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The biggest challenge for me is that I'm starting to realize that people don't really get asynchronous communication as much as I thought they would. Putting o

The biggest challenge for me is that I'm starting to realize that people don't really get asynchronous communication as much as I thought they would. Putting on your headphones at the office and trying to get work done is seen as antisocial and hostile (especially daring to direct people to try to get you on im or email), and you find yourself shut out of critical decision points meetings because people will say "we didn't want to bother you" (what they're really saying is "fuck you, thats what you get for isolating yourself"). People want to be able to get immediate responses and interrupt each other whenever they like, and its easy to be pegged as an "asshole" if you don't play along. If you extrapolate from there, it starts to make sense why remote work is still such a hard sell in a lot of places (last stat I saw is that only about 4% of American workers work from home, thats up from 2% last year, but still) "Hell is other People" --- Jean Paul Sartre

scott_s 13y ago
(what they're really saying is "fuck you, thats what you get for isolating yourself") I think that's not a charitable interpretation. Two alternative explanations, which are not mutually exclusive: 1. Most people don't like confrontation or rejection; they find it awkward and uncomfortable, even if it's done politely. After interrupting you a few times, they find that they are generally rebuffed, so they stop interrupting you. But that hesitancy will continue even in cases where they think maybe you would say yes. 2. They may not really understand why you're redirecting them to asynchronous communication; they don't have a good mental model of how you will respond. Without that, they're not able to assess what you will think is important enough to warrant an interruption. So they err on the side of not interrupting.
- trustfundbaby 13y ago
  I think that's not a charitable interpretation Of course its not, but does what I described happen in corporate America everyday? you bet your ass it does. I like your other points better too, but I don't think it particularly invalidates the option I presented either.
- 001sky 13y ago
  Theres a term for that! I think its called passive agression. Passive agression and active accomodation (ie, being nice) shouldn't be confused though. The purpose of course, for the adversary, is to disguise the former as the latter to gain a tactical advantage. While the laguage used by the parent was (somewhat) blunt, I don't think the pheonomenan he is describing is an empirical anomaly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive-aggressive_behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive-aggressive_behavior
  - scott_s 13y ago
    No, that is not what I am trying to describe. Passive aggressive behavior is still acting with malice. I am talking about people who want to do the right thing by someone, but can't figure out what that is.
joshyeager 13y ago
Here is an alternate way to interpret the scenario in your second paragraph: Putting on your headphones at the office and trying to get work done is seen as a signal that you need to concentrate. You find yourself shut out of critical decision points meetings because people needed to make a decision but assumed you were deep in thought and couldn't take an interruption. Balancing these two needs is hard.
- trustfundbaby 13y ago
  You find yourself shut out of critical decision points meetings because people needed to make a decision but assumed you were deep in thought and couldn't take an interruption Still sounds like a dick move to me, if the office were on fire and you were taking a nap in the breakroom would people leave you to sleep while they got out to save themselves? probably not. Thats, an extreme example but if you follow it, you can see that the keypoint here is "critical decision", if you're making decisions without somebody that should be involved in the process, because you're so damned polite that you didn't want to bother them, I'd hazard that you're not really polite at all, you're just being passive aggressive, but I'm a bit of a cynic ;)
  - joshyeager 13y ago
    The problem is that the difference between a routine decision and a critical one is not always obvious at the time, especially if the person who would know that this particular decision is critical is unavailable. One solution is to build a team culture that communicates asynchronously by default, like what 37 Signals describes. This has efficiency costs, but it does seem to work. Another solution is to co-locate everyone, communicate frequently face-to-face, and build cultural norms that reduce the cost to individual productivity. My team is working on this approach, but we are considering the benefits of remote work and asynchronous communication.
- anupshinde 13y ago
  If "critical decision points" are seriously that critical, they would occur lesser and you don't need to balance that. Since its critical, you must attend it. But if "critical decision points" are coming in very frequently - you are probably not delegating work or you have a team that doesn't raise issues in daily meetings, or that simply "can't decide" or "doesn't have the freedom to decide independently" or "do not want to take responsibility to decide for some reason".

scott_s 13y ago

(what they're really saying is "fuck you, thats what you get for isolating yourself") I think that's not a charitable interpretation. Two alternative explanations, which are not mutually exclusive: 1. Most people don't like confrontation or rejection; they find it awkward and uncomfortable, even if it's done politely. After interrupting you a few times, they find that they are generally rebuffed, so they stop interrupting you. But that hesitancy will continue even in cases where they think maybe you would say yes. 2. They may not really understand why you're redirecting them to asynchronous communication; they don't have a good mental model of how you will respond. Without that, they're not able to assess what you will think is important enough to warrant an interruption. So they err on the side of not interrupting.

trustfundbaby 13y ago
I think that's not a charitable interpretation Of course its not, but does what I described happen in corporate America everyday? you bet your ass it does. I like your other points better too, but I don't think it particularly invalidates the option I presented either.
001sky 13y ago
Theres a term for that! I think its called passive agression. Passive agression and active accomodation (ie, being nice) shouldn't be confused though. The purpose of course, for the adversary, is to disguise the former as the latter to gain a tactical advantage. While the laguage used by the parent was (somewhat) blunt, I don't think the pheonomenan he is describing is an empirical anomaly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive-aggressive_behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive-aggressive_behavior
- scott_s 13y ago
  No, that is not what I am trying to describe. Passive aggressive behavior is still acting with malice. I am talking about people who want to do the right thing by someone, but can't figure out what that is.

joshyeager 13y ago

Here is an alternate way to interpret the scenario in your second paragraph: Putting on your headphones at the office and trying to get work done is seen as a signal that you need to concentrate. You find yourself shut out of critical decision points meetings because people needed to make a decision but assumed you were deep in thought and couldn't take an interruption. Balancing these two needs is hard.

trustfundbaby 13y ago
You find yourself shut out of critical decision points meetings because people needed to make a decision but assumed you were deep in thought and couldn't take an interruption Still sounds like a dick move to me, if the office were on fire and you were taking a nap in the breakroom would people leave you to sleep while they got out to save themselves? probably not. Thats, an extreme example but if you follow it, you can see that the keypoint here is "critical decision", if you're making decisions without somebody that should be involved in the process, because you're so damned polite that you didn't want to bother them, I'd hazard that you're not really polite at all, you're just being passive aggressive, but I'm a bit of a cynic ;)
- joshyeager 13y ago
  The problem is that the difference between a routine decision and a critical one is not always obvious at the time, especially if the person who would know that this particular decision is critical is unavailable. One solution is to build a team culture that communicates asynchronously by default, like what 37 Signals describes. This has efficiency costs, but it does seem to work. Another solution is to co-locate everyone, communicate frequently face-to-face, and build cultural norms that reduce the cost to individual productivity. My team is working on this approach, but we are considering the benefits of remote work and asynchronous communication.
anupshinde 13y ago
If "critical decision points" are seriously that critical, they would occur lesser and you don't need to balance that. Since its critical, you must attend it. But if "critical decision points" are coming in very frequently - you are probably not delegating work or you have a team that doesn't raise issues in daily meetings, or that simply "can't decide" or "doesn't have the freedom to decide independently" or "do not want to take responsibility to decide for some reason".