Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career? • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by ak39 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

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 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 mask of civility and charm when needed, but all I really want is to talk to deeply self-aware people struggling with the boundaries of human knowledge."

Yikes.

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

#272

Post by wesammikhail » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

NeutralCrane wrote: post #254

lookathrwaway wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No offense, but I mean this, earnestly: get over yourself. If you talk to a person, and the conversation is dull, they might be a boring person. If most of the people you talk to seem boring, then you are the boring person . You bemoan that you find almost everyone a "paper shell". And yet you are the one who has restricted your opinion of interesting people and topics with a PhD attached to it. You dismiss pursuits…

Not sure how this is helpful to the parent comment.

> If you talk to a person, and the conversation is dull, they might be a boring person. If most of the people you talk to seem boring, then you are the boring person.

And I don´t really understand how you can come to that conclusion. That´s like 2+2 = duck

In fact,

> have limited relevant context outside your very limited definition of what is interesting

If the person in question has a limited (according to you) definition of what is interesting then asking him/her to "expand" the notion of what is "interesting" to match or be as "encompassing" as your own definition is not helpful. It isn´t even a viable solution really because you are not the same person.

And one more thing:

> You dismiss pursuits that have spanned all of human history like sports, family, food, religion as "pedestrian"

Some people are not interested in those pursuits and they are, in comparison, very "pedestrian" in terms of complexity. Now I enjoy all things related to food for example, but I would stab myself in the ears if I had to talk to people about their eating habits for more than 30 seconds once every 13 years.

Some topics are simple, others are more complex. The parent comment clearly enjoys pursuits that are of higher complexity and feels as if people in general do not share that interest and hence to him they seem boring. Asking him to change his personality and what he "enjoys" just so that he can fit in is so absurd to me because it hints at the idea that you should surrender your individuality in order to fit in with the group. An idea that I don´t really appreciate all that much!

Edit: and adding no offense at the beginning of your post does not make it less offensive. It just makes seem passive-aggressive :P

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

#273

Post by ak39 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

TheArcane wrote: post #266

NeutralCrane wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense, but I mean this, earnestly: get over yourself. If you talk to a person, and the conversation is dull, they might be a boring person. If most of the people you talk to seem boring, then you are the boring person . You bemoan that you find almost everyone a "paper shell". And yet you are the one who has restricted your opinion of interesting people and topics with a PhD attached to it. You dismiss pursuits…

This is the only proper response to OP's throwaway rant. If you find a problem with most people you meet, the problem's probably with you.

Well, there are only two ways to respond to such comments:

1. The inky "proper" way (as you say)

2. Complete and utter lack of words to respond.

Is there anything in between? Doubt it.

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

#274

Post by asdfman123 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #213

For the life of me, one thing I struggle with is pointing out issues that a non-technical person is causing. I think for the most part, engineers and the like are used to having their work critiqued and it's not a big deal to receive that sort of feedback; so being direct is the most efficient and frictionless path. I continuously struggle with how to present that to a non-technical person. Being direct almost always…

If you can find an answer to that that works you'll double the success rate of software projects.

Some stakeholders and managers don't understand software, the importance of clean code, and how insidious feature creep can be. They are used to a world where strict deadlines are necessary to keep people accountable.

There's no changing people like that. There's only choosing your battles and doing your best to (politely) contain them.

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

#275

Post by motohagiography » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

technofiend wrote: post #55

I hate to admit it but one of my bosses taught me that building consensus is a double edged sword and it can be used as weapon. Up until working with him I naively assumed we could all get in a room, hash out our technical differences and agree to a solution. That only works when everyone is (from your perspective) not a bad actor. But how do you deal with an Executive Director who will bald-faced lie and say whateve…

Another vote for following it up. These kind of people usually have one tool that works well in that environment because nobody anticipates their level of mendacity.

We should start identifying and naming these ploys in categories. The tactics are so diverse and situation specific that the list is too long to be more useful than a bunch of grievances, but their logic that identifies the opportunity to apply the tactic is going to be a very small set.

Is it just asserting counterfactuals and betting on the agreeableness of others and your power relationship to them to become implicated in it?

e.g. 1. "You're going to have this by thursday." Repeat until people stop challenging you because you are unreasonable or insane. 2. tell a third party, "X told me he would have this by thursday." 3. "If you don't have this by thursday Third Party will hold you accountable and I will not help you."

The play seems legitimate because you are driving an issue by getting bigger players to have a stake in the outcome, and making yourself the broker between that power and the delivery team.

As awful as it is, some of this is just the lot in life of being on the delivery side instead of the management side.

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

#276

Post by sjg007 » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

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…

You can dive pretty deep into sports: strategy, execution, training, statistics etc...

You can dive pretty deep into kids: educational, behavioral, development etc...

You can dive pretty deep into wine: flavors, style, type, region, economics, science.

You can dive pretty deep into religion, especially if you are interested in the "examined" life. A bunch of philosophers did this, one famous example is Nietzsche.

Make it a challenge to find out one interesting thing about every new person you meet.

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

#277

Post by tomxor » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

This is going to sound absurdly simple: empathise more often.

Everyone can do it, but not everyone does it. If you make an effort to actually imagine yourself in others shoes, your boss and your colleagues, and then feel it... Do this especially whenever any negative emotions or uncertainty appear in response to a colleagues actions or words.

I think all of the so called "people skills" are just side effects by comparison. If you empathise, it's genuine, and so called people-skills will emerge naturally. This also goes beyond the mere appearance of people skills, because it will make you better understand the needs behind the demands of others, and make it more likely they take the effort to understand yours when they see you understand theirs (subconsciously).

Like I said, as a premise, it's absurdly simple, but in practice it's a big deal.

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

#278

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#279

Post by phry » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

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…

You sound like a sociopath.

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

#280

Post by kaitai » Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

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…

To find interestingness in others is a skill you can develop. There are things of interest in every topic.

Have you ever really tasted wine, with others? tried to figure out the different components? I had a friend tell me a few days ago that grape tannins and oak tannins are felt in different parts of the mouth (tongue vs cheeks); I'll have to check into this. I know for a fact that I taste wine differently than my husband -- we taste sweetness differently and bitterness differently. Why is that? Can it be quantified? What are the dimensions along which you'd want to get subjective ratings if you wanted to map peoples' tastes? We could have a party and taste a bunch of wines and rate them and then do a singular value decomposition to find similarity between different tasters and between different wines; maybe then we could form a hypothesis, especially if we had some chemical data...

Listen, if you want to get nerdy, you can make anything nerdy. Kids = child development, Chomsky's hypotheses about syntax, the fact that babies' noses are designed to get squashed in when they fall on their faces and then designed to pop out (if your kid's nose doesn't pop out you can gently pull it into shape). Evolution, the microbiome, whatever. Gardening -> mycorrhizae, the game theory or economics of mycorrhizae, pollinators, seed banking, GMOs, edible plants, what is a weed. And there is so much in recent science that is bearing out what "uneducated" but knowledgeable practitioners have been saying for years. Maybe it would help to consider your "boring people" as practitioners of arts that you have not been educated in. Or you can work backward from their actions and thoughts to uncover the assumptions by which they construct their worldview, and then put it into a larger geopolitical context.

Or maybe you're just burned out and tired, and need to recover. Your curiosity antennae are turned off.

Good luck.