11 ms·

Astonishing. Completely backwards. This article describes how to give feedback to your subordinates, not to your superiors. If your superiors are unable to proc

by lijok 2y ago

Astonishing. Completely backwards. This article describes how to give feedback to your subordinates, not to your superiors. If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start polishing your resume. The reason you fluff up feedback to your subordinates is because lower down the chain they tend to be insecure and don't yet have the experience to distinguish between actionable impartial feedback, and threats to their job security. The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations.

freejazz 2y ago
> they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. Be sure to tell them that too!
johnfn 2y ago
The notion that there are only two options: that your superiors should be perfect receptors of all information, no matter how poorly phrased, or that you should begin "polishing your resume", is immature. The world is more complex than this.
codr7 2y ago
Thank God I didn't have to write all of that myself :) Well said!
fny 2y ago
I think you’re ignoring the “without getting fired” part. The implication is that you’re in a situation where management is stubborn or even hostile to feedback. Most organizations don’t practice “highly effective communication”. It’s often a nightmare riddled with politics and ego.
- Rygian 2y ago
  > I think you’re ignoring the “without getting fired” part. The "start polishing your resume" bit was quite explicit.
  - fny 2y ago
    I'd argue 99% percent of companies operate like this. No one likes blunt feedback--even in friendships and marriage. Good luck if you throw money and ego into the mix.
  - harimau777 2y ago
    Unless you are the .1% of developer (and probably with a heaping helping of luck) you aren't going to end up working someplace that isn't terminally dysfunctional no matter how much you polish your resume.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      Besides, who wants to work with someone that’s only worked in these terminally dysfunctional workplaces. There must be something wrong with them.
    - rqmedes 2y ago
      Being in the top 0.001% of developers won’t help if you don’t have a large network or good brand
- Muromec 2y ago
  I would say ego problem comes with a title.
tyrust 2y ago
The advice isn't backwards, but some senior leaders are in the sense that they don't take feedback well. In this case, this advice is sound. Sure, in an ideal world you wouldn't have to fluff it, but I'm guessing many of us aren't in that world.
wjnc 2y ago
This. I had to get a little used to not fluffing around my feedback. One of our managers just asked me to give it to him straight, directly and 1-on-1 and we’d get along fine. So we did. I still am having trouble with how little, what I see as fact based, feedback is needed before the average person has had enough. Example: I like to point out shitty work processes (one needs a hobby). Anything with a few loops and some rework goes for me to start my first time right story. People take offense. No stop, you are not the process. You didn’t design it, you merely took part because we asked you to. Now stop and consider whether you think it is shitty and if so, what can we do? Can you do it? Do you need help? When? Organizationally, it’s a good riff. For me, it’s strange to do and see it help. It feels like delivering snake oil. (I rationalize this as delivering Lean in thirty minutes.) My communication plan is facts >> options >> opinions >> advice. This way I help people mentally separate “what is” from whatever opinion I’m holding. This works for both verbal and written communication. It’s a coping strategy for being outlier direct.
- throwaway346434 2y ago
  I would give up a huge amount of my paycheck for a manager who heard me bitch and whinge about every little flaw; told me I'd made them too angry to continue the conversation but we should pick it up in ~48 hours with a mutually agreeable plan coming back with stats and analysis for where my opinion was simply wrong; vs where it was right.
danjl 2y ago
It would be wonderful if the world could accept blunt feedback. It is certainly easier to give and more in-line with what most technical people would prefer. However, we work with humans, and we have learned an awful lot about how humans respond to language, especially criticism. The advice here applies to giving feedback to any human, not just superiors. As you spend time working with humans, you learn, perhaps slowly that what you might consider "fluff" is really about helping make your point. Being direct doesn't always, or even usually, work as well.
- tremon 2y ago
  It's also learned behaviour. Generally speaking, American corporate culture does cherish its pussyfooting around difficult subjects, as do most Asian cultures (I gather, no personal experience there). European and South-American cultures are somewhere on the opposite end of that spectrum IME.
- nithril 2y ago
  Definitively agree. Being blunt, too direct is just the opposite of a good and effective communication.
  - lucgray 2y ago
    Being too blunt raises defenses and completely wipes out the effectiveness of your feedback. Folks that are invested in outcomes make choices for good reason, and they've probably got a track record to back it up. You have to meet them where they are, and considering their communication styles and how they make decisions will improve the chances you're actually heard. It's a fact of life that people shut down when approached with evidence that refutes their world view or choices. It doesn't matter if it's your boss or grandparents.
    - nvarsj 2y ago
      > It's a fact of life that people shut down when approached with evidence that refutes their world view or choices. I don't really agree with you. This is a basic quality of skilled leadership. You want people refuting your worldview with evidence! It lets you correct course and make things better. Only insecure people shut down like this in my experience.
cle 2y ago
> If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. You're assuming that the subordinate's feedback is sufficiently important to the business. It might not be. It might also not be important to the business if subordinates leave b/c their feedback is disregarded. I can imagine plenty of scenarios where a leader could still succeed while not giving a crap about subordinate feedback. It depends on the goals and the dynamics of the business, the leader's experience, market conditions, labor environments, etc. > The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations. You can argue in your exit interview that you were just following handbooks.
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  It’s even more important to give it bluntly if the feedback is irrelevant. That way you’ve wasted less time. Me: “we aren’t giving enough guidance to new hires” Leader: “it’s not a priority for us since we are freezing hiring” Perfectly good interaction, where you didn’t waste time sneakily phrasing things you think you know better than the leader. And you learned some valuable info about the org priorities as a result.
  - cle 2y ago
    If the feedback is irrelevant, you'll waste the least amount of time by not giving it at all. (I think that's slightly different from your scenario though, where you don't actually know if it's irrelevant.)
    - lazide 2y ago
      And how would you know if it is irrelevant? See prior comment.
      - cle 2y ago
        Depends on the org and how information travels. Knowing tricks like this are the superpowers of people who move up quickly in large orgs and make things happen. You can sometimes do fine without knowing this, and going through the "official" route of the direct feedback loop. If you can figure it out elsewhere though, it'll usually build more trust with your superiors.
drewcoo 2y ago
People get promoted by "managing up," which you call "fluffing."
IshKebab 2y ago
> If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. Maybe, but the title is "without getting fired" not "without being wrong damnit!". Unless you have a significant number of shares in the company you should care about your own employment and success over the success of the whatever function this person has oversight of. > The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations. And that reason is...?
szundi 2y ago
Hard not to be cynical about your response but do you believe most of the superiors out there are on this level that you specify? Would be a joke.
NAHWheatCracker 2y ago
I agree with you that's how it should be, but experience tells me that everyone is insecure and it's hardly correlated with position and job security. People lower down the chain are insecure because they could legitimately be let go at any time for any reason. People higher up the chain are insecure because any loss of face is debilitating. Especially having failings pointed out by someone "below" them.
- hashtag-til 2y ago
  From my experience, you build that non-fluff boundaries in the first one or two meetings with a senior leader. I’d advise against going in the first one throwing punches. Go with actionable feedback and be honest about what it is and what is not something you can solve. From there, if you genuinely care about whatever you’re complaning, you are more likely to be taken seriously.
  - stavros 2y ago
    > I’d advise against going in the first one throwing punches. I’d advise against going in any one throwing punches. Instead, give actionable, honest, factual feedback with the intent to legitimately help the other person.
    - jms703 2y ago
      This is the correct approach.
    - hashtag-til 2y ago
      Fair enough, while I agree, in real project life, this calm, honest, factual feedback isn’t always enough for senior management to prioritise your issue. Sometimes you need to a bit more assertive and blunt so that you become the top of the agenda, that’s what I meant by “throwing punches”. Perhaps it means a much more over the top attitude in your view? (Happy to be corrected here)
      - stavros 2y ago
herval 2y ago
That’s nice in theory. In practice, the likelihood of you working for someone who’s unable to process the truth and will shoot the messenger is very high
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  I don’t know if it’s “very high”. It can happen but on average I think successful people tend to be more reasonable and intelligent than average (not always obviously).
  - lazide 2y ago
    When times are good? You have a chance. When times are bad? Oh boy.
jellicle 2y ago
If you've honestly never seen the types of leaders envisioned in this article you are very lucky indeed. For a large majority of supervisors, if you give them carefully-worded, polite, respectful, private, accurate, truthful, ego-preserving feedback about something they're doing wrong, their response will range between "immediate firing" and "hold a grudge against you, fire you as soon as they can find a replacement". There is nothing that makes people as angry as accurately pointing out their flaws. The way around this is in essence to get the leader to think it was their idea to make a change, which is possible in some cases but not in others.
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  It’s surprising to me that such dysfunctional orgs exist where a single person can just fire someone immediately over some feedback. How have they even grown to be a business with that attitude? But sure, you do need to adapt your strategy for the environment you exist in. That’s just common sense.
  - hibikir 2y ago
    The org has to be small for the firing to be immediate, but I have seen a "top of stack rank to unpassable PIP" be caused by a single conversation... and that's even in companies most of this forum would consider top performing. I would argue that trying to figure out the fragility of your management chain's ego is a key part of a successful career, even if what we are going to do with the news is to choose to change jobs.
dheera 2y ago
> The reason you fluff up feedback to your subordinates is because lower down the chain they tend to be insecure and don't yet have the experience to distinguish between actionable impartial feedback, and threats to their job security. Rather than fluff it up, just make it explicit whichever you are doing. If you actually like their work and are making an actionable suggestion, just say that, and don't forget to praise them for the work that you like. Far too often I see managers only give the suggestion and then it ends up looking like a threat. > The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations. The reason you do fluff feedback to your superiors is that you're on an H1B visa, are at risk of getting deported from the country and having to find a new home for your partner and new school for your kids (possibly in an unfamiliar language and environment for them), just for upsetting one superior. The reality is most people in large companies do not care about "highly effective communication". They are just trying to survive and not get deported. Once we can get rid of this stupid 60 day rule and insane housing and child-raising costs maybe people will start caring about their work. The most basic of Maslow's needs are not being met, hence the fluffing up to the authorities (bosses) who are in control of your livelihood.
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  Well yes, it’s a higher variance approach. If you can’t afford to look for a new job then by all means keep your head down and avoid all controversy. I would do the same in that situation. That doesn’t apply to everyone however, so for those people it would make sense to try to make things better and potentially advance their careers.
- lupire 2y ago
  If most people in your company are on s, your management is probably breaking the laws and is not the sort of person who appreciates honest communication.
seanp2k2 2y ago
At [company that purportedly highly values candor], I’ve seen multiple people get canned by VPs or directors they’ve criticized internally. Granted, these situations were cases where this was communicated either in a larger feedback meeting that was supposed to be a “safe” space for such feedback, or via other communications that were visible to more than just the person being criticized. These criticisms were definitely high up in the PG pyramid and critical of the direction / vision / execution, not of the person themselves. The people who were fired from this were high performers who weren’t otherwise on PIPs or anything like that. Leadership did the typical leadership dance of shifting blame, re-org, and carry on. It was sad and further eroded both trust and morale of others familiar with these situations.
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  I suppose it depends on what type of “criticism” it is. Generally feedback is most valuable when it’s constructive not critical. If you just say “X is bad” that isn’t very useful no matter how you phrase it. I would be surprised if respectful constructive criticism was met with firing but I suppose it does happen. Probably not the best to be working for those people in any case.
- rqmedes 2y ago
  Seen this dance many times
- Simon_ORourke 2y ago
  I've seen this a lot, especially with junior folks getting on their high horse publicly about some direction or decision. Whenever it happens I make a point of putting a reminder in my calendar to check their corp Slack handle after three weeks to see if they're still employed. 9 out of 10 are deactivated when I check back. Hold your tongue, there's no such thing as a safe space in any all hands or group-level meeting.
  - MortyWaves 2y ago
    Sorry you work in such a toxic job
neilv 2y ago
I had much the same reaction. To put it diplomatically, the article's advice is all about diplomacy. Much of their examples are a kind of diplomacy that you might use with a somewhat hostile, stupid, and/or petty person. Not in an environment of trust and respect. Or with an enterprise customer, where "business politeness" is expected, trying to gain advantage is expected, and no one expects you to be very honest. (Exception: In some cultures, it might be outright rude and mutually awkward to ever say anything critical-sounding upwards, or to offend someone by not going through the politeness motions, which would just be disrespectful. The article seems to be coming from some kind of environment or social expectations like that. I'm not talking about that here. I'm talking about, say, a US tech business environment that at least thinks it values speaking up with honest assessments.) Ideally, management welcomes straight talk, and will do the right thing with it. For example, if you've not been given reason to think the person above you is dishonest or unreasonable, and they haven't been given reason to think that about you, but you don't yet know them well, here's an example: "The team is having some serious difficulty. Is now a good time to talk very candidly and constructively about that? ... Two things. First, I think that people are feeling that they don't have a good understanding of what the goals are, and how they're supposed to be prioritizing, on a daily basis. The other thing that seems to be bothering people is that onboarding is rough, and people immediately feel like they're not doing well, and then they aren't getting out of that feeling." Note that this might sound a bit like some of the diplomatic framing of the article, in that it's not accusatory, but that's not what I'm doing. Some examples in the article attribute problems to the manager, and then use diplomacy, for cultural politeness, and/or to circumvent some pettiness they expect. By contrast, in this example, I'm instead respecting the manager as someone who will take the information constructively. I'm also not presuming to attribute blame for the problems, since I don't have all the information about the situation, including not knowing everything the manager has been doing and why.
rdtsc 2y ago
> If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start polishing your resume. Sounds good on paper. Maybe true, oh 5 years ago. In this job market, polishing the resume is nice but you might have to deal with irrational superiors for a little longer. That's what the article is about. > The reason you fluff up feedback to your subordinates is because lower down the chain they tend to be insecure and don't yet have the experience to distinguish between actionable impartial feedback, and threats to their job security. It would all be nice and good if "subordinates" and "superiors" were some completely different, disjoint sets. Yesterday's insecure peers and your subordinates will tomorrow become your superiors. People who can - do, those who can't - manage. Their personalities and other qualities likely wouldn't change in the meantime. In a perfect world, everyone who is promoted to be anyone's superior will go through a strong leadership vetting process and they will take un-fluffed honest feedback from subordinates, without retribution. But I have yet to work for such an organization. Maybe you're luckier...
- lijok 2y ago
  > Sounds good on paper. Maybe true, oh 5 years ago. In this job market, polishing the resume is nice but you might have to deal with irrational superiors for a little longer. That's what the article is about. Wouldn't it be better to just not provide feedback and coast along if you're in this position?
cgio 2y ago
As a senior leader myself, that was my initial reaction. Then, I thought about myself and cohort and I would say, unfortunately, the advice in the article is required. There are challenges in feedback in both directions. E.g.the people who are best at receiving it are the ones who usually don't, either because they are strong in many other things than the feedback domain, or because they seem so self confident that people are intimidated. On the other hand, people who are not good at receiving feedback are also the ones who would be vindictive and their reactions may poison feedback as a practice. And also people may switch from one category to the other transiently, because of other pressures etc. In summary, in my own practice, while I am opinionated, I have never given negative feedback either to managers or subordinates. Not that they were all perfect, but I found it is usually up to me to work with the people and their strengths and weaknesses and by focusing on strengths I have not corrected any weakness, but have often made them irrelevant to me. Some may say this is a weakness for a leader, and I would agree but still focus on my other strengths. Edit: an additional consideration as I am digesting my response. People are more open to discussing how to improve a process or a system rather than a person or even more so themselves. Feedback is sometimes personal, that's why things like post mortems, process reviews etc. can work miracles when we manage to keep them about the process or framework rather than the people who are assigned to them. An additional slightly cynical point on feedback received as a subordinate (no matter how high up you most probably report to someone unless you are at the top). If someone gives you feedback about what you should do to get promoted/a raise etc , you are 90% not going to get those even if you heed to the feedback. These things happen for things you do, and the broader perception of yourself not on the basis of a checklist, and if they use a checklist against you, they don't really care about You. If someone mentors you, you will get it. Learn to read the difference between the two.
- zabzonk 2y ago
  Well, "senior leader", if this is the kind of incomprehensible stuff you routinely come up with, I'm amazed your teams produce anything.
  - ctxc 2y ago
    Formatting/phrasing could be improved, but incomprehensible? I don't think so.
swisniewski 2y ago
I think you may be making assumption: that the feedback you are trying to give is clear, articulate, and constructive. When speaking to someone significantly more senior than you it’s entire possible that your feedback may not be. And that is really the point of the post. Here is advice on how to make sure your point is clear, articulate, and constructive. As someone becomes more senior 2 things happen: 1. They acquire more authority 2. They have more demands on their time. In these situations, you need to work to make sure you are communicating what you intended to communicate. That requires effort. I wouldn’t view this advice as “how to deal with fragile egos”, but instead would view it as “how to make sure you are not misunderstood when having critical conversations with high stakes”. In that regard it is good advice.
Aeolun 2y ago
I think not raising anyones hackles with your feedback applies pretty universally. It’s too much to expect senior leaders to not be human.
haliskerbas 2y ago
25% of my manager and above in big tech have acted in the ideal way you describe, and the rest have been back stabbing, childish, two faced, toxic, and many other negative traits, making any open honest or direct communication impossible
- disgruntledphd2 2y ago
  Honestly, if you've had decent management 25% of the time, you're doing much better than the rest of us. Management is hard, because it makes significant emotional demands on us, and a lot of people deal with the combination of power and emotions badly.
runeblaze 2y ago
My limited corporate experience is that you fluff feedback to the less effective leaders so that you can still influence them. The more effective leaders you talk to them directly and team up with them to accomplish great things together. It is a matter of different strategies.
- kijin 2y ago
  Less effective leaders are like GPT. You need to be both careful and creative with your prompt in order to get them to produce the result you want. :)
majormajor 2y ago
I'm not a fan of a lot of the examples here for feedback up or down. > “We may need to give even more guidance to new hires.” Up or down, "we may" and "even more" are weasel words that weaken what you're saying. It's trivial for someone to interpret that as "they think maybe we could do more, but they seem to also see that we do a good amount already." > “I used to struggle with this, and when I tried X, it really helped.” This one I think is good for managing down; bad for managing up. It's less weasel-y but it risks coming off very aggressive - "I already figured this out, what is wrong with you?" > “The team made amazing progress when we all focused on the website update last month. It might help to have one or two clear priorities for the team this month that everyone can rally behind.” You have a great example, "it might help" is again weakening your POV compared to something more like a direct "what are the top priorities this month that we can all rally around?" > “When we were able to dedicate that first week to training Steve, he got up to speed pretty quickly. The bit of upfront time seemed to have paid off, and taking a similar training approach for our next hire could help them ramp up just as fast. What do you think?” Here we've taken a lot of words to state the obvious, which IMO both runs the risk of losing the urgency in the verbosity and coming off as pandering and over-explaining the obvious. I think "what are your thoughts on" and "one approach might be" are better in both up-and-down directions as long as associated with a clear specific "here is something I noticed that I think is sub-optimal" situation.
awanderingmind 2y ago
I agree strongly - if I worked at an organisation where the linked article was the 'necessary' way of communicating I would look for a job at a less dysfunctional company. The context of the article seems to be a workplace with a sense of hierarchy that is inimical to honesty if it threatens insecure managers' egos or social standing.
Simon_ORourke 2y ago
> If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start polishing your resume. Never a truer word said than this. It's incredibly naive to think that any unfiltered feedback upwards to senior management will be welcomed. In reality, no matter how accurate the feedback may be it will be regarded at best as useless, and at worst as a direct threat to leadership requiring a response. This response may come in the form of a re-org, team move or headcount reduction. While totally disingenuous, your best strategy is to simply tow the corporate line while looking for a new job.
The_Colonel 2y ago
> If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start polishing your resume. Yeah, I'm not going to change a job just because one of my superiors is insecure (and the other things are good). This all-or-nothing mentality is just thought-stopping.
- lijok 2y ago
  > Yeah, I'm not going to change a job just because one of my superiors is insecure You likely are, willingly or not.
mewpmewp2 2y ago
> start polishing your resume What if you have reached the optimal level of income, and the work itself you like? Anywhere else would be a cut in either one of those 2.
- spoiler 2y ago
  I guess distance yourself emotionally from your job, but continue looking and be picky about your next role. I'm in a similar boat, but my engineering manager wants to get rid of them, so I'm being dragged into office politics now. Other than a few rotten apples, the company is great. So, I'm also somewhat reluctantly looking for a new role.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
roenxi 2y ago
There is some important piece of context there though - if leaders aren't capable of the emotional intelligence to process blunt feedback, they are bad leaders and there is no hope of change. Learning to recognise them and just leave them alone is one of those valuable life skills that most employees learn sooner or later. Some people are just not going to take feedback and if they end up in management that is that; there is nothing to do but enjoy the show as best you can. In that situation fluffing the feedback will do nothing. It might take years of effort to get marginal improvements and it is more productive to focus on something that is ... well ... more productive.
- joz1-k 2y ago
  There is a lot of truth in this, but especially when developers are semi-randomly promoted into leadership roles, they should be given enough time (and mentorship) to learn from their own mistakes. Some will learn very quickly (those with enough emotional intelligence), and some will learn nothing no matter how much time you give them. Being a good manager with formidable leadership skills is something you can only get through experience.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  > there is no hope of change. There is an off chance that management (I'm not using the word leadership here deliberately) is taking leadership coaching, that the coaching is good, and that the coach will actually intervene and bring about change. Small likelihood of course, but not zero.
lr4444lr 2y ago
You are not entirely wrong, but I think you're underestimating the value of respecting human emotion. If people are leaving the team or it is missing deadlines, angering customers, making more work for other teams etc., your manager doesn't need your blunt feedback about performance and sustainability.
scotty79 2y ago
This article gives a good advice how to give feedback to anyone without souring relationship. Everyone can be insecure and if your superior happens to feel insecure about you that day the damage can be severe.
atoav 2y ago
You must be very lucky. The majority of places where I worked was headed by people with fragile egos that you had to slowly guide to the right conclusion without the presence of an audience. If you told them something that could be interpreted as a criticism of a decision in front of others they would in principle not accept it and play to the audience. If you just told them a fact thst they disliked they would argue against it, I had a superior argue against fundamental laws of physics bscause he disliked the conclusion that followed from that lae being true. Luckily I am a very diplomatic person and have no issues with that — but apparently things within organizations aren't as they should be.
Arech 2y ago
Exactly this. Somewhat an issue here though, that this is essentially a matter of a person's culture. What you've said is most likely true for WEIRD (acronym) people, but for other cultures where retailiation is quite possible, one either have to dance that silly dances, or indeed polish their CV.
whateveracct 2y ago
> If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and yet here we are...
est 2y ago
Good lord the comments section surely blew up. Can we just give this "fluff-up feedback" job to LLM already?
0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
>The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations. This is the key assertion underlying your comment, yet you just wave it off by referring to unnamed "[handbooks] on highly effective communication in organizations". My no-fluff feedback for you: Your comment would've been far stronger if you simply specified these unnamed handbooks, and summarized their argument, as opposed to fulminating + offering a handwavey argument-from-authority. (Curious to see how you'll take this no-fluff feedback. Let's see if you're management material by your own standards.) EDIT -- here is a LinkedIn post by a lady who wrote a book on workplace communication called Radical Candor. Her post recommends plenty of fluff for the boss, and to be frank, I think she makes some pretty good points: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kimm4_how-can-you-practice-safe-radical-candor-activity-7109311628600360960-kI3X https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kimm4_how-can-you-practice-sa...
- navane 2y ago
  Are you replying to your superior? He didn't say always no fluff, just that as a superior you should be able to handle it. That actually is the key assertion, the power imbalance direction.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
  I was curious, so I used Perplexity.AI as a quick sanity check for lijok's comment. Here's the result: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-are-some-handbooks-on-hig-Q.xlp21uSOygaj0.Bvq6vg#1 https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-are-some-handbooks-on-... None of the books identified by Perplexity.AI appear to endorse lijok's claim. Of course, it could be a confabulation -- this is just a quick sanity check, to see if the claim is as manifestly true as lijok seems to think. (Putting this in a separate comment so people can downvote separately if they want. If people don't like this sort of AI sanity check on HN, that's fine. Thought it was worth trying as an experiment, though.)
  - dingnuts 2y ago
    more like an insanity check. Did you ask the AI multiple times? usually if I ask a yes or no question and simply repeat the prompt a few times the model will tell me yes, no, and maybe, for any question.
interludead 2y ago
If you find yourself needing to tiptoe around a leader's ego too often, it might signal deeper systemic issues
alistairSH 2y ago
There a lot more subtlety to this than you seem to indicate. I’d never give negative feedback to an exec (+2 levels above me) in a large meeting. I’d wait for a more private setting. With my immediate boss (director) I’d provide feedback in a small “managers only” group if I thought there was something to debate as a group, but not an open team meeting. But your comments about subordinates is true. Generally try to keep feedback positive/constructive. And time it so they don’t feel attacked.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  For (most) management. Absolutely do NOT do this: "I’d wait for a more private setting." Only do this IF you think management is well adjusted human being that is not ego driven. I leave it to reader to decide exactly how much of management falls into that bin. If management is not, they will know that you are a threat to them and work to undermine you and get you removed. If you provide feedback publically they can less afford the reputational hit (if you're correct in your publically aired assessments). In either case you must play nice with your coworkers and subordinates.
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    Fair point. “More private” not 1-on-1. I’d probably have my manager in that conversation (and quite possibly run my thoughts by them before offering them to the exec).
- lijok 2y ago
  Fully agreed. I would consider not pointing at people's faults in a public setting to be basic etiquette.
chipdart 2y ago
> If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. You're arguing based on how you think the world should be instead of how the world actually is.
- lijok 2y ago
  Are you suggesting that functions overseen by those unable to process no-fluff information, are often successful and do not sink?
  - lazide 2y ago
    What happens when all functions are overseen by people unable to process no-fluff information.
fellowniusmonk 2y ago
Yes, many "superiors" would be better replaced by AI because they would be better able to process accurate feedback dispationately. Where have you worked my dude that you have this perspective? After a long and storied career I can safely say you must have a narrow experience and there is nearly endless literature about the need to manage up. Or maybe you're a bully boss yourself and it's just an empathy disconnect. Or maybe you've only worked in relatively large corporations? Idk, the thick skinned executive isn't a trope and it isn't a trope for a reason.
rybosworld 2y ago
This is very much a "the world _should_ work this way" view point. But this attitude is not particularly useful in a world where things aren't black and white.

by lijok 2y ago

freejazz 2y ago

> they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. Be sure to tell them that too!

johnfn 2y ago

The notion that there are only two options: that your superiors should be perfect receptors of all information, no matter how poorly phrased, or that you should begin "polishing your resume", is immature. The world is more complex than this.

codr7 2y ago

Thank God I didn't have to write all of that myself :) Well said!

fny 2y ago

I think you’re ignoring the “without getting fired” part. The implication is that you’re in a situation where management is stubborn or even hostile to feedback. Most organizations don’t practice “highly effective communication”. It’s often a nightmare riddled with politics and ego.

Rygian 2y ago
> I think you’re ignoring the “without getting fired” part. The "start polishing your resume" bit was quite explicit.
- fny 2y ago
  I'd argue 99% percent of companies operate like this. No one likes blunt feedback--even in friendships and marriage. Good luck if you throw money and ego into the mix.
- harimau777 2y ago
  Unless you are the .1% of developer (and probably with a heaping helping of luck) you aren't going to end up working someplace that isn't terminally dysfunctional no matter how much you polish your resume.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    Besides, who wants to work with someone that’s only worked in these terminally dysfunctional workplaces. There must be something wrong with them.
  - rqmedes 2y ago
    Being in the top 0.001% of developers won’t help if you don’t have a large network or good brand
Muromec 2y ago
I would say ego problem comes with a title.

tyrust 2y ago

The advice isn't backwards, but some senior leaders are in the sense that they don't take feedback well. In this case, this advice is sound. Sure, in an ideal world you wouldn't have to fluff it, but I'm guessing many of us aren't in that world.

wjnc 2y ago

This. I had to get a little used to not fluffing around my feedback. One of our managers just asked me to give it to him straight, directly and 1-on-1 and we’d get along fine. So we did. I still am having trouble with how little, what I see as fact based, feedback is needed before the average person has had enough. Example: I like to point out shitty work processes (one needs a hobby). Anything with a few loops and some rework goes for me to start my first time right story. People take offense. No stop, you are not the process. You didn’t design it, you merely took part because we asked you to. Now stop and consider whether you think it is shitty and if so, what can we do? Can you do it? Do you need help? When? Organizationally, it’s a good riff. For me, it’s strange to do and see it help. It feels like delivering snake oil. (I rationalize this as delivering Lean in thirty minutes.) My communication plan is facts >> options >> opinions >> advice. This way I help people mentally separate “what is” from whatever opinion I’m holding. This works for both verbal and written communication. It’s a coping strategy for being outlier direct.

throwaway346434 2y ago
I would give up a huge amount of my paycheck for a manager who heard me bitch and whinge about every little flaw; told me I'd made them too angry to continue the conversation but we should pick it up in ~48 hours with a mutually agreeable plan coming back with stats and analysis for where my opinion was simply wrong; vs where it was right.

danjl 2y ago

It would be wonderful if the world could accept blunt feedback. It is certainly easier to give and more in-line with what most technical people would prefer. However, we work with humans, and we have learned an awful lot about how humans respond to language, especially criticism. The advice here applies to giving feedback to any human, not just superiors. As you spend time working with humans, you learn, perhaps slowly that what you might consider "fluff" is really about helping make your point. Being direct doesn't always, or even usually, work as well.

tremon 2y ago
It's also learned behaviour. Generally speaking, American corporate culture does cherish its pussyfooting around difficult subjects, as do most Asian cultures (I gather, no personal experience there). European and South-American cultures are somewhere on the opposite end of that spectrum IME.
nithril 2y ago
Definitively agree. Being blunt, too direct is just the opposite of a good and effective communication.
- lucgray 2y ago
  Being too blunt raises defenses and completely wipes out the effectiveness of your feedback. Folks that are invested in outcomes make choices for good reason, and they've probably got a track record to back it up. You have to meet them where they are, and considering their communication styles and how they make decisions will improve the chances you're actually heard. It's a fact of life that people shut down when approached with evidence that refutes their world view or choices. It doesn't matter if it's your boss or grandparents.
  - nvarsj 2y ago
    > It's a fact of life that people shut down when approached with evidence that refutes their world view or choices. I don't really agree with you. This is a basic quality of skilled leadership. You want people refuting your worldview with evidence! It lets you correct course and make things better. Only insecure people shut down like this in my experience.

cle 2y ago

> If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. You're assuming that the subordinate's feedback is sufficiently important to the business. It might not be. It might also not be important to the business if subordinates leave b/c their feedback is disregarded. I can imagine plenty of scenarios where a leader could still succeed while not giving a crap about subordinate feedback. It depends on the goals and the dynamics of the business, the leader's experience, market conditions, labor environments, etc. > The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations. You can argue in your exit interview that you were just following handbooks.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago
It’s even more important to give it bluntly if the feedback is irrelevant. That way you’ve wasted less time. Me: “we aren’t giving enough guidance to new hires” Leader: “it’s not a priority for us since we are freezing hiring” Perfectly good interaction, where you didn’t waste time sneakily phrasing things you think you know better than the leader. And you learned some valuable info about the org priorities as a result.
- cle 2y ago
  If the feedback is irrelevant, you'll waste the least amount of time by not giving it at all. (I think that's slightly different from your scenario though, where you don't actually know if it's irrelevant.)
  - lazide 2y ago
    And how would you know if it is irrelevant? See prior comment.
    - cle 2y ago
      Depends on the org and how information travels. Knowing tricks like this are the superpowers of people who move up quickly in large orgs and make things happen. You can sometimes do fine without knowing this, and going through the "official" route of the direct feedback loop. If you can figure it out elsewhere though, it'll usually build more trust with your superiors.

drewcoo 2y ago

People get promoted by "managing up," which you call "fluffing."

IshKebab 2y ago

> If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. Maybe, but the title is "without getting fired" not "without being wrong damnit!". Unless you have a significant number of shares in the company you should care about your own employment and success over the success of the whatever function this person has oversight of. > The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations. And that reason is...?

szundi 2y ago

Hard not to be cynical about your response but do you believe most of the superiors out there are on this level that you specify? Would be a joke.

NAHWheatCracker 2y ago

I agree with you that's how it should be, but experience tells me that everyone is insecure and it's hardly correlated with position and job security. People lower down the chain are insecure because they could legitimately be let go at any time for any reason. People higher up the chain are insecure because any loss of face is debilitating. Especially having failings pointed out by someone "below" them.

hashtag-til 2y ago
From my experience, you build that non-fluff boundaries in the first one or two meetings with a senior leader. I’d advise against going in the first one throwing punches. Go with actionable feedback and be honest about what it is and what is not something you can solve. From there, if you genuinely care about whatever you’re complaning, you are more likely to be taken seriously.
- stavros 2y ago
  > I’d advise against going in the first one throwing punches. I’d advise against going in any one throwing punches. Instead, give actionable, honest, factual feedback with the intent to legitimately help the other person.
  - jms703 2y ago
    This is the correct approach.
  - hashtag-til 2y ago
    Fair enough, while I agree, in real project life, this calm, honest, factual feedback isn’t always enough for senior management to prioritise your issue. Sometimes you need to a bit more assertive and blunt so that you become the top of the agenda, that’s what I meant by “throwing punches”. Perhaps it means a much more over the top attitude in your view? (Happy to be corrected here)
    - stavros 2y ago

herval 2y ago

That’s nice in theory. In practice, the likelihood of you working for someone who’s unable to process the truth and will shoot the messenger is very high

zeroonetwothree 2y ago
I don’t know if it’s “very high”. It can happen but on average I think successful people tend to be more reasonable and intelligent than average (not always obviously).
- lazide 2y ago
  When times are good? You have a chance. When times are bad? Oh boy.

jellicle 2y ago

If you've honestly never seen the types of leaders envisioned in this article you are very lucky indeed. For a large majority of supervisors, if you give them carefully-worded, polite, respectful, private, accurate, truthful, ego-preserving feedback about something they're doing wrong, their response will range between "immediate firing" and "hold a grudge against you, fire you as soon as they can find a replacement". There is nothing that makes people as angry as accurately pointing out their flaws. The way around this is in essence to get the leader to think it was their idea to make a change, which is possible in some cases but not in others.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago
It’s surprising to me that such dysfunctional orgs exist where a single person can just fire someone immediately over some feedback. How have they even grown to be a business with that attitude? But sure, you do need to adapt your strategy for the environment you exist in. That’s just common sense.
- hibikir 2y ago
  The org has to be small for the firing to be immediate, but I have seen a "top of stack rank to unpassable PIP" be caused by a single conversation... and that's even in companies most of this forum would consider top performing. I would argue that trying to figure out the fragility of your management chain's ego is a key part of a successful career, even if what we are going to do with the news is to choose to change jobs.

dheera 2y ago

> The reason you fluff up feedback to your subordinates is because lower down the chain they tend to be insecure and don't yet have the experience to distinguish between actionable impartial feedback, and threats to their job security. Rather than fluff it up, just make it explicit whichever you are doing. If you actually like their work and are making an actionable suggestion, just say that, and don't forget to praise them for the work that you like. Far too often I see managers only give the suggestion and then it ends up looking like a threat. > The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations. The reason you do fluff feedback to your superiors is that you're on an H1B visa, are at risk of getting deported from the country and having to find a new home for your partner and new school for your kids (possibly in an unfamiliar language and environment for them), just for upsetting one superior. The reality is most people in large companies do not care about "highly effective communication". They are just trying to survive and not get deported. Once we can get rid of this stupid 60 day rule and insane housing and child-raising costs maybe people will start caring about their work. The most basic of Maslow's needs are not being met, hence the fluffing up to the authorities (bosses) who are in control of your livelihood.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago
Well yes, it’s a higher variance approach. If you can’t afford to look for a new job then by all means keep your head down and avoid all controversy. I would do the same in that situation. That doesn’t apply to everyone however, so for those people it would make sense to try to make things better and potentially advance their careers.
lupire 2y ago
If most people in your company are on s, your management is probably breaking the laws and is not the sort of person who appreciates honest communication.

seanp2k2 2y ago

At [company that purportedly highly values candor], I’ve seen multiple people get canned by VPs or directors they’ve criticized internally. Granted, these situations were cases where this was communicated either in a larger feedback meeting that was supposed to be a “safe” space for such feedback, or via other communications that were visible to more than just the person being criticized. These criticisms were definitely high up in the PG pyramid and critical of the direction / vision / execution, not of the person themselves. The people who were fired from this were high performers who weren’t otherwise on PIPs or anything like that. Leadership did the typical leadership dance of shifting blame, re-org, and carry on. It was sad and further eroded both trust and morale of others familiar with these situations.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago
I suppose it depends on what type of “criticism” it is. Generally feedback is most valuable when it’s constructive not critical. If you just say “X is bad” that isn’t very useful no matter how you phrase it. I would be surprised if respectful constructive criticism was met with firing but I suppose it does happen. Probably not the best to be working for those people in any case.
rqmedes 2y ago
Seen this dance many times
Simon_ORourke 2y ago
I've seen this a lot, especially with junior folks getting on their high horse publicly about some direction or decision. Whenever it happens I make a point of putting a reminder in my calendar to check their corp Slack handle after three weeks to see if they're still employed. 9 out of 10 are deactivated when I check back. Hold your tongue, there's no such thing as a safe space in any all hands or group-level meeting.
- MortyWaves 2y ago
  Sorry you work in such a toxic job

neilv 2y ago

I had much the same reaction. To put it diplomatically, the article's advice is all about diplomacy. Much of their examples are a kind of diplomacy that you might use with a somewhat hostile, stupid, and/or petty person. Not in an environment of trust and respect. Or with an enterprise customer, where "business politeness" is expected, trying to gain advantage is expected, and no one expects you to be very honest. (Exception: In some cultures, it might be outright rude and mutually awkward to ever say anything critical-sounding upwards, or to offend someone by not going through the politeness motions, which would just be disrespectful. The article seems to be coming from some kind of environment or social expectations like that. I'm not talking about that here. I'm talking about, say, a US tech business environment that at least thinks it values speaking up with honest assessments.) Ideally, management welcomes straight talk, and will do the right thing with it. For example, if you've not been given reason to think the person above you is dishonest or unreasonable, and they haven't been given reason to think that about you, but you don't yet know them well, here's an example: "The team is having some serious difficulty. Is now a good time to talk very candidly and constructively about that? ... Two things. First, I think that people are feeling that they don't have a good understanding of what the goals are, and how they're supposed to be prioritizing, on a daily basis. The other thing that seems to be bothering people is that onboarding is rough, and people immediately feel like they're not doing well, and then they aren't getting out of that feeling." Note that this might sound a bit like some of the diplomatic framing of the article, in that it's not accusatory, but that's not what I'm doing. Some examples in the article attribute problems to the manager, and then use diplomacy, for cultural politeness, and/or to circumvent some pettiness they expect. By contrast, in this example, I'm instead respecting the manager as someone who will take the information constructively. I'm also not presuming to attribute blame for the problems, since I don't have all the information about the situation, including not knowing everything the manager has been doing and why.

rdtsc 2y ago

> If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start polishing your resume. Sounds good on paper. Maybe true, oh 5 years ago. In this job market, polishing the resume is nice but you might have to deal with irrational superiors for a little longer. That's what the article is about. > The reason you fluff up feedback to your subordinates is because lower down the chain they tend to be insecure and don't yet have the experience to distinguish between actionable impartial feedback, and threats to their job security. It would all be nice and good if "subordinates" and "superiors" were some completely different, disjoint sets. Yesterday's insecure peers and your subordinates will tomorrow become your superiors. People who can - do, those who can't - manage. Their personalities and other qualities likely wouldn't change in the meantime. In a perfect world, everyone who is promoted to be anyone's superior will go through a strong leadership vetting process and they will take un-fluffed honest feedback from subordinates, without retribution. But I have yet to work for such an organization. Maybe you're luckier...

lijok 2y ago
> Sounds good on paper. Maybe true, oh 5 years ago. In this job market, polishing the resume is nice but you might have to deal with irrational superiors for a little longer. That's what the article is about. Wouldn't it be better to just not provide feedback and coast along if you're in this position?

cgio 2y ago

As a senior leader myself, that was my initial reaction. Then, I thought about myself and cohort and I would say, unfortunately, the advice in the article is required. There are challenges in feedback in both directions. E.g.the people who are best at receiving it are the ones who usually don't, either because they are strong in many other things than the feedback domain, or because they seem so self confident that people are intimidated. On the other hand, people who are not good at receiving feedback are also the ones who would be vindictive and their reactions may poison feedback as a practice. And also people may switch from one category to the other transiently, because of other pressures etc. In summary, in my own practice, while I am opinionated, I have never given negative feedback either to managers or subordinates. Not that they were all perfect, but I found it is usually up to me to work with the people and their strengths and weaknesses and by focusing on strengths I have not corrected any weakness, but have often made them irrelevant to me. Some may say this is a weakness for a leader, and I would agree but still focus on my other strengths. Edit: an additional consideration as I am digesting my response. People are more open to discussing how to improve a process or a system rather than a person or even more so themselves. Feedback is sometimes personal, that's why things like post mortems, process reviews etc. can work miracles when we manage to keep them about the process or framework rather than the people who are assigned to them. An additional slightly cynical point on feedback received as a subordinate (no matter how high up you most probably report to someone unless you are at the top). If someone gives you feedback about what you should do to get promoted/a raise etc , you are 90% not going to get those even if you heed to the feedback. These things happen for things you do, and the broader perception of yourself not on the basis of a checklist, and if they use a checklist against you, they don't really care about You. If someone mentors you, you will get it. Learn to read the difference between the two.

zabzonk 2y ago
Well, "senior leader", if this is the kind of incomprehensible stuff you routinely come up with, I'm amazed your teams produce anything.
- ctxc 2y ago
  Formatting/phrasing could be improved, but incomprehensible? I don't think so.

swisniewski 2y ago

I think you may be making assumption: that the feedback you are trying to give is clear, articulate, and constructive. When speaking to someone significantly more senior than you it’s entire possible that your feedback may not be. And that is really the point of the post. Here is advice on how to make sure your point is clear, articulate, and constructive. As someone becomes more senior 2 things happen: 1. They acquire more authority 2. They have more demands on their time. In these situations, you need to work to make sure you are communicating what you intended to communicate. That requires effort. I wouldn’t view this advice as “how to deal with fragile egos”, but instead would view it as “how to make sure you are not misunderstood when having critical conversations with high stakes”. In that regard it is good advice.

Aeolun 2y ago

I think not raising anyones hackles with your feedback applies pretty universally. It’s too much to expect senior leaders to not be human.

haliskerbas 2y ago

25% of my manager and above in big tech have acted in the ideal way you describe, and the rest have been back stabbing, childish, two faced, toxic, and many other negative traits, making any open honest or direct communication impossible

disgruntledphd2 2y ago
Honestly, if you've had decent management 25% of the time, you're doing much better than the rest of us. Management is hard, because it makes significant emotional demands on us, and a lot of people deal with the combination of power and emotions badly.

runeblaze 2y ago

My limited corporate experience is that you fluff feedback to the less effective leaders so that you can still influence them. The more effective leaders you talk to them directly and team up with them to accomplish great things together. It is a matter of different strategies.

kijin 2y ago
Less effective leaders are like GPT. You need to be both careful and creative with your prompt in order to get them to produce the result you want. :)

majormajor 2y ago

I'm not a fan of a lot of the examples here for feedback up or down. > “We may need to give even more guidance to new hires.” Up or down, "we may" and "even more" are weasel words that weaken what you're saying. It's trivial for someone to interpret that as "they think maybe we could do more, but they seem to also see that we do a good amount already." > “I used to struggle with this, and when I tried X, it really helped.” This one I think is good for managing down; bad for managing up. It's less weasel-y but it risks coming off very aggressive - "I already figured this out, what is wrong with you?" > “The team made amazing progress when we all focused on the website update last month. It might help to have one or two clear priorities for the team this month that everyone can rally behind.” You have a great example, "it might help" is again weakening your POV compared to something more like a direct "what are the top priorities this month that we can all rally around?" > “When we were able to dedicate that first week to training Steve, he got up to speed pretty quickly. The bit of upfront time seemed to have paid off, and taking a similar training approach for our next hire could help them ramp up just as fast. What do you think?” Here we've taken a lot of words to state the obvious, which IMO both runs the risk of losing the urgency in the verbosity and coming off as pandering and over-explaining the obvious. I think "what are your thoughts on" and "one approach might be" are better in both up-and-down directions as long as associated with a clear specific "here is something I noticed that I think is sub-optimal" situation.

awanderingmind 2y ago

I agree strongly - if I worked at an organisation where the linked article was the 'necessary' way of communicating I would look for a job at a less dysfunctional company. The context of the article seems to be a workplace with a sense of hierarchy that is inimical to honesty if it threatens insecure managers' egos or social standing.

Simon_ORourke 2y ago

> If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start polishing your resume. Never a truer word said than this. It's incredibly naive to think that any unfiltered feedback upwards to senior management will be welcomed. In reality, no matter how accurate the feedback may be it will be regarded at best as useless, and at worst as a direct threat to leadership requiring a response. This response may come in the form of a re-org, team move or headcount reduction. While totally disingenuous, your best strategy is to simply tow the corporate line while looking for a new job.

The_Colonel 2y ago

> If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start polishing your resume. Yeah, I'm not going to change a job just because one of my superiors is insecure (and the other things are good). This all-or-nothing mentality is just thought-stopping.

lijok 2y ago
> Yeah, I'm not going to change a job just because one of my superiors is insecure You likely are, willingly or not.

mewpmewp2 2y ago

> start polishing your resume What if you have reached the optimal level of income, and the work itself you like? Anywhere else would be a cut in either one of those 2.

spoiler 2y ago
I guess distance yourself emotionally from your job, but continue looking and be picky about your next role. I'm in a similar boat, but my engineering manager wants to get rid of them, so I'm being dragged into office politics now. Other than a few rotten apples, the company is great. So, I'm also somewhat reluctantly looking for a new role.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

roenxi 2y ago

There is some important piece of context there though - if leaders aren't capable of the emotional intelligence to process blunt feedback, they are bad leaders and there is no hope of change. Learning to recognise them and just leave them alone is one of those valuable life skills that most employees learn sooner or later. Some people are just not going to take feedback and if they end up in management that is that; there is nothing to do but enjoy the show as best you can. In that situation fluffing the feedback will do nothing. It might take years of effort to get marginal improvements and it is more productive to focus on something that is ... well ... more productive.

joz1-k 2y ago
There is a lot of truth in this, but especially when developers are semi-randomly promoted into leadership roles, they should be given enough time (and mentorship) to learn from their own mistakes. Some will learn very quickly (those with enough emotional intelligence), and some will learn nothing no matter how much time you give them. Being a good manager with formidable leadership skills is something you can only get through experience.
throwawaymaths 2y ago
> there is no hope of change. There is an off chance that management (I'm not using the word leadership here deliberately) is taking leadership coaching, that the coaching is good, and that the coach will actually intervene and bring about change. Small likelihood of course, but not zero.

lr4444lr 2y ago

You are not entirely wrong, but I think you're underestimating the value of respecting human emotion. If people are leaving the team or it is missing deadlines, angering customers, making more work for other teams etc., your manager doesn't need your blunt feedback about performance and sustainability.

scotty79 2y ago

This article gives a good advice how to give feedback to anyone without souring relationship. Everyone can be insecure and if your superior happens to feel insecure about you that day the damage can be severe.

atoav 2y ago

You must be very lucky. The majority of places where I worked was headed by people with fragile egos that you had to slowly guide to the right conclusion without the presence of an audience. If you told them something that could be interpreted as a criticism of a decision in front of others they would in principle not accept it and play to the audience. If you just told them a fact thst they disliked they would argue against it, I had a superior argue against fundamental laws of physics bscause he disliked the conclusion that followed from that lae being true. Luckily I am a very diplomatic person and have no issues with that — but apparently things within organizations aren't as they should be.

Arech 2y ago

Exactly this. Somewhat an issue here though, that this is essentially a matter of a person's culture. What you've said is most likely true for WEIRD (acronym) people, but for other cultures where retailiation is quite possible, one either have to dance that silly dances, or indeed polish their CV.

whateveracct 2y ago

> If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and yet here we are...

est 2y ago

Good lord the comments section surely blew up. Can we just give this "fluff-up feedback" job to LLM already?

0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago

>The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations. This is the key assertion underlying your comment, yet you just wave it off by referring to unnamed "[handbooks] on highly effective communication in organizations". My no-fluff feedback for you: Your comment would've been far stronger if you simply specified these unnamed handbooks, and summarized their argument, as opposed to fulminating + offering a handwavey argument-from-authority. (Curious to see how you'll take this no-fluff feedback. Let's see if you're management material by your own standards.) EDIT -- here is a LinkedIn post by a lady who wrote a book on workplace communication called Radical Candor. Her post recommends plenty of fluff for the boss, and to be frank, I think she makes some pretty good points: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kimm4_how-can-you-practice-safe-radical-candor-activity-7109311628600360960-kI3X https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kimm4_how-can-you-practice-sa...

navane 2y ago
Are you replying to your superior? He didn't say always no fluff, just that as a superior you should be able to handle it. That actually is the key assertion, the power imbalance direction.
0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
I was curious, so I used Perplexity.AI as a quick sanity check for lijok's comment. Here's the result: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-are-some-handbooks-on-hig-Q.xlp21uSOygaj0.Bvq6vg#1 https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-are-some-handbooks-on-... None of the books identified by Perplexity.AI appear to endorse lijok's claim. Of course, it could be a confabulation -- this is just a quick sanity check, to see if the claim is as manifestly true as lijok seems to think. (Putting this in a separate comment so people can downvote separately if they want. If people don't like this sort of AI sanity check on HN, that's fine. Thought it was worth trying as an experiment, though.)
- dingnuts 2y ago
  more like an insanity check. Did you ask the AI multiple times? usually if I ask a yes or no question and simply repeat the prompt a few times the model will tell me yes, no, and maybe, for any question.

interludead 2y ago

If you find yourself needing to tiptoe around a leader's ego too often, it might signal deeper systemic issues

alistairSH 2y ago

There a lot more subtlety to this than you seem to indicate. I’d never give negative feedback to an exec (+2 levels above me) in a large meeting. I’d wait for a more private setting. With my immediate boss (director) I’d provide feedback in a small “managers only” group if I thought there was something to debate as a group, but not an open team meeting. But your comments about subordinates is true. Generally try to keep feedback positive/constructive. And time it so they don’t feel attacked.

throwawaymaths 2y ago
For (most) management. Absolutely do NOT do this: "I’d wait for a more private setting." Only do this IF you think management is well adjusted human being that is not ego driven. I leave it to reader to decide exactly how much of management falls into that bin. If management is not, they will know that you are a threat to them and work to undermine you and get you removed. If you provide feedback publically they can less afford the reputational hit (if you're correct in your publically aired assessments). In either case you must play nice with your coworkers and subordinates.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  Fair point. “More private” not 1-on-1. I’d probably have my manager in that conversation (and quite possibly run my thoughts by them before offering them to the exec).
lijok 2y ago
Fully agreed. I would consider not pointing at people's faults in a public setting to be basic etiquette.

chipdart 2y ago

lijok 2y ago
Are you suggesting that functions overseen by those unable to process no-fluff information, are often successful and do not sink?
- lazide 2y ago
  What happens when all functions are overseen by people unable to process no-fluff information.

fellowniusmonk 2y ago

Yes, many "superiors" would be better replaced by AI because they would be better able to process accurate feedback dispationately. Where have you worked my dude that you have this perspective? After a long and storied career I can safely say you must have a narrow experience and there is nearly endless literature about the need to manage up. Or maybe you're a bully boss yourself and it's just an empathy disconnect. Or maybe you've only worked in relatively large corporations? Idk, the thick skinned executive isn't a trope and it isn't a trope for a reason.

rybosworld 2y ago

This is very much a "the world _should_ work this way" view point. But this attitude is not particularly useful in a world where things aren't black and white.