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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?

#381

Post by jmcqk6 »

Eugeleo wrote: post #147
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, al…

The other way to look at this was pointed out to me in the book 'Being Wrong' by Kathryn Schulz (amazing book, btw).

What is your goal? Is your goal to be right, or is your goal to feel right? Because those are not the same things at all. When we get attached to our ideas and emotional, it's because we believed we were right, and we don't want to give up that feeling.

But if our goal is to actually be right, then it's super easy to recognize when you got it wrong and move forward.

It also helps to stop thinking of things as 'correct' or not, and look at them as a spectrum of 'less wrong' to 'more wrong'. If you're constantly working your way towards being less wrong, then it becomes really easy to abandon ideas that have outgrown their usefulness.

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

#382

Post by Clubber »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #32
Clubber wrote: post #3

Don't be an asshole. I can't stress this one enough. I don't care how smart you are, if you are an asshole, your career is not gonna work out. Try really hard not to be negative, even when there is reason to be. Try not to be openly negative about the company or a particular employee. It's poison for you and your teammates and makes you feel worse. Don't get defensive when someone makes suggestions to your code (I st…

So, what should self worth be based on? "I'm valuable just because I exist?" I'm not suggesting that's what you mean, but to me, that interpretation would be a bit arrogant. Isn't there some value in partially placing our self worth based on other's opinions-- so we can attempt to reproduce/be more of the things others find best in ourselves?

You should determine your own self worth and it should not be reliant on the compliments of others. The problem with being reliant on compliments is what happens if you are in an environment that doesn't give out compliments? Parents and teachers give you compliments to help you along, bosses usually don't or it's not often. On the flip side, what happens if you are in an environment that gives out half hearted, polite, or just plain fake compliments? Does your self worth get artificially inflated?

Your paycheck is the compliment and that's all your self worth should require outside of your own self assessment. (Wow this started to get philosophical quick).

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

#383

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

plutonorm wrote: post #344
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…

I think everyone is being a little rude and reactionary here. People enjoy what they enjoy, it's not ok to demand that they change. Suppose you lived in a world where everyone was obsessed with Pokemon. No one talked about anything else. Everyone around you had the mind of a 10 year old, in terms of intellectual and emotional development. How would you feel, could you really feel like you belonged? There are people o…

The reaction here is more over the idea of "unknown unknowns". This poster doesn't demonstrate the self awareness to even suspect the average person might have something to teach them which, rather than super intelligence, belies a lack of emotional maturity.

Pointing to arbitrary metrics like phd reinforces this initial read. But at the end it's a numbers game; is a 6th sigma super intelligence on this board venting to the void with a throwaway, or is it an average/below average intelligence person who for one reason or another is emotionally stunted to the point of lacking both introspection or empathy.

I've, for one, seen far more people in the second camp (hell, there was a time when I struggled with identity where I was one, saved from eternal shame on the internet by the philosophy "lurk more"), than the first.

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

#385

Post by james_s_tayler »

profalseidol wrote: post #216
james_s_tayler wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you wake - i'd love to read it too. I want to second the opinion that learning to build consensus is a very, very valuable skill. It's how a lot things really get done. I've never gone so far as to document things extensively or really need to, but it sounds like you learned some very interesting tactics on how to build consensus effectively because you were forced to. Not a fun position to be in, but if you cou…

One advice I've read/heard is to make sure to give everyone a chance to give his/her input and address any concerns. It should be done individually so everyone has space. Should a decision be made that was not favorable to one individual, at least it was discussed and was given the chance to give his/her opinion.

Yeah. It's definitely something that's worth remember is to ask the quiet ones.

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

#386

Post by gHosts »

notjustanymike wrote: post #258
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…

Four levels of decision making: Consensus: everyone agrees. Most time consuming. Vote: have two or more appealing options. Majority wins, but everyone is relatively happy with the outcome. Consult: get everyone's input, but ultimately you decide. Dictate: you decide, no external input. Fastest. If you start a meeting by outlining which process you intend to use it helps. All are valid approaches, and depend on the co…

Consensus is NOT about everyone agrees on the solution... it's about everyone agrees that they have been heard and understood.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7282

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

#387

Post by vivekseth »

gHosts wrote: post #386
notjustanymike wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four levels of decision making: Consensus: everyone agrees. Most time consuming. Vote: have two or more appealing options. Majority wins, but everyone is relatively happy with the outcome. Consult: get everyone's input, but ultimately you decide. Dictate: you decide, no external input. Fastest. If you start a meeting by outlining which process you intend to use it helps. All are valid approaches, and depend on the co…

Consensus is NOT about everyone agrees on the solution... it's about everyone agrees that they have been heard and understood. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7282

That link defines what the IETF means by "rough consensus".

In this context, I think it just refers to "general agreement".

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consensus

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

#388

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

plutonorm wrote: post #344
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…

I think everyone is being a little rude and reactionary here. People enjoy what they enjoy, it's not ok to demand that they change. Suppose you lived in a world where everyone was obsessed with Pokemon. No one talked about anything else. Everyone around you had the mind of a 10 year old, in terms of intellectual and emotional development. How would you feel, could you really feel like you belonged? There are people o…

Is it generally true that people of extreme intelligence have richer lives in terms of emotional and spiritual development?

This is definitely not the case in my circle, where the MENSA candidates tend to sound a little bit like the Throw away comment, and if they don't have outright disdain for typical human connections and spiritual pursuits, they definitely don't spend the average amount of time on emotional or spiritual development.

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

#389

Post by jmts »

celticmusic wrote: post #359
jmts wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admitting I'm wrong or that I screwed up ... 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. Avoiding judgement of those that have screwed up or have done something wrong, and simply working with them to correct it goes hand-in-hand with this. By the t…

depends on the screwup. You can separate them into the categories of reasonable and unreasonable. pushing to production at 5pm on a friday is not a reasonable screwup, and I absolutely will let you know if get called in to fix something that should have waited until Monday.

Sure, there are absolutely varying degrees of screw up. You can make the same argument for anything. But for any position there is usually a general rule, and any number of exceptions.

The point here is that the general rule for human error should tend toward compassion, because the vast majority of mistakes people make are not that serious. In my world at least it seems that we prefer to tend toward punishment instead.

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

#390

Post by kiliantics »

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…

It sounds like Carnegie teaches similar lessons a book I read earlier this year. Marshall Rosenberg's "Nonviolent Communication: a Language of Life" was one of the most important things I've ever read. It's written by a clinical psychologist-turned-peacemaker. He prescribes a simple method for conducting conversations based on principles of empathy and compassion and gives many examples of its successful use in diffusing conflicts from interpersonal relationships to civil wars. The framework is also helpful for internal dialogues and coming to terms with personal issues.
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