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

281–290 of 438 posts

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

#281

Post by lidHanteyk »

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…

Use geometric reasoning. If you expect every manager to spend a fortieth of their time on each of their (forty?) direct reports' projects, then that would imply that across two levels, there's only about a minute of consideration, and for three levels, less than two seconds.

On the other hand, maybe this explains why upper management is always so disconnected.

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

#282

Post by asdfman123 »

criddell wrote: post #240
analog31 wrote: post #10

An old saying among musicians: "Be careful how you treat people on your way up, because you'll meet them again on your way down." Compliment other people and good ideas. I've become conscious about things like mansplaining and talking over people. Don't let technology get in the way of human interaction. When you do something offensive (it happens, even if rarely), apologize.

> An old saying among musicians: "Be careful how you treat people on your way up, because you'll meet them again on your way down." Speaking of musicians, I wish I had learned to play music. Every place I've worked there have been some very talented musicians working there and I wish I had the skills to play with them. I currently keep an electric guitar in my office and picking it up and playing (unamplified) is a g…

It's not hard to get good at an instrument, but how you practice is the difference between accelerating skill and perpetual struggle.

Don't "noodle around" as a beginner, because practice makes permanent and good form is everything.

Do you want to be actually good and not just okay? Take weekly lessons, follow online tutorials carefully, and practice at least 30-45 minutes 6 days a week, giving it an absolute laser-like focus. (More practice is always better, and preferably in singular sessions, but that's the minimum and it's enough to make progress.) Focus on fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. Treat good form like religious gospel and don't deviate from it, even if it's easier that way.

And since you already have played for a while, you're going to have to spend the first few months of practice painstaking unlearning the bad habits you've undoubtedly collected, which is not enjoyable because it will feel like you're moving backwards.

Do that for a year and people will compliment you on how much better you've gotten. After 3 years you'll be good enough for any semi-decent cover band in town. In 5-10 you'll be better than 95-99% of people who own a guitar and know how to make sounds on it.

tl;dr: it's totally possible to be good at an instrument, but it takes discipline and you have to be very intentional about it.

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

#283

Post by blaser-waffle »

Technical: I wish I learned Perl and Python earlier. Scripting is powerful.

Non-Technical: Learning to speak the Will-to-Power language of executives; coded Power-Talk and all that. Once you start getting to the Senior Manager / Director / VP level whole battles are won and lost based on being able to play their games. I got burned a couple of times before I caught on, and lament not picking it up sooner.

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

#284

Post by unoti »

1. “Shooting from the hip” or saying exactly what’s on your mind isn’t always a virtue.

1b. Seize every opportunity to give an honest compliment

2. Look for a way for everyone to win.

3. Build people up and help them succeed.

4. Pick your battles, and only engage in conflict when it’s truly important.

5. You may get upset, but the character you play doesn’t.

6. It only takes a moment to make a good impression but it can take years to overcome a bad impression.

Books:

- Influence by Caldini

- growth mindset

- How to win friends and influence people

- the war of art

- 48 laws of power

- 50 rules for aging

- the like switch

- what every BODY is saying (book on reading body language)

- the prince (Machiavelli)

- art of war (if you only get one idea from this book, it’s that the great general wins without fighting a single battle)

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

#285

Post by adonnjohn »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #283

Technical: I wish I learned Perl and Python earlier. Scripting is powerful. Non-Technical: Learning to speak the Will-to-Power language of executives; coded Power-Talk and all that. Once you start getting to the Senior Manager / Director / VP level whole battles are won and lost based on being able to play their games. I got burned a couple of times before I caught on, and lament not picking it up sooner.

Any suggestions or recommendations for those attempting to improve those nontechnicals at earlier stages in their career?

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

#286

Post by asdfman123 »

manasgarg wrote: post #60

Accepting people as they are. I haven’t found anything more powerful when it comes to interacting with people. I worked my way through personality types, influence, negotiations and a bunch of other so called soft skills. Wholehearted acceptance of people; their motivations and fears; their habits and aspirations. When I am able to exercise this superpower (which does not happen often), I am able to open them up and…

Man, that feels so true to me. If someone shows me that level of genuine kindness I'll go to the ends of the earth to help them. I'll give them my full, unwavering support.

I find often when I've been difficult and uncooperative it's because people have been not quite so accepting.

I guess I've typically felt like the "weird kid" (as many of us technical people have growing up) and if you make me feel like that again I really, really don't like it.

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

#287

Post by quacked »

cbanek wrote: post #42
sprior wrote: post #36

Never never never ask someone at work when she's due unless she mentions it first, I don't care if she looks like she's about to deliver a basketball.

I'm having trouble remembering the quote, but it was something like: "Don't ask a woman if she's pregnant unless you see a baby is coming out of her right then."

I believe that's Dave Barry.

“You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.”

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

#288

Post by EGreg »

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…

This is one way: by having an active goal for listening

https://www.holstee.com/blogs/reflections/being-interested-i...

Try to explore a person like you’d explore another world. Consider that this person had just as much time as you in the day, and they filled it up with other stuff. Why did they choose to focus on X, what do they find so appealing about X, what nuances or locations do you not know but they have intimately experienced?

Adult people, after all, did a lot in their life. Why not get new perspectives?

It also seems you don’t do a lot of physical activity, sports, or developing yourself in that way. You may motivate yourself by looking up to people in an area you truly would like to improve in.

“We are all idiots, just on different subjects” - who was that?

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

#289

Post by ryeguy_24 »

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…

Sounds like you assign value to people who are pushing on the boundaries of human knowledge and/or have a PhD. That’s fine but many other people have many other ways of valuing people and relationships (for example people who value helping people). My wife doesn’t have a PhD nor has she made any groundbreaking leaps forward in human knowledge but my interest in her and the immense value I place on her in my life is something that cannot be quantified. And separately, there are some amazing PhDs out there but I’ve also met tons of PhD that weren’t anything close to impressive. And conversely, have met some people in my industry that could run intellectual circles around other PhDs (seriously).

I think you may get more out of life with a more open mindset. Things may surprise you. That being said, you value what you value, we don’t have to like it or agree with it.

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

#290

Post by blaser-waffle »

wesammikhail wrote: post #272
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…

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 per…

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

Your post sounds passive aggressive, mate. Parent's post just sounds direct, bordering on blunt.

Post reply on HN