Don't add your 2 cents • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't add your 2 cents

#111

Post by Hoasi » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:56 AM UTC

iopq wrote: post #78

unabst wrote: post #59

Huge Sivers fan! With that said, I'd take this advice way further. > The boss’s opinion is no better than anyone else’s. All opinions are no better. Does not matter who. Throw out opinions altogether. In America we are obsessed with "our right to our opinion" and somehow have confabulated this to equal our individuality, our exceptionalism, and our success. We're unique to begin with, exceptional is only a hard earne…

In terms of design, everything is an opinion. You can't prove one design is better than the other... unless you ask for multiple people's opinion. It boils down to opinion in the end.

You can't prove a design is better than another but you can measure it. You can use beta releases or focus group and other methods. Abstract things like feelings and intuition tell you one design is better than another. Relying on intuition might be what works best if you are alone. But there are also concrete signs: user feedback, churn rate, etc. Although we can agree that the best design is not always the most successful. In the long run good design lasts.

Re: Don't add your 2 cents

#112

Post by hellofunk » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:59 AM UTC

Sorry, but this is just lame. A manager has a job to do, too, and whether or not they do it well, it is within their prerogative to add comments or suggestions, even if small, if they think it will improve a product.

Put yourself in the manager's position (which ironically this article seems to attempt to do). Go further, suppose it is your company, not just your department. Are you going to let a product ship when something minor could be improved to make it even better? A sloppy manager might. Or one who doesn't care. This article almost seems to suggest that managers should care less.

Attention to detail is what often separates good from excellent.

Re: Don't add your 2 cents

#113

Post by ZoFreX » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:59 AM UTC

fmavituna wrote: post #25

If your team cannot take your feedback just like taking feedback from their colleagues, cannot argue with you or veto your idea easily with a legitimate response, take everything you said as a "command" then you have failed as a manager anyway. I assume Derek's advice makes sense for Korean culture where manager and team dynamics are different.

I've seen this happen over and over again in American culture. One of my most common pieces of feedback to managers centers on this, in fact. Time and time again I see managers who _think_ they are able to give feedback as "one of the team" and that they aren't "the boss" or giving people orders... but when you speak to their reports, they are interpreting it as orders from the boss. Even if you produce documents declaring your workplace to have a "flat" structure, people tend to treat any feedback from the person who signs off on their paycheques as commands.

Re: Don't add your 2 cents

#114

Post by thenomad » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:59 AM UTC

torrent-of-ions wrote: post #103

Ugh. This reeks of "safe space" nonsense. Part of working in a team is receiving comments and criticism from others. If you take these negatively and as attacks to you, rather than collective construction towards the final goal, then you have a problem and need to consider changing job. I find that when I design something I become accustomed to early design choices and then eventually become blind to them. I need som…

You may be missing the authority dynamic here.

If your co-worker looks at a designed object and says "needs more blue, change the word "giant"", that's feedback which you can then incorporate, but can also reject if you think it doesn't help the project.

If your direct boss says the same thing, and you don't have the understanding with them that you are totally free to ignore their feedback, you'll have somewhere between strong pressure and absolute requirement to implement their changes.

At that point, the pressure in many ways is actually on your boss.

If your boss has come up with good changes that you agree with, you'll probably be OK with it if you're as positive toward criticism as you say. (And if, say, your boss hasn't chosen the time when you've already been working on this thing all day, it needs to go out in an hour, and you thought you were ready to go home.)

But if your boss's changes are ones you don't agree with, and you do feel forced to implement them, then you'll probably start getting annoyed.

If that happens a lot you're likely to, as you say, change jobs. And if you happen to be very skilled, that's a problem for your organisation - one that could have been avoided if your boss had avoided dropping in his $0.02, or at least had chosen another way to do it.

Re: Don't add your 2 cents

#115

Post by torrent-of-ions » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 10:00 AM UTC

luke_s wrote: post #106

torrent-of-ions wrote: post #103

Ugh. This reeks of "safe space" nonsense. Part of working in a team is receiving comments and criticism from others. If you take these negatively and as attacks to you, rather than collective construction towards the final goal, then you have a problem and need to consider changing job. I find that when I design something I become accustomed to early design choices and then eventually become blind to them. I need som…

Well, I was going to downvote, but figured it's better to comment. > Ugh. This reeks of "safe space" nonsense. What? I have very little idea what you are talking about, so I looked it up on wikipedia: "In educational institutions, safe-space (or safe space), safer-space, and positive space originally were terms used to indicate that a teacher, educational institution or student body does not tolerate anti-LGBT violen…

> > Ugh. This reeks of "safe space" nonsense.

> What? I have very little idea what you are talking about, so I looked it up on wikipedia: "In educational institutions, safe-space (or safe space), safer-space, and positive space originally were terms used to indicate that a teacher, educational institution or student body does not tolerate anti-LGBT violence, harassment or hate speech, thereby creating a safe place for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students."

It was originally something like that but "safe spaces" just turned into echo chambers where everyone is only allowed to agree and encourage people and dissenting opinions are considered "unsafe".

Re: Don't add your 2 cents

#116

Post by torrent-of-ions » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 10:05 AM UTC

thenomad wrote: post #114

torrent-of-ions wrote: post #103

Ugh. This reeks of "safe space" nonsense. Part of working in a team is receiving comments and criticism from others. If you take these negatively and as attacks to you, rather than collective construction towards the final goal, then you have a problem and need to consider changing job. I find that when I design something I become accustomed to early design choices and then eventually become blind to them. I need som…

You may be missing the authority dynamic here. If your co-worker looks at a designed object and says "needs more blue, change the word "giant"", that's feedback which you can then incorporate, but can also reject if you think it doesn't help the project. If your direct boss says the same thing, and you don't have the understanding with them that you are totally free to ignore their feedback, you'll have somewhere bet…

OK, I agree that the boss's opinion is different. But then this should be more about how a boss can deliver criticism in a way in which it is not taken as a command. Because the article is pretty much saying that the boss cannot offer any criticism at all which is ridiculous.

Re: Don't add your 2 cents

#117

Post by jnbiche » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 10:09 AM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #93

thesz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The open question does not always work. I'd say it never works, even. If I take "coaching" attitude, I will take attitude of sports coach - observe, measure and explain why corrective action is needed. The action itself is a choice, mostly, but manager and coach should present a basis for it. Continuing my my rant, I emphasize that manager and coach are external to the team, they view performance from outside (and of…

I thinks specific questions would work well. To use the bad boss example: > I like it! Really good. Maybe just a darker shade of blue there, and change the word ‘giant’ to ‘huge’. Other than that, it’s great! Let's change this to: > I like it! Really good. Can you briefly work me through the design process behind it? I'm particularly interested in how you settled on the colours over there, and your ideas behind the w…

>> I like it! Really good. Maybe just a darker shade of blue there, and change the word ‘giant’ to ‘huge’. Other than that, it’s great! >Let's change this to: >> I like it! Really good. Can you briefly work me through the design process behind it? I'm particularly interested in how you settled on the colours over there, and your ideas behind the word 'giant'.

Take note, all ye entrepreneurs! This advice is just as applicable for software engineers as for designers, extremely so. So many issues could be avoided with people I do contracts for if they just approached issues in this way.

Usually, it's "change this, do that". So I have to reply with "OK, well, we could do that but it'll take 20 days and cost $3000 dollars". The entrepreneur, displeased yet unwilling to pay that much or give up that much time: "hrmph. well...".

Automatically, something that could have been a collaborative process has been turned into a confrontation. If he/she had instead approached the problem in the way you recommended, I perhaps could have found out what was driving the desire for change, and recommended a cheaper/faster solution to the problem. Usually, I'll end up in that place eventually, but by that time what could have been a collaborative process has turned confrontational, with my client thinking "ugh, programmers" and me thinking "ugh, idea guys".

That said, this has given me some ideas about how to respond in this types of situations. Perhaps with something like, "can I walk you through the reasons why I did/chose this?". Might be worth trying.

Re: Don't add your 2 cents

#118

Post by wccrawford » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 10:10 AM UTC

luke_s wrote: post #106

torrent-of-ions wrote: post #103

Ugh. This reeks of "safe space" nonsense. Part of working in a team is receiving comments and criticism from others. If you take these negatively and as attacks to you, rather than collective construction towards the final goal, then you have a problem and need to consider changing job. I find that when I design something I become accustomed to early design choices and then eventually become blind to them. I need som…

Well, I was going to downvote, but figured it's better to comment. > Ugh. This reeks of "safe space" nonsense. What? I have very little idea what you are talking about, so I looked it up on wikipedia: "In educational institutions, safe-space (or safe space), safer-space, and positive space originally were terms used to indicate that a teacher, educational institution or student body does not tolerate anti-LGBT violen…

That's how it started, but now anything negative is met with "This is supposed to be a safe space!" whining. Unsurprisingly, some people either can't or won't make the distinction between things that matter (harassment) and things that don't (words like 'moist' or references to a phobia they have such as 'spiders').

You can imagine that it gets rather annoying to be told that you can't say "moist" in some place because it's supposed to be a 'safe place'.

These are extreme examples, but you get the idea.

Re: Don't add your 2 cents

#119

Post by ww520 » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 10:14 AM UTC

torrent-of-ions wrote: post #103

Ugh. This reeks of "safe space" nonsense. Part of working in a team is receiving comments and criticism from others. If you take these negatively and as attacks to you, rather than collective construction towards the final goal, then you have a problem and need to consider changing job. I find that when I design something I become accustomed to early design choices and then eventually become blind to them. I need som…

It's not safe space nonsense. It's power play. Acceptance to the change suggestion from boss is often based on power rather than merit. Managers often is oblivious to this. The blog simply reminds managers to be aware of the potential pitfall.

Re: Don't add your 2 cents

#120

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 10:15 AM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #112

Sorry, but this is just lame. A manager has a job to do, too, and whether or not they do it well, it is within their prerogative to add comments or suggestions, even if small, if they think it will improve a product. Put yourself in the manager's position (which ironically this article seems to attempt to do). Go further, suppose it is your company, not just your department. Are you going to let a product ship when s…

I think the point is to avoid getting lost in the forest because you want to climb every tree.

As part of a leadership training program I once did, we had a Q&A with an executive where we could ask him anything. One of the questions was "What was the most surprising thing about going from an individual contributor to a manager to an executive?" His answer was, "I learned that as you get higher up in the organization, oftentimes you need to seek a good solution rather than the best solution."

Yes, this means that the product will be less excellent than it could be. Anyone who has used a big company's product can tell you that this is what actually happens. And yes, this leaves openings for big companies to get replaced by hungry little startups. But the alternative is for the big company to function like a startup that has a few thousand uncommitted people wandering around drawing a salary while providing input. Imagine working under those conditions as a founder; you won't get very much done, and people who work under those conditions in a big company don't get much done either.

If you want the product to be excellent, go quit and make an excellent (if minimal) product. If you want to work with a lot of other people, then let them do their jobs.