struggling, that means they're vulnerable. Forcing them to take a gamble by enlarging the "surface area" of the risk that they're exposed to (by advertising it to someone else) is shitty. It punishes people who can't take that risk (in other words, the people most in need of relief) and also (separately, possibly doubly) punishes the people who manage to successfully cover their own bases without slipping or otherwise indicating that any of this is coming at great cost. Corollary: you should assume that anyone could be struggling at any time (or all the time), and default to giving everyone whatever latitude they've earned and deserve, whether they've had an intimate heart-to-heart with you beforehand or not.
- Xylakant 4y ago
  I disagree: If I assume that anyone is struggling all of the time, then I cannot prioritize assistance to those that are actually struggling - which means that those that are actually struggling loose out. I agree that it comes with vulnerability and risk. However, I believe that the way out here is reducing the risk, by building team structures where people can talk about these issues without being punished for it. That is: Teams where people are not expected to be robots and interchangeable, but humans with strength, weaknesses and temporary or permanent challenges that need addressing.
  - samhw 4y ago
    I can't see anything here that's not solved by the simple algorithm "If someone is performing badly, help them. If they still perform badly, fire them." I don't think you need to know about their personal life. Just provide help to whoever is underperforming.

UncleEntity 4y ago

> Showing that you do care to a certain extend helps people share those feelings. Unless you don’t actually care and can’t tell them “get your shit together on someone else’s time, dude” because that would be a micro-aggression since they don’t like being called dude.

cxr 4y ago

If you can provide those kinds of affordances to someone after they've informed you that they're "struggling, either professionally or personally", then you can do it without making them have that conversation as a precondition to your charity. If someone is struggling, that means they're vulnerable. Forcing them to take a gamble by enlarging the "surface area" of the risk that they're exposed to (by advertising it to someone else) is shitty. It punishes people who can't take that risk (in other words, the people most in need of relief) and also (separately, possibly doubly) punishes the people who manage to successfully cover their own bases without slipping or otherwise indicating that any of this is coming at great cost. Corollary: you should assume that anyone could be struggling at any time (or all the time), and default to giving everyone whatever latitude they've earned and deserve, whether they've had an intimate heart-to-heart with you beforehand or not.

Xylakant 4y ago
I disagree: If I assume that anyone is struggling all of the time, then I cannot prioritize assistance to those that are actually struggling - which means that those that are actually struggling loose out. I agree that it comes with vulnerability and risk. However, I believe that the way out here is reducing the risk, by building team structures where people can talk about these issues without being punished for it. That is: Teams where people are not expected to be robots and interchangeable, but humans with strength, weaknesses and temporary or permanent challenges that need addressing.
- samhw 4y ago
  I can't see anything here that's not solved by the simple algorithm "If someone is performing badly, help them. If they still perform badly, fire them." I don't think you need to know about their personal life. Just provide help to whoever is underperforming.