9 ms·
How we communicate
- joshka 3y agoPutting a footer like that at the bottom of text makes it more difficult to read. Ironic given that the topic is communication...
- geraldwhen 3y agoMost of the company can barely type. Many don’t speak fluent English. They will not able to write to communicate. This may work with a well functioning team and organization where everyone has basic literacy skills, but I suspect every big co is similar.
- tjpnz 3y agoSpeaking English poorly doesn't imply writing will be as poor. I work in Japan and have colleagues who I'll struggle to communicate with verbally, yet I don't have the same issue over text.
- soneca 3y agoAgree. I communicate much better writing English than speaking English. I have time to think and I use Grammarly which helps a lot. I may make the same grammar and orthography mistakes, but at least there is not an additional pronunciation challenge. But I do consider myself fluent in English (even if far from perfect). I don’t know if that would still be true to someone not fluent in English
- zahllos 3y agoI've gone the other way in my life (native English speaker learning several other languages. I speak one fluently, and two others at a basic level. I live in continental Europe and the country I'm in has 3 official and 4 national languages). One of my language teachers said babies learn listening first, then speaking, then reading and finally writing, whereas adults it is the other way around: adults find it easiest to deal with writing because they control the context and it is in their own time, then reading because although there might be unexpected constructions, it is again in their own time. Then speaking for the same reason as writing, except timing is more real time, and finally listening is the hardest challenge, because it requires real time understanding of the context. So I agree that I would expect written communication to be easier to deal with for many non natives of any language.
- makeitdouble 3y agoIt feels like you'll have to play the communication game in hard mode either way, I don't see any guide that will help you short of "spare a lot of time, make efforts and try to find ways that are somewhat efficient". In my experience written communication worked a lot better when people were not at ease with the subject or the language, as you could do it asynchronously and they could edit themselves easily. Meetings had an incredible amount of back and forth with ton of whiteboarding and people only reacting after we'd come to a conclusion that we rewrite in plain words. It's still a pain to do that in written form, but each side isn't stuck in meetings for 5 hours at least.
- geraldwhen 3y agoWhen I say can’t type, I mean it. Think <10 words per minute. This will exclude most people from any meaningful interactions.
- makeitdouble 3y agoDumb question perhaps, but does dictation work for you ? Otherwise, yes, in that case there's just no way around voice communication.
- geraldwhen 3y agoDictation has to be corrected and requires knowledge of how to use a computer. I’m telling you that most of the employees at BigCo have the technical prowess of proverbial grandparents. The fact that they can open zoom and outlook at all is a small miracle.
- denton-scratch 3y ago> Most of the company can barely type. Many don’t speak fluent English. They will not able to write to communicate. If they can't speak fluent English, then long-form messages are beside the point; they're beyond the reach of either Slack or face-to-face meetings. I've never worked for a firm in which a significant part of the staff were functionally illiterate, I'm glad to say. > I suspect every big co is similar That doesn't gel with my experince.
- nmat 3y agoFace to face communication is very underrated nowadays, probably because of the negative connotations associated with meetings. Talking to someone is by far the fastest way to convey information. I often prefer a quick chat than spending 30 minutes writing Slack messages back and forth. I agree that writing has other benefits and it's better in certain cases but we need to get out of the mindset that writing/async is always better.
- johnchristopher 3y ago> Face to face communication is very underrated nowadays, probably because of the negative connotations associated with meetings. Talking to someone is by far the fastest way to convey information. Really depends on how the conversation is handled/going. I recently had a feedback from two people having a face to face meeting. One week later they followed up and they found out they completely misunderstood what they had said to each other.
- nomdep 3y agoHappens every time, that is way we write the "As per our meeting, we've decided that..." emails. Even with those, people still end with different interpetations
- makeitdouble 3y agoThe pacing part can be an issue. In particular when face to face people will want to look smarter, and let things slide even if they don't completely understand them, to preserve the flow. It's only afterwards that it comes back to bite both sides.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoDefault to async, hire people reasonable enough to request upgrading to synchronous communications when needed (cover ground faster or clear up miscommunications) but used judiciously. (~10 years remote)
- smeej 3y agoThe problem is that anyone who later needs to know what was in the meeting, even the two original participants, has no access to it. On the whole, more time is lost by people not being able to refer to what was actually said later than is saved by having it quickly and synchronously. You're making more work for yourself and everybody else in the long run.
- vladstudio 3y agoHmm, here's another link with same content, but different design: https://basecamp.com/guides/how-we-communicate https://basecamp.com/guides/how-we-communicate
- maniflames 3y agoProbably because basecamp is a product by 37Signals
- martin-adams 3y agoThank you. While I like the nice gradients on the original post, I tend to use the top of my screen as a reading line.
- jotaen 3y agoI’m not sure I find this document to be a good example of careful and effective communication. Quite a few of those bullet points seem repetitive, and it feels more like someone flushed out their thoughts somewhat randomly, rather than trying to bring them into a clear and concise structure. I would personally prefer the main take-aways to be condensed into fewer points, each with some additional text for context and nuance. For a guide, I think I’d find that easier to grasp and memoize.
- dustedcodes 3y agoAgreed, it's even more irritating that the very first bullet point is grammatically wrong as well, further highlighting how poorly this whole "guide" has been communicated itself: > You can not not communicate. It's "cannot not".
- jiriro 3y agoYou are wrong of course. “Both cannot and can not are perfectly fine, but cannot is far more common” [1] [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/cannot-vs-can-not-is-there-a-difference https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/cannot-vs-can-not-is...
- dustedcodes 3y agoI’ll stand corrected. I’m not a native English speaker and when I saw “can not” it immediately reminded me of my school teacher in Europe who was very particular about these things and teaching us as wrong. Even as I typed my response now my iPhone tries to autocorrect it to cannot, so I genuinely thought it was wrong. TIL I guess.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mdekkers 3y agoIt all boils down to “we don’t like talking” and im sure it’s a great place to work for some folks, but to me it sounds exhausting.
- didntcheck 3y agoOverall good, but > The expectation of immediate response is toxic. Flippantly referring to things as "toxic" is pretty "toxic" IMO. It can easily be interpreted as quite a personal attack rather than a criticism of a temporary action (see point 8)
- Kwpolska 3y agoWriting 30 bullet points on how to communicate sounds like you suck at communicating. Making every employee publicly confess how much they got done today sounds like a very toxic and nannying work environment.
- space_oddity 3y agoYes, you're correct. I'd personaly feel anxious and fearful about publicly sharing productivity levels
- phtrivier 3y ago> Time is on your side. This one sounds profound, and in practice feels completely wrong. Rushed conversations happen because of tight deadline. Find me a way to get rid of the deadline, and the communication will grow smoother.
- blinding-streak 3y agoDHH and this crew loves writing books and treatise about how special they do things there. Very high on their own supply. Meanwhile their number of employees is counted in the low dozens, where communication is typically pretty easy for a company. Yet they got that spectacularly wrong also: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-political-speech-policy-controversy https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-politic...
- vwampage 3y agoThis was such a feral trashfire to watch from nearby.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoDHH recently complained that tech workers don’t have the same work ethic as garbage men, I’m not sure why people listen to him anymore.
- jdlshore 3y agoAre you saying that he was wrong, and tech workers do have the same work ethic as garbage men, or are you saying that the comparison was inappropriate? Basically, what was so egregious about the complaint that people shouldn’t listen to him? I didn’t see it, so maybe there’s some context I’m missing.
- micromacrofoot 3y agohe’s just another outrageously out of touch rich guy his hobby is driving supercars and he was praising garbage men on his blog because they can’t take time off for their mental health
- vwampage 3y agoIn 2021 Basecamp (same company) communicated a new policy on internal communication by posting a public blog post. In the following weeks 1/3 of their employees left as a direct result of this. I lived in Chicago at the time and other companies scooped those jumping ship up really quick. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/4/22419512/basecamp-political-speech-policy-fallout https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/4/22419512/basecamp-politica...
- cj 3y agoThis seems irrational. 1/3 of the company actually quit because they were discouraged from talking about biden/trump/jan 6/etc on slack? If that were happening I could see why a ban would be beneficial. That sh*t's distracting and there's never a winning side to the argument. I mean it's supposed to be a company, not a political cult. Edit: After more reading, sounds like the policy was sparked by an employee reviving threads about Basecamp's diversity, inclusion, etc.
- Scubabear68 3y agoIn my opinion, this was written by someone who is a poor verbal communicator, and who would likely fare very poorly in any political situation. Casual verbal communication is often the lubrication that keeps organizations working well.
- truculent 3y ago> who would likely fare very poorly in any political situation I think you’re probably right, but I think the point of these guidelines is, in part, to reduce or eliminate the need for political nous. This is, in my opinion, important for building a meritocratic environment; you want people who are good at adding value to be rewarded, not those good at office politics.
- csmeyer 3y agoThat was a lot of bullet points, but doing more communication asynchronously is good. I have a small company so it’s obviously easy mode, but we got rid of slack and it’s been great. Basecamp isn’t necessary though, Github discussions is a very decent answer for forums and discussions. It feels like things that go on in discussions are much more permanent and searchable, and can be tied to tickets, etc
- ryan-duve 3y agoI am curious how getting rid of Slack at a small company plays out in practice. Do people now just text each other on their personal phones? Or do they send emails to each other many times a day? How does someone ask "Hey, are you still coming to this meeting?"
- raydev 3y ago> doing more communication asynchronously is good > [...] > we got rid of slack Seems like the opposite of what you wanted? There's nothing more realtime about Slack than email, and it offers a better interface.
- oldgradstudent 3y agoSounds good, I'll add it to my ChatGPT prompt.
- mattbee 3y agoHilarious title - 37signals is surely now associated with the opposite of expertise in this area? It'd be like taking advice from "Paul von Hinderberg's Guide To Safe Passenger Aviation" or "Gerald Ratner's Surefire Tips For Sales Success!" [for context - https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-political-speech-policy-controversy https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-politic...]
- _heimdall 3y agoTo be fair, people can indeed learn lessons from bad decisions. When you do, sharing them with others is a great way to help others avoid making the same mistakes. A few of the bullets in this blog post absolutely had to come from lessons of the early 2021 controversies. Picking the right venue to share communication, for example.
- Sammi 3y ago37 Signals communicate way better now than they did in 2021. There were obviously lessons learned. They were driven by idealism before 2021. That's what got them in the mess they got in. They let people talk politics in work channels. This led to division. Then they went very public with their new policy of no politics at work. Both were unnecessary blunders that came from idealism - A belief in open communication for all at all times. They don't do that any more. Their messaging is much more focused now.
- mejutoco 3y agoI felt like this reading Never split the difference when the author mentions in one of the first cases that the hostages died (and he was the negotiator).
- itronitron 3y agoThe first one really confuses me. You can not not communicate. Not discussing the elephant in the room is communicating. Few things are as important to study, practice, and perfect as clear communication. I wonder if a meaningful gaze or avoiding eye contact would be better when not discussing the elephant.
- ricardobeat 3y agoI might have missed the joke here, but the meaning of “you can not not communicate” is pretty clear. Silence has meaning, as does indifference. The point being that communication is something you should do consciously, practice and improve on.
- Sammi 3y agoYes. They're saying you communicate whether you want to or not. So you should do it intentionally and well, because you are going to do it.
- itronitron 3y agoOh good point, I read it as a rule stipulating that employees are required to communicate.
- space_oddity 3y agoSilence is also the answer
- gabrieledarrigo 3y ago> Automatic occasionally: “Social questions” Bah. I wouldn't say I like this approach, since it's based on the assumption (wrong in my opinion) that using a tool or a set of rules to enforce social communication, will solve the socialization problem. Do you want to talk about a book? Talk about it. Would you like to know your new remote colleague? Book a call with her. And so on, on a list of examples that I'd like to sum up in this sentence: if you want to socialize, just socialize, since no tool can do that for you. ---- Then, I'm quite in line with this comment from @nmat > Face-to-face communication is very underrated nowadays, probably because of the negative connotations associated with meetings. Talking to someone is by far the fastest way to convey information. I often prefer a quick chat to spend 30 minutes writing Slack messages back and forth. I agree that writing has other benefits and it's better in certain cases but we need to get out of the mindset that writing/async is always better. A direct, face-to-face conversation is usually way faster than a ping-pong chat on Slack or, worse, especially for day-to-day activities. On the same line of thinking, instead of long, useless meetings, or writing pedantic, bureaucratic, asynchronous long forms (like the 30 bullet points of the article), I'm a big proponent of pair/mob activities within small teams: Use a visual collaboration tool, a shared document, or a code editor, and write together! Utilize a timer and change the driver often. Keep people focused and work together. I've never seen teams be as efficient and fast as the ones adopting this approach. Finally, the principle that I like most of the Agile Manifesto, the most important one to me: > Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- truculent 3y ago> A direct, face-to-face conversation is usually way faster than a ping-pong chat on Slack or, worse You have both missed the point; you shouldn’t be having ping-pong chats in any medium. If you have some thoughts, write them up properly.
- skydhash 3y agoThere's no better feeling than opening some docs and seeing the revision process in the comments, or displaying a task and see the long history of comments of what people have tried or found while searching for a solution. More often than not, you don't need to ask further clarifications. I'm a big supporter of task/project/design logs. Kinda like a lab notebook. I put interesting links, thoughts, updates on mines.
- bromuk 3y agoLove the idea of daily “what have you done today”. I did this in a few of my previous roles, and it kept the team accountable for their work. We don’t do it in my current job and it means; weeks or months of someone being on the same task.
- skydhash 3y ago> We don’t do it in my current job and it means; weeks or months of someone being on the same task. While I agree that people can be irresponsible, I'd say this reveals more about the manager than the IC. The manager is responsible for tracking everyone's workload and with a project management software, you can get a quick overview without daily status update. Some tasks can take days of research and it gets annoying quickly to recapitulate what you've been doing, especially if you've done so already elsewhere. And some days, you're less productive than usual, but that may be the calm period needed to get a solution.
- mrichman 3y agoWTF does #20 mean? "Occasionally pick random words, sentences, or paragraphs and hit delete. Did it matter?" JF and DHH are among the biggest narcissists I've ever met.
- skydhash 3y agoIt just an editing action, but proposed without nuance. Books I've read on communication and writing emphasized simplicity and clarity. I use iA Writer and there is an option to mark filler words, so you can check if you really need them in the sentence. I wouldn't do it randomly, but you can express your points in fewer lines. Sometimes I write entire paragraphs on HN and don't post it afterwards, because after rereading, I find it adds little to the conversation and was more an emotional response.
- kamiro 3y agoIt would be great if they focused on more of a complete picture. Meetings, email, instant messages are all tools in the communication toolbox. Each one has their use. This policy minimizes or even forgets the human part of communication... * How do I build trust in my coworkers if the only feedback I get is formal communication and never the nuance of them as people? * Are a barrage of async essays better than fewer but efficient meetings where everyone takes away value? * What about the flood of async communication that employees now have to sift through to find the vital parts of their jobs? We need to remember that fundamentally that we are people and have social drives that guide our lives and work. Strategies should acknowledge and embrace this. PS. That "automated" social message sounds forced and robotic. I would love to be a fly on the wall and see the actual results from this form of social greasing after 6 months.
- ricardobeat 3y ago> the flood of async communication Their main communication tool is Basecamp, which is also the software they sell specifically to manage projects and the “flood of async communication”. I don’t know what their internal messages look like, but I imagine it sits somewhere in between e-mail and IM, same level of formality as a github issue. I also believe “fewer and efficient meetings” is a mirage, and meetings, even in-person ones, do very little to build trust or satisfy that need for social interaction. That happens in other ways. Here’s an interview where they talk specifically about the importance of social meetups: https://37signals.com/podcast/company-meet-up-amsterdam-edition/ https://37signals.com/podcast/company-meet-up-amsterdam-edit...
- stephc_int13 3y agoThe key to remote is asynchronous, centralized and persistent long-form writings. I fully agree with that, but I also understand this communication style won't work for everyone, some people are bad at writing or just more confident when talking, I think those are not a good fit for remote-first companies.
- throwaway22032 3y agoIt's like an SV version of "values of the company" powerpoints dreamed up by management consultants, with the slogans, "Integrity" in a circle, etc. All seems a bit cult-leader ish to me. Does anyone actually take this stuff seriously?
- andsoitis 3y agoSome good items in there but I disagree 100% with Guideline 25: > Write at the right time. Sharing something at 5pm may keep someone at work longer. You may have some spare time on a Sunday afternoon to write something, but putting it out there on Sunday may pull people back into work on the weekends. Early Monday morning communication may be buried by other things. There may not be a perfect time, but there’s certainly a wrong time. Keep that in mind when you hit send. Guideline 15 states: > Communication shouldn’t require schedule synchronization. Calendars have nothing to do with communication. Writing, rather than speaking or meeting, is independent of schedule and far more direct. Guideline 9 states: >"Never expect or require someone to get back to you immediately unless it’s a true emergency. The expectation of immediate response is toxic." When you embrace asynchronous communication and you expect people to manage their own time, you should be empowered to send a note at any time because recipients should have the maturity to manage when they read. If something is truly urgent, the sender will find a way to reach you (e.g. phone), but those cases are very rare indeed so not worth having a process for.
- margalabargala 3y agoI think this depends on the relationship between sender and recipient. If they are peers, then yes, send whenever. If the sender is in a hierarchy above the recipient, then the mere fact that they are communicating with them inherently includes that hierarchy and places pressure upon the recipient. You can trust the recipient to be mature and manage when they read, as much as they can trust you to be mature and not fire them for failing to reply.
- andsoitis 3y agoThat's a good example where power dynamics can infuse expectations. What I have found is that power dynamics also come from other dimensions that are not encoded in official company hierarchy but more about social hierarchy. They can also be implicit amongst peers, such as someone with more tenure than someone with less. Or personal traits such as being outgoing vs. more shy. I'm sure there are many that are informed through one's culture, background, etc. If you have a geographically distributed company, then picking the "perfect time" can get very awkward. Maybe the solution out of this is that they can collapse the set of guidelines into fewer principles that are centered around themes, such as: "audience", "clarity", "modes", etc. and focusing on desirable outcomes, rather than prescriptive implementation details.
- g4zj 3y ago> Every workday at 16:30, Basecamp (the product) automatically asks every employee “What did you work on today?” Whatever people write up is shared with everyone in the company. Those who need to know what I've been working on will have access to the project management tools where my progress is official reported. I won't report it twice, and I absolutely will not report it in a broadcast to the entire company.
- SebFender 3y agoThe work place has gradually become a scene where many discussions are happening, and it much ain't about work... as some have said in the comments, it's very hard to address this changing the hiring process - but it can definitely help support a healthy team dynamic.