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

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

#241

Post by badpun »

jdavis703 wrote: post #15

I was homeschooled from grades K-12 (for those outside the U.S. essentially from age 5 to 18) which in and of itself leads to poorly developed social skills. But I also have ADD. One of the symptoms of ADD is poor impulse control and rejection sensitivity which leads to issues with "emotional intelligence." So I would advise anyone, if you suspect you may have adult ADD, talk to a physciatrist and figure it out. Fixi…

> poor impulse control and rejection sensitivity

> Fixing underlying mental health problems will improve your professional and personal life!

To what degree these are fixable though? I've always though of these as just people having different personalities and tempers, out of which some are unfortunately very hard to live with. I'm not sure if we can change our personalities to a significant degree. Happy to be proven wrong though!

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

#242

Post by dtertman »

That it is very important to communicate the strength of an opinion, and moreso the higher up in an organization you go.

If you say everything like a Gospel truth, even when you're just brainstorming, the two end-states I've found are constant argument or constant acquiescence, and neither one is healthy for collaboration.

Conversely, if you always hedge your opinions, even ones that are against your moral code, you may end up unhappy, doing some unsavory stuff, etc.

A book that goes through this in detail is "Opening Doors To Teamwork and Collaboration". They have a very jargon-heavy approach to it ("notion", "stake", "boulder", "tombstone"), which I don't agree with, but the concept is important.

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

#243

Post by blablablerg »

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…

Dude really.. small talk and day-to-day communication is more about connecting than the subject itself.

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

#246

Post by tootie »

zimbatm wrote: post #238

Learn to relax. It was Bill Murray who was talking about this in an interview. If you relax, people are more relaxed, everything becomes easier.

This is my top feedback from everyone. I am always relaxed and it makes other people feel relaxed. Little do they know that my laid back attitude comes from underlying lack of caring whether or not my projects succeed.

If I could have learned one thing earlier on, it's how to be more serious. It's hard to be the chill, no worries guy and also the guy to be taken seriously and not be crossed.

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

#247

Post by tootie »

barking wrote: post #174

To be myself in public. I still haven't learned. I had an uncle who was like that. He didn't give a shit what anyone thought, he was such fun to be around even if it embarrassed the hell out of you sometimes.

I if I were really being myself, I wouldn't be in public. I prefer being alone 99% of the time.

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

#248

Post by 131012 »

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…

I'll use another angle: If people are paper shells, remember that somebody (in fact, a lot of people) has written on it. Generic human psyche can be rather simple (monkeys with smartphones), but the structures we collectively impose on this material are fascinating.

Next time you find someone boring, try to understand what made them this way. And I swear the answers is more complex than "it's capitalism/neoliberalism/consumerism/religion/whateverisyourfavoriteevil, stupid!"

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

#249

Post by mooreds »

I wish I had internalized this truth:

"Each person you are talking to or walking by is as important to themselves as you are to yourself. Everyone is the hero of their own story."

It is easy to get intellectually, but to really internalize this leads to empathy and understanding.

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

#250

Post by thrownaway954 »

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…

colleagues ARE NOT friends... they are competition. Don't tell a colleague anything personal you wouldn't tell an enemy. I've too have learned this the hard way.
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