Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 438 posts

Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?

#141

Post by zizee »

metaphor wrote: post #118
JamesBarney wrote: post #7

How to manage expectations. That communication is incredibly important. That the higher up the org chart someone is the busier they are. So what you spend 40 hours a week thinking about they might not spend 45 minutes thinking about. So over-communicate and remind them of important information about the project. Because they will forget lots of important details, and things that are glaringly obvious to you won't eve…

> That the higher up the org chart someone is the busier they are. So what you spend 40 hours a week thinking about they might not spend 45 minutes thinking about. Respectfully, that's a proverbial crock of trite bullshit perpetuated to game the naive/inexperienced. If the next level above me couldn't spend at least 45 minutes thinking about the general problem I've been trying to solve in the past week, then that pe…

> If the next level above me couldn't spend at least 45 minutes thinking...

Grandparent comment did not say "next level" above. People are often talking to people in different parts of a company, or more than one level up/down.

Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?

#143

Post by IvyMike »

lookathrwaway wrote: post #77
whiddershins wrote: post #19

“How to win friends and influence people” is an absolutely wonderful book I wished I’d read 10 or 15 years before I did. Some important ideas - Just, get along with people. A bit reductionist but if you don’t place a high priority on getting along with people you certainly won’t learn how. It really is a habit, and it’s incredibly effective to remember the Cognitive Behavior insight that when you don’t get along with…

Throw away for obvious reasons. I find almost everyone intensely boring. How am I supposed to get along with people without feeling like a complete fraud? Small talk, feigning interest in kids, in sports, in wine, in whatever useless dull, pedestrian thing a coworker is into. I find that anyone who isn't a PhD (or could easily have been if they hadn't gone into industry) might as well be a paper shell. I can put on a…

“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.” - Neil Gaiman

Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?

#146

Post by teekert »

I was always "overly social", wanted people to be happy, worried about what others think. As it turns out, knowing what you want, having a vision for yourself and sticking to it and being able to respectfully say "No." actually makes you an even more pleasant person to be around. More predictable, dependable and interesting. It will cost me some Karma but for me the first step in this change was reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I don't agree with everything but her vision on rational self interest stuck with me and made me feel like a more balanced person. I still have my struggles though. I recently experienced a lot of stress negotiating 2 job options. But a coach (provided by the company I worked for, very nice) helped me see the benefits of clearly and respectfully communicating my own interests in that situation. You are the only one in such situations who has his own interests as a top priority, don't think for others, especially not in a business setting.

Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?

#147

Post by Eugeleo »

eight_ender wrote: post #38

Admitting I'm wrong or that I screwed up, and likewise praising others when they're correct or have ideas I agree with. You would not believe how much smoother everything at work is when you learn to recognize early the signs that you're holding on to a bad opinion, or that you're headed towards a fuckup, and just saying it out loud. The praising / agreeing thing is a bit more complex. I've noticed more recently that…

I've had an unhealthy fixation on my opinions/ideas, which usually resulted in me being overly emotional when they were attacked or disproven. I found out this has been a great source of frustration for me, and for the people around me as well.

> Admitting I'm wrong or that I screwed up (1), and likewise praising others when they're correct or have ideas I agree with (2).

That's what I'm focusing on, now. However, although I always mean it, both (1) and (2) — at least in my ears — sound fabricated and artificial, even patronizing at times, as if I've been trying to manipulate the people around me instead of being a better human.

So, that said... How do you do (1) and (2) properly?

For me, realizing that I ought to behave in some manner is only half of the problem; the other is finding out _how_ exactly I should do that.

Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?

#150

Post by ps101 »

ajxs wrote: post #14

I learned the hard way to not underestimate how competitive and treacherous some people can be in the workplace. I was a long-term contractor in a large company and had an incident where I confided to another employee about some issues I was having negotiating my pay at contract renewal time. I never mentioned any numbers, just that a manager had previously promised me a pay-raise and was not honouring their word. Wi…

    > It's generally a policy to keep pay and pay negotiations confidential.
I know that your general point is about the personal relationships, but I want to point out that this policy is bullshit. You can legally disclose your salary with anyone (including in the US). From my experience in the UK employers don't even try to pull any of these 'policies', although often employees don't go around discussing their salaries simply out of courtesy.
Post reply on HN