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Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?
411–420 of 438 posts
Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?
#412Having mentors is so so important. My advice to me younger, find the right mentor to follow
Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?
#413Be yourself not who you think they want you to be.
Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?
#414Earlier 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…
> There are people out there who are so smart that this how they feel about the people around them.
Nah. There are insufficiently socialized people who use this as a self-defense mechanism. Getting good at people is hard work, too, and there's not a lot of room to be sympathetic towards somebody who implicitly shit on that effort because of how so very very smart they think they are.
I know plenty of folks who are Actually That Smart who somehow have little trouble having a conversation with we mere mortals. They're happier, too. And sometimes--wait for it--they too learn something in a conversation. If GGP is actually as much of a bright light as his post wants us to think, surely interacting with we mere mortals in a way that doesn't clank is a solvable problem.
Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
If everyone followed that advice, nobody would ever express their opinion and nobody would ever say anything negative. Being able to critique things is really important. It's essential for identifying problems, developing good ideas, and improving systems and products and well as people's personal development. You say to explain how things could be improved rather than talk about the problems with them. The problem w…
Pixar use a technique called "plussing"[1] where any critique given is framed as a positive constructive addition. Eg you accept something for what it is and suggest a way to improve it rather than saying it's bad or wrong. I've tried to use it, and continue to try, but it's hard work. When I manage to do it properly it works very well. [1] https://intenseminimalism.com/2015/pixars-plussing-technique...
Possibly better source: https://web.archive.org/web/20150303123748/http://www.thinkl...
Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?
#416I 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.
If evolution has figured out that cooperation is the best strategy, who am I to think competing with everyone will get me far?
Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can help reduce jealousy between colleagues. How would someone feel knowing one of their other colleagues who just so happened to be a better negotiator is getting paid possibly much more than them, despite apparently similar skills/work?
So the solution is to bypass some potential jealousy through mandating secrecy, instead of making the pays more fair? Sounds like a weak argument to justify possible exploitation. In my opinion, there's an unfair information asymmetry, as the company knows how much everyone is getting paid. I've worked in government jobs where everyone's pays are easily known, and there is still some (smallish) amount of jealousy bec…
> mandating secrecy
That's unnecessary. If you've a gram of experience you should realise it's generally in your own best interests not to tell your colleagues what you're on.
> justify possible exploitation.
If you don't like the pay, get another job. I don't see where the exploitation comes from. Unless you're suggesting people who don't like the pay can't get a job, can't negotiate and should for some reason therefore be excused of the need to do either with strict pay grades? I can't see how that would work across the whole market, and unless there is pay fixing then market forces will prevent it working.
Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?
#418“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…
What really struck me about this book is just how obvious almost everything in it seemed. I guess I found it pretty boring precisely because it's such good advice (since the best ideas usually sound obvious once you hear them).
Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?
#419There's lots of freedom and flexibility in things that are okay:
- Being trustworthy and getting along with workmates is sometimes more valuable than being a favorite / teacher's pet to a manager. You ideally want to be amicable with both.
- Say nice things about your colleagues when they accomplish things
- It's okay during interviews to ask for time to show and tell projects, talk about your experiences. There's no rule written in stone to follow their format to the point you can't showcase strengths directly related to the job description.
Things that you can do that don't help you always:
- Being proactive: Taking responsibility for preventative things when not asked to. I fixed / averted many headaches that have gone totally unacknowledged over the past decade+. Here's the thing: I'd feel dishonest / unprofessional to not be proactive if something is breaking CI loops, typings, etc. It's hard for colleagues / managers to see the value until you wait for it to be a blocker.
This is frustrating to me, because I haven't found the solution to reasoning about it. I don't like the idea of waiting for a problem to rear it's head and all developers are blocked by a problem.
Things to not do:
- Don't bring up any political discussion with colleagues, including outside work. No matter how moderate, harmless you think your viewpoint is. It can only do damage to you, never help.
- Even in unfair situations, e.g. it's untenable and you need to end the relationship, to take the route to ending it amicably as possible. Say you're moving to the next place.
Whenever in doubt / under stress: default to being professional as possible.
Re: Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?
#420These are the books and resources that have been of the most use to me:
# Assertiveness:
Alberti, R. E., & Emmons, M. (1995). Your Perfect Right. San Luis Obispo, California: Impact Publishers.
Paterson, R. J. (2000). The assertiveness workbook: How to express your ideas and stand up for yourself at work and in relationships. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
# Anger Management:
McKay, M. & Rogers, R. (2000). The Anger Control Workbook: Simple, innovative techniques for managing anger and developing healthier ways of relating. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
# Social & Emotional Intelligence:
Bilsker, D., Gilbert, M., & Samra, J. (2009). Antidepressant Skills at Work: Dealing with mood problems in the workplace. Retrieved from http://www.comh.ca/antidepressant-skills/work/workbook/pages....
McKay, M., Davis, M., & Fanning, P. (2009). Messages: The Communication Skills Book. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
# Some High Level Take Home Messages
- negotiate your own behavior
- everyone is doing the best they can
- communication is goal oriented
- humans make more sense when we understand the hidden variables
- it's possible to use social skills and to be authentic
I built https://socialarts.club as a side-project for my own use; it might someday be useful to others once I have added privacy measures.