4 ms·

I do. Having worked with so many engineers with almost no social skills, I think there's a lot of room for improvement in their communication style. "Why didn't

by eweise 3y ago

I do. Having worked with so many engineers with almost no social skills, I think there's a lot of room for improvement in their communication style. "Why didn't you do it this way?" is aggressive and critical. "have you thought about this approach?" makes them feel like you have their back and are trying to help. I agree there's not a huge need to the "I really liked how you tackled this" part but even never praising your coworkers is a an issue.

jahsome 3y ago
I personally prefer earnest over disingenuous. There are fewer opportunities to misunderstand. A question by it's nature isn't aggressive. The words "should" and "we" are the real cancers IMO, as in "we should have done..." I think your example of have you thought about, vs. Why did you is potentially better but I personally don't have an issue answering either question or feel attacked in either case. I would on the other hand be concerned about working with someone immature enough to read in so far to perfectly innocuous curiosity.
- jcuenod 3y ago
  There are intelligent people who are great at ingenuous praise. I'm not one of them, but often in striving for the former, I fail at the latter. Smart people are able to find things that are praiseworthy, which gives greater credibility to questions and critique.
tharkun__ 3y ago
That's different though. I don't think your parent meant the "have you tried this approach" part but the very very fake and passive aggressive praise that then is turned into "actually I don't think you did great, please try this other approach". That's so fake and irritating.
- eweise 3y ago
  Yeah I agree that comes across as fake, especially if done constantly. But its still good to recognize your peers effort even if sometimes it results in the wrong outcome.
  - pxc 3y ago
    Fake praise isn't recognition, though. It verges on (and sometimes is quite intentionally) mockery.
gizmo686 3y ago
It depends on context, but I have found the opposite. "Have you thought about this approach" can come across as condcending. Of course I thought about that, it was the first thing I tried before the much more complicated solution that actually works. "Why didn't you do it this way" invites them to share the war story of what happened when they tried doing that.
- pluijzer 3y ago
  But your example are cases where you feel strong because you have this war story. How about the cases where you just made a mistake? That said, I never liked the 'sandwhich' method, saying; "Great effort. The result is horrible, like your indentation though."
  - thegrimmest 3y ago
    Then you should be glad someone pointed out your mistake, improved the work, and gave you an opportunity to learn. You should be thanking them.
  - gizmo686 3y ago
    "war story" is a bit strong, but most of the time I don't go with the obvious solution, there was some investigating done that led to the conclusion that the obvious solution wouldn't work. The trick is to know who you are talking to. If they did think of your idea, accusing them of having missed it is offensive. If they didn't consider it, asking them to justify their reasoning puts them on the spot.
  - II2II 3y ago
    The value of the sandwich method depends upon some sort of equivalence of the praise. It may have taken hours or days of work to produce the code that generated horrible results, while indentation would likely register as a triviality. To choose a better example: "Your code is great. The results were off, but how you structured it made it easy to isolate the problem." Overall I agree with your assessment though. People giving this sort of feedback usually focus upon the problem and grasp at straws when it comes to the compliment.
RobRivera 3y ago
I dont think it is good faith to label different communication styles as poor social skills. Many a DnD nerd have no problems communicating, but simply have a different communication style than johhny the quarterback. Part of diversity is understanding cultural differences as much as style. I love being told short, crisp, critical feedbacj that is data dense. Any overly verbose communication adds a layer of parsing and interpretation which may be unnecessarily ambiguous, which is more costly and for the benefit of what? a subjective opinion that it is 'more social'? As with most things, it depends and knowing your audience goes miles.
- ska 3y ago
  The social skill is having different communication styles, and applying them appropriately. Only having one is a form of poor social skills.
camel_gopher 3y ago
My goto is “can you help me understand x?”
- eweise 3y ago
  I guess any style could be interpreted many ways. If something was hard to understand, it sounds sincere but if you actually do understand then it could sound condescending. I guess with all this, context matters.
ori_b 3y ago
I don't think I've seen this style of communication generally work as a viable substitute for social skills and good will towards colleagues. Wrapping of criticism in praise is a poor substitute for genuinely praising good work, and being empathetic and helpful with direct, unambiguous feedback when someone can improve. Mistakes are inevitable. They're not a problem. It's ok to discuss them directly.
pxc 3y ago
> "Why didn't you do it this way?" is aggressive and critical. 'Why didn't you do it this way?' reveals an expectation that you would have done whatever it was 'this way', but it doesn't indicate that that expectation is normative. A junior might well ask that just because 'this way' is the only way they know how to do it, and they're curious about whether the developer they're asking chose a different route for stylistic reasons, performance reasons, or out of some entirely different consideration. Nothing critical about it. Inferring criticism from mere surprise may be uncomfortable, but it also seems a kind of misapprehension that will very quickly sort itself out as the conversation goes on. In contrast to the case above, by the way, 'have you thought about this [other] approach?' does imply that the asker knows better because it very directly and explicitly raises the possibility that the one being asked hasn't even considered alternative implementations.
- eweise 3y ago
  "Aggressive and critical" I couldn't find the right words initially but a better word might be accusatory. To me, it sounds like they should have but didn't. A lot of other posters don't get that flavor from it and see it as just a genuine curiosity which makes sense.
  - pxc 3y ago
    > To me, it sounds like they should have but didn't. A lot of other posters don't get that flavor from it and see it as just a genuine curiosity which makes sense. Imo a lot of the difficulty with things like this comes from high turnover and/or siloing. When you're working with someone who is basically a stranger, that means you've hardly had a chance to build up a real sense of rapport/trust/comfort with that person. So it's easier to doubt yourself and harder to know what the other person really intends. Most differences in communication style or preferences about how to approach criticism are at least somewhat easier to deal with between people who know each other and understand what their particular differences are.
dahwolf 3y ago
It's not aggressive and being critical of work deliverables is the very point of quality assurance. It doesn't mean you have to be mean about it, but you can just spit it out.
sixstringtheory 3y ago
Weird, I perceive these the opposite of how you do. "Why didn't you do it this way?" I trust that you considered many alternatives. Can you tell me your thoughts about the decision you arrived at? “have you thought about this approach?” You probably couldn’t imagine this possibility, let me do it for you. Checkmate! I can also see how they could each be interpreted in the opposite directions. I’m betting it’s more about the contextual body language and tone they’re delivered with than the words/sentences themselves that matters, which I just don’t see being that different once you look behind them to see the gist of the message. That’s the double edged sword of text-only communication: you can choose to interpret everything charitably, but you can also infer a condescending tone even if it wasn’t intended. Expecting people to wordsmith to your individual taste is just asking for otherwise fine coworkers to be mind readers.
- II2II 3y ago
  Rather than asking "why didn't you do it this way?" you could ask "why did you choose this approach?", but only do so if you are prepared to acknowledge their reasoning may be valid (and, ideally, you are known for accepting justifiable approaches).
sopooneo 3y ago
I have personally switched my default communication style to the "have you thought about this approach?" style because I found it worked better with most people. Still, for me, I dislike it. Coming from a lot of people, I find it not what they really mean, which puts me on edge.

by eweise 3y ago

jahsome 3y ago

I personally prefer earnest over disingenuous. There are fewer opportunities to misunderstand. A question by it's nature isn't aggressive. The words "should" and "we" are the real cancers IMO, as in "we should have done..." I think your example of have you thought about, vs. Why did you is potentially better but I personally don't have an issue answering either question or feel attacked in either case. I would on the other hand be concerned about working with someone immature enough to read in so far to perfectly innocuous curiosity.

jcuenod 3y ago
There are intelligent people who are great at ingenuous praise. I'm not one of them, but often in striving for the former, I fail at the latter. Smart people are able to find things that are praiseworthy, which gives greater credibility to questions and critique.

tharkun__ 3y ago

That's different though. I don't think your parent meant the "have you tried this approach" part but the very very fake and passive aggressive praise that then is turned into "actually I don't think you did great, please try this other approach". That's so fake and irritating.

eweise 3y ago
Yeah I agree that comes across as fake, especially if done constantly. But its still good to recognize your peers effort even if sometimes it results in the wrong outcome.
- pxc 3y ago
  Fake praise isn't recognition, though. It verges on (and sometimes is quite intentionally) mockery.

gizmo686 3y ago

It depends on context, but I have found the opposite. "Have you thought about this approach" can come across as condcending. Of course I thought about that, it was the first thing I tried before the much more complicated solution that actually works. "Why didn't you do it this way" invites them to share the war story of what happened when they tried doing that.

pluijzer 3y ago
But your example are cases where you feel strong because you have this war story. How about the cases where you just made a mistake? That said, I never liked the 'sandwhich' method, saying; "Great effort. The result is horrible, like your indentation though."
- thegrimmest 3y ago
  Then you should be glad someone pointed out your mistake, improved the work, and gave you an opportunity to learn. You should be thanking them.
- gizmo686 3y ago
  "war story" is a bit strong, but most of the time I don't go with the obvious solution, there was some investigating done that led to the conclusion that the obvious solution wouldn't work. The trick is to know who you are talking to. If they did think of your idea, accusing them of having missed it is offensive. If they didn't consider it, asking them to justify their reasoning puts them on the spot.
- II2II 3y ago
  The value of the sandwich method depends upon some sort of equivalence of the praise. It may have taken hours or days of work to produce the code that generated horrible results, while indentation would likely register as a triviality. To choose a better example: "Your code is great. The results were off, but how you structured it made it easy to isolate the problem." Overall I agree with your assessment though. People giving this sort of feedback usually focus upon the problem and grasp at straws when it comes to the compliment.

RobRivera 3y ago

I dont think it is good faith to label different communication styles as poor social skills. Many a DnD nerd have no problems communicating, but simply have a different communication style than johhny the quarterback. Part of diversity is understanding cultural differences as much as style. I love being told short, crisp, critical feedbacj that is data dense. Any overly verbose communication adds a layer of parsing and interpretation which may be unnecessarily ambiguous, which is more costly and for the benefit of what? a subjective opinion that it is 'more social'? As with most things, it depends and knowing your audience goes miles.

ska 3y ago
The social skill is having different communication styles, and applying them appropriately. Only having one is a form of poor social skills.

camel_gopher 3y ago

My goto is “can you help me understand x?”

eweise 3y ago
I guess any style could be interpreted many ways. If something was hard to understand, it sounds sincere but if you actually do understand then it could sound condescending. I guess with all this, context matters.

ori_b 3y ago

I don't think I've seen this style of communication generally work as a viable substitute for social skills and good will towards colleagues. Wrapping of criticism in praise is a poor substitute for genuinely praising good work, and being empathetic and helpful with direct, unambiguous feedback when someone can improve. Mistakes are inevitable. They're not a problem. It's ok to discuss them directly.

pxc 3y ago

> "Why didn't you do it this way?" is aggressive and critical. 'Why didn't you do it this way?' reveals an expectation that you would have done whatever it was 'this way', but it doesn't indicate that that expectation is normative. A junior might well ask that just because 'this way' is the only way they know how to do it, and they're curious about whether the developer they're asking chose a different route for stylistic reasons, performance reasons, or out of some entirely different consideration. Nothing critical about it. Inferring criticism from mere surprise may be uncomfortable, but it also seems a kind of misapprehension that will very quickly sort itself out as the conversation goes on. In contrast to the case above, by the way, 'have you thought about this [other] approach?' does imply that the asker knows better because it very directly and explicitly raises the possibility that the one being asked hasn't even considered alternative implementations.

eweise 3y ago
"Aggressive and critical" I couldn't find the right words initially but a better word might be accusatory. To me, it sounds like they should have but didn't. A lot of other posters don't get that flavor from it and see it as just a genuine curiosity which makes sense.
- pxc 3y ago
  > To me, it sounds like they should have but didn't. A lot of other posters don't get that flavor from it and see it as just a genuine curiosity which makes sense. Imo a lot of the difficulty with things like this comes from high turnover and/or siloing. When you're working with someone who is basically a stranger, that means you've hardly had a chance to build up a real sense of rapport/trust/comfort with that person. So it's easier to doubt yourself and harder to know what the other person really intends. Most differences in communication style or preferences about how to approach criticism are at least somewhat easier to deal with between people who know each other and understand what their particular differences are.

dahwolf 3y ago

It's not aggressive and being critical of work deliverables is the very point of quality assurance. It doesn't mean you have to be mean about it, but you can just spit it out.

sixstringtheory 3y ago

Weird, I perceive these the opposite of how you do. "Why didn't you do it this way?" I trust that you considered many alternatives. Can you tell me your thoughts about the decision you arrived at? “have you thought about this approach?” You probably couldn’t imagine this possibility, let me do it for you. Checkmate! I can also see how they could each be interpreted in the opposite directions. I’m betting it’s more about the contextual body language and tone they’re delivered with than the words/sentences themselves that matters, which I just don’t see being that different once you look behind them to see the gist of the message. That’s the double edged sword of text-only communication: you can choose to interpret everything charitably, but you can also infer a condescending tone even if it wasn’t intended. Expecting people to wordsmith to your individual taste is just asking for otherwise fine coworkers to be mind readers.

II2II 3y ago
Rather than asking "why didn't you do it this way?" you could ask "why did you choose this approach?", but only do so if you are prepared to acknowledge their reasoning may be valid (and, ideally, you are known for accepting justifiable approaches).

sopooneo 3y ago

I have personally switched my default communication style to the "have you thought about this approach?" style because I found it worked better with most people. Still, for me, I dislike it. Coming from a lot of people, I find it not what they really mean, which puts me on edge.