3 ms·

> …and when someone asks for your permission (probably because you’re in the person’s management chain), one response could be: “you don’t need my permission, i

> …and when someone asks for your permission (probably because you’re in the person’s management chain), one response could be: “you don’t need my permission, if you think it is a good idea after getting input, go for it. If it turns out to be a bad idea, share your learnings so we don’t repeat the same mistake.” That's all fine and dandy, but once you decide to weasel out of giving your input once asked then you lose your right to feign ignorance and surprise about hypothetical "mistakes" because you too failed to spot them, let alone address them. You had your chance to avoid a mistake when the mistake could be avoided. That was why your input was requested. If the mistake was still made it was because either you were not able or were not willing to spot them, so you have no right to point fingers at anyone but yourself. If there's anything ruining teams, it's the sociopaths that try to get ahead by setting up their team members for failure and backstabbing them while feigning ignorance.

diatone 2y ago
Be careful not to burn bridges so quickly. This isn’t particularly helpful advice in domains where unknown unknowns really do appear. Not everything can be surfaced at design time. Having said that, design time is the perfect time to align on rules of engagement for surfacing and managing unknown unknowns. It’s also possible that it occurs in genuine miscommunications. It happened to me two weeks ago when my team lead had a different interpretation to a doc I wrote than what I intended. Shit happens. There are mechanisms a team can put in place to mitigate these eg: forcing user stories to be clearly enumerated and matched to parts of the design; third party review; definitions and glossaries; office hours for document review. But it does happen. If this hypothetical scenario comes up with genuinely avoidable issues, is not due to miscommunication, then this seems like a culture problem. If a person’s approval was explicitly requested, given, and rescinded for political or personal reasons, yes that’s when management needs to step in and navigate the team out of those fucked up dynamics.
- chipdart 2y ago
  > Be careful not to burn bridges so quickly. I don't think your comment makes sense. You're talking about a scenario where, when you ask someone to review your design, their feedback is literally "all good, looks fine to me",but when you present your design to management or you roll out your design them that same person suddenly changes their tune and has all kinds of epiphanies on design mistakes that they wouldn't have made if it's up for them. Are you really doing the bridge-burning if you call them out for throwing you under the bus?
  - diatone 2y ago
    I’ve certainly had off days reviewing someone’s work and only realised certain feedback later. If I happened to surface that in a meeting with others, and got labeled a sociopath for it, I’d be concerned for sure. I can’t speak to your personal situation or experience, but it’s important to caution against labelling people sociopaths because there are many variations of this scenario where that’s simply not the case. It can and will damage relationships.
    - chipdart 2y ago
      > I’ve certainly had off days reviewing someone’s work and only realised certain feedback later. It's one thing to get back to the review and say "hey I just noticed something I didn't noticed earlier, and I feel it's important to address." It's another thing entirely to afterwards accuse the designer of oversight and proceed to claim that the oversight is so glaringly obvious and that you would never have missed it if you were tasked with the design. As if you didn't missed it yourself when you were prompted to give your feedback.
    - FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
      It depends a little what the larger culture is at the company and what the stakes are. If this is a collegial environment where people are unlikely to get fired, then a "late epiphany" is unlikely to be strategic behavior. It might be unselfaware ego, sure, but it probably isn't a person setting out to screw you. If this is an environment with internal competition and stack-ranking -- if this is Amazon, where "leaders are right", and you lose the ability to be seen as a "leader" if you ever acknowledge a mistake -- then absolutely you might see this as a nasty strategic behavior. Compared to many other industries, Silicon Valley has more-competitive people, higher stakes, and shorter tenures. You are more likely to see this there, I think. And people who have only ever seen that environment will probably be more on the lookout for it. Hence the attention it gets in this thread on HN.
  - firesteelrain 2y ago
    I actually don’t have a problem with this because just because it looked good conceptually, doesn’t me it is going to look good before going live. There is a stark difference. It’s not that the people are being malicious or lazy. Everyone sees and thinks differently. This could be avoiding a disaster.

diatone 2y ago

Be careful not to burn bridges so quickly. This isn’t particularly helpful advice in domains where unknown unknowns really do appear. Not everything can be surfaced at design time. Having said that, design time is the perfect time to align on rules of engagement for surfacing and managing unknown unknowns. It’s also possible that it occurs in genuine miscommunications. It happened to me two weeks ago when my team lead had a different interpretation to a doc I wrote than what I intended. Shit happens. There are mechanisms a team can put in place to mitigate these eg: forcing user stories to be clearly enumerated and matched to parts of the design; third party review; definitions and glossaries; office hours for document review. But it does happen. If this hypothetical scenario comes up with genuinely avoidable issues, is not due to miscommunication, then this seems like a culture problem. If a person’s approval was explicitly requested, given, and rescinded for political or personal reasons, yes that’s when management needs to step in and navigate the team out of those fucked up dynamics.

chipdart 2y ago
> Be careful not to burn bridges so quickly. I don't think your comment makes sense. You're talking about a scenario where, when you ask someone to review your design, their feedback is literally "all good, looks fine to me",but when you present your design to management or you roll out your design them that same person suddenly changes their tune and has all kinds of epiphanies on design mistakes that they wouldn't have made if it's up for them. Are you really doing the bridge-burning if you call them out for throwing you under the bus?
- diatone 2y ago
  I’ve certainly had off days reviewing someone’s work and only realised certain feedback later. If I happened to surface that in a meeting with others, and got labeled a sociopath for it, I’d be concerned for sure. I can’t speak to your personal situation or experience, but it’s important to caution against labelling people sociopaths because there are many variations of this scenario where that’s simply not the case. It can and will damage relationships.
  - chipdart 2y ago
    > I’ve certainly had off days reviewing someone’s work and only realised certain feedback later. It's one thing to get back to the review and say "hey I just noticed something I didn't noticed earlier, and I feel it's important to address." It's another thing entirely to afterwards accuse the designer of oversight and proceed to claim that the oversight is so glaringly obvious and that you would never have missed it if you were tasked with the design. As if you didn't missed it yourself when you were prompted to give your feedback.
  - FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
    It depends a little what the larger culture is at the company and what the stakes are. If this is a collegial environment where people are unlikely to get fired, then a "late epiphany" is unlikely to be strategic behavior. It might be unselfaware ego, sure, but it probably isn't a person setting out to screw you. If this is an environment with internal competition and stack-ranking -- if this is Amazon, where "leaders are right", and you lose the ability to be seen as a "leader" if you ever acknowledge a mistake -- then absolutely you might see this as a nasty strategic behavior. Compared to many other industries, Silicon Valley has more-competitive people, higher stakes, and shorter tenures. You are more likely to see this there, I think. And people who have only ever seen that environment will probably be more on the lookout for it. Hence the attention it gets in this thread on HN.
- firesteelrain 2y ago
  I actually don’t have a problem with this because just because it looked good conceptually, doesn’t me it is going to look good before going live. There is a stark difference. It’s not that the people are being malicious or lazy. Everyone sees and thinks differently. This could be avoiding a disaster.