My two cents: rather than tell someone to change a word here, a colour shade there, what you should do is give your reasons for WHY. Why is this shade of blue better than the one I chose? Why is a given call to action better than another? That way, your opinion becomes, if not data driven, at least reason or anecdote driven. And that shouldn't demoralize anyone, I should think.
Don't add your 2 cents
131–140 of 248 posts
Re: Don't add your 2 cents
#132I find the advice highly condescending. > Because of that small change, that person no longer feels full ownership of their project. What kind of person is that who 1) thinks the ownership is 100% theirs when working in a team? 2) can't handle a little nitpicking? 3) feels it's less their work just because of a little change? 4) can't defend their work and resist those 2c? This is advice for managing 2 year olds. As…
>This is advice for managing 2 year olds. That's exactly the vibe I got from reading this article. I immediately thought of someone trying to manage super-fragile millennials who wilt and pout without constant encouragement and affirmation. If I submit I project for scrutiny, I want constructive criticism and advice. The goal should to make the project as good as it can be, not manage the feelings of emotionally chal…
But in most workplaces I've worked in this inevitably leads to the manager pulling rank and saying "do this because I told you so."
I've seen this again and again in creative industries, and I'm certainly not a millennial.
A family member of mine worked for a boss (owner of company) who would constantly derail projects with his bullshit suggestions, because he just couldn't restrain himself. Some proportion of his suggestions were actually good, but his belittling and badgering of staff trained them all to do exactly what he asked for, even when that wasn't what he wanted, or what was good.
Re: Don't add your 2 cents
#133Some factors in motivation at work are the level of autonomy, mastery and purpose in your job.
A coworker giving minor feedback is only contributing to your mastery. A boss giving you the same minor feedback is cutting in to your autonomy. The exception is when the purpose is great and sweating every detail is necessary or when the boss is a recognised master of your craft and their feedback is almost always correct and regularly helps you improve.
An example of the first case might be engineering at SpaceX and the second could be Steve Jobs giving engineers and designers product feedback. What I think a lot of people are missing in this thread is that in most situations the purpose is relatively uninspiring and the boss is significantly less skilled than the person she is giving advice to.
Re: Don't add your 2 cents
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
>This is advice for managing 2 year olds. That's exactly the vibe I got from reading this article. I immediately thought of someone trying to manage super-fragile millennials who wilt and pout without constant encouragement and affirmation. If I submit I project for scrutiny, I want constructive criticism and advice. The goal should to make the project as good as it can be, not manage the feelings of emotionally chal…
Perhaps it's like SEO, where all the low-hanging fruit is obvious and sensible, but where further optimization beyond that point is stuff that looks really odd and counter-intuitive, or like it "couldn't possibly" have any impact. Maybe people put out a 1.0 units of effort when you're just a reasonable person, but put out e.g. 1.1 units when you baby them, and so babying them is a "win" in some sense?
There's no objective feedback loop when the boss can use their rank to push through changes, though. I've seen multiple projects run into the ground based on wasting schedule for essentially arbitrary subjective changes backed by rank.
Re: Don't add your 2 cents
#135> because it’s not just one person’s opinion anymore — it’s a command!
Spot on. Exactly the reason for quitting my last job. Boss(manager) comes and adds his 'suggestion' to every task.Even though, I tried to stick to my way to going about the task. He continued to insist that I should give this view a trail run first. After a week or so, When thing go wrong, I'll go back original method and finish the task.
Later, he will complain about I'm being slow to respond to task. When I point out the unnecessary time-wasted due to his suggestion. Now he will backtrack & put it as 'I was only giving suggestions, it was your baby anyway'. It happened 3 or 4 times & I had enough.
Funny thing - During my last day, I took this issue to CEO. To my surprise, he said, 'Yeah, employee has to take my suggestion, since I'm their boss'!
[to those bosses if you are reading this:] - I don't have any issue with trying out your ideas - but when thing go wrong, take the responsibility for your _stupid_ idea.
Re: Don't add your 2 cents
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ap…
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Re: Don't add your 2 cents
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
>For example, you might ask "If you had to improve anything, what would you change?" It's an open-ended question that will encourage your team member to think. Yeah. They think you're too weak-willed to just outright state your opinion and instead passively-aggressively point out what you really mean.
This... I hate being slow rolled to idea or opinion.. If you have criticism about my work come out with it, I am not some delicate little snowflake, if there is better way I want to know.
You have less control over your mind than you believe you do.
Guidance (or "slow rolling") helps with strong/deep learning and enables opportunities for conversation.
If you trust your boss/coworker, considering letting them continue when they start such discussions.
If you don't trust them or feel frustrated/patronised while they're talking, then you have other issues...
Re: Don't add your 2 cents
#138I find the advice highly condescending. > Because of that small change, that person no longer feels full ownership of their project. What kind of person is that who 1) thinks the ownership is 100% theirs when working in a team? 2) can't handle a little nitpicking? 3) feels it's less their work just because of a little change? 4) can't defend their work and resist those 2c? This is advice for managing 2 year olds. As…
I think the nuance of this advice is in the final two paragraphs of the article. If there’s more than "2 cents" worth of stuff that needs to change, then this rule does not apply. But if your contribution is small, just let it go.
Re: Don't add your 2 cents
#139As a manager, I tend to frame my feedback/opinions as 'Have you considered ?' or 'Can you explain your thinking behind this ?' Doing it this way, I get an understanding of their rationale and if I still think my idea is good, I can debate the worthiness of it against my employees reasoning. I feel this approach fosters a 'best idea wins' rather than a 'manager opinion trumps all'. I agree with Derek's implied point t…
I love this, I have taught few people programming and I always do it this way.
My guess is that it also depends on the level of knowledge of the person doing the task. Since they were students, there are small things that they just don's know (for example, adding a class to make it responsive).
But since I'm always challenging my own decisions, I have no problem when someone adds their "two cents" and I have to show why it doesn't work that way (or I learn something new). After a couple of times they realize I know what I'm doing.
Re: Don't add your 2 cents
#140This makes so much sense yet didn't cross my mind.