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> I often get "eye rolls" when I say this to developers: You are not going to convince anyone with facts. True in technical leadership and true in life. Engine

> I often get "eye rolls" when I say this to developers: You are not going to convince anyone with facts. True in technical leadership and true in life. Engineers are especially prone to this sort of frustration, where you're technically right but socially aren't speaking the right language for your audience.

everdrive 1y ago
This is a difficult lesson to swallow, but must be understood. I do still retain some frustration that there does not seem to be more effort to correct for this problem locally. For instance, in general you must speak to your audience and make emotional appeals. But me, your boss, should understand how to look past that and work with the facts, at least to the degree possible. I don't see much of that.
- tux3 1y ago
  There are places that have this norm, but it's exceedingly rare, and it's not some perfect utopia. We're all susceptible to emotional appeals to different degrees, and emotions aren't some inconvenience that you should try to eliminate in favor of pure cold calculations, they also have a place and a reason to be. People care about different things, so trying to focus just on facts can end up with people talking past each other, because they have different goals, value systems, or other fuzzy human feelings that can't be graphed in an Excel spreadsheet and compared numerically. I'm not saying that emotional appeals and sophistry are fine, but I find that often when people accept an emotional appeal over a cold purely factual argument, it's because the factual argument is missing the point. A more important part of the discussion is understanding what other people actually care about to make sure we're not all talking past each other, or spending hours arguing details that won't matter in the end.
Herring 1y ago
You need to get a better audience. I recently met a good developer who still thinks Covid was a hoax. Doing my best to avoid him. You think you can just politely work around him -- that's how you get vaccine skeptics dismantling the CDC.
- hn_throw_250915 1y ago
  [dead]
- floydnoel 1y ago
  Why? Are they insufferable otherwise? Or is it more that you find it unbearable to tolerate a different opinion? I'm so curious, about both of you. What part does he think was a hoax?
  - Herring 1y ago
    In my experience that's usually just the tip of the iceberg. You've heard the expression "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"? It's like a link broke in a chain, and usually it's many links correlated. Maybe they just distrust expertise, well I have a phd and I assure you it'll come up later. Maybe he's an immigrant from Russia and he just distrusts everything to do with the news, well that's not really fixable except maybe with many years of therapy. And yes it will come up later too. I'm not a professional, I didn't want to ask the specifics or get into the weeds, I just have a developed nose for these things. My brother is into conspiracy theories.
    - 9rx 1y ago
      > I have a phd and I assure you it'll come up later. Will it? One would have to dig pretty deep into one's personal life to learn about that. Someone who thinks COVID was a hoax isn't going to be one to dig deep. And, well, if he really did somehow dig deep enough to find that information, you can just laugh it off as a hoax.
      - Herring 1y ago
        It's right on my linkedin, and I'm joining their team as a specialist/consultant.
        9rx 1y ago
DangitBobby 1y ago
It's directionally correct but not entirely accurate IMO. It would be more accurate to say, your audience does not have the experience and context necessary to turn the facts into a decision criteria. You need to translate your "raw data facts" into "refined facts" ready for consumption by the audience. That's what a good communicator does. The original phrasing makes it almost sound like the decisions are not fact-based or emotional, which should elicit eye-rolls.
- oncallthrow 1y ago
  > It would be more accurate to say, your audience does not have the experience and context necessary to turn the facts into a decision criteria. I don't agree. Humans are fundamentally social and illogical creatures, and in many cases regardless of the experience or context they have, they will make decisions based on social factors regardless of hard logic.
watwut 1y ago
I think it does deserve eye roll, because it is huge oversimplification on itself. The situations in which you convince people with facts are not exactly rare. That person is getting an eye roll, because they are just repeating popular phrase that is not even particularly useful.
- tombert 1y ago
  I was about to say, I've definitely had my mind changed mid-meeting by facts, even if the person trying to convince me was being an asshole. It might not happen as often as it should, but I think it's somewhere between "reductive" and "untrue" to say that you're not going to convince educated people with facts sometimes.
racl101 1y ago
Need ethos, logos and pathos. Not just the logos.

everdrive 1y ago

This is a difficult lesson to swallow, but must be understood. I do still retain some frustration that there does not seem to be more effort to correct for this problem locally. For instance, in general you must speak to your audience and make emotional appeals. But me, your boss, should understand how to look past that and work with the facts, at least to the degree possible. I don't see much of that.

tux3 1y ago
There are places that have this norm, but it's exceedingly rare, and it's not some perfect utopia. We're all susceptible to emotional appeals to different degrees, and emotions aren't some inconvenience that you should try to eliminate in favor of pure cold calculations, they also have a place and a reason to be. People care about different things, so trying to focus just on facts can end up with people talking past each other, because they have different goals, value systems, or other fuzzy human feelings that can't be graphed in an Excel spreadsheet and compared numerically. I'm not saying that emotional appeals and sophistry are fine, but I find that often when people accept an emotional appeal over a cold purely factual argument, it's because the factual argument is missing the point. A more important part of the discussion is understanding what other people actually care about to make sure we're not all talking past each other, or spending hours arguing details that won't matter in the end.

Herring 1y ago

You need to get a better audience. I recently met a good developer who still thinks Covid was a hoax. Doing my best to avoid him. You think you can just politely work around him -- that's how you get vaccine skeptics dismantling the CDC.

hn_throw_250915 1y ago
[dead]
floydnoel 1y ago
Why? Are they insufferable otherwise? Or is it more that you find it unbearable to tolerate a different opinion? I'm so curious, about both of you. What part does he think was a hoax?
- Herring 1y ago
  In my experience that's usually just the tip of the iceberg. You've heard the expression "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"? It's like a link broke in a chain, and usually it's many links correlated. Maybe they just distrust expertise, well I have a phd and I assure you it'll come up later. Maybe he's an immigrant from Russia and he just distrusts everything to do with the news, well that's not really fixable except maybe with many years of therapy. And yes it will come up later too. I'm not a professional, I didn't want to ask the specifics or get into the weeds, I just have a developed nose for these things. My brother is into conspiracy theories.
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > I have a phd and I assure you it'll come up later. Will it? One would have to dig pretty deep into one's personal life to learn about that. Someone who thinks COVID was a hoax isn't going to be one to dig deep. And, well, if he really did somehow dig deep enough to find that information, you can just laugh it off as a hoax.
    - Herring 1y ago
      It's right on my linkedin, and I'm joining their team as a specialist/consultant.
      - 9rx 1y ago

DangitBobby 1y ago

It's directionally correct but not entirely accurate IMO. It would be more accurate to say, your audience does not have the experience and context necessary to turn the facts into a decision criteria. You need to translate your "raw data facts" into "refined facts" ready for consumption by the audience. That's what a good communicator does. The original phrasing makes it almost sound like the decisions are not fact-based or emotional, which should elicit eye-rolls.

oncallthrow 1y ago
> It would be more accurate to say, your audience does not have the experience and context necessary to turn the facts into a decision criteria. I don't agree. Humans are fundamentally social and illogical creatures, and in many cases regardless of the experience or context they have, they will make decisions based on social factors regardless of hard logic.

watwut 1y ago

I think it does deserve eye roll, because it is huge oversimplification on itself. The situations in which you convince people with facts are not exactly rare. That person is getting an eye roll, because they are just repeating popular phrase that is not even particularly useful.

tombert 1y ago
I was about to say, I've definitely had my mind changed mid-meeting by facts, even if the person trying to convince me was being an asshole. It might not happen as often as it should, but I think it's somewhere between "reductive" and "untrue" to say that you're not going to convince educated people with facts sometimes.

racl101 1y ago

Need ethos, logos and pathos. Not just the logos.