A guide to difficult conversations • Hacker News Board

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#201

Post by everdrive » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #134

everdrive wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost any situation where we're trying to design a functional solution to a technical problem. I actually used to have a phrase for this: "You can't build a rocket ship with emotions." If my goal were really to successfully build a rocket ship (as noted in the maxim) then I'd be delighted to be proven wrong. Every correction would get us closer to our goal. Alternately, if someone were interested in empathizing with…

You seem to be conflating "delivering criticim" with "hurting feelings", and I don't understand where that's coming from. Would you be delighted to be proven wrong if for every mistake your boss or peer told you that you were an incompetent idiot who doesn't belong on the team? Would that make you want to do more work? Would that make you feel comfortable proposing an idea that you aren't 100% sure ir correct and alr…

I think this is a fair criticism, and I agree that if my boss publicly called me out and insulted me, I'd be pretty discouraged. I might not have made my point very well, but I certainly didn't mean to imply that being outright caustic was ok, either. I only meant to say that it's still possible offend and arrive at the wrong decision by employing NVC.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#202

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #94

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ This is what NVC does. Notice how this person is attempting to sound authentic, genuine, helpful, and hopeful. But also notice that they are very subtly positioning themselves as someone who has learned some Very Big Life Lessons, whereas who they are talking to has not. And then they close off. With small sentences. For. Dramatic. Effect. See how wise they are?

I'm not sure I follow. From my minimal understanding NVC is about expressing how things make one feel rather than telling someone else the direction in which their life will go. kodz4's comment didn't mention the word "I" and was all about "you". Thus I don't see what it has to do with NVC at all. Can you explain?

It was about NVC because that was explicitly the subject. It doesn't use NVC (which isn't really applicable to the context), though; the grandparent's reasoning seems to be:

1. kodz4 is advocating NVC

2. kodz4 is being arrogant and condescending;

3. Therefore, NVC makes you arrogant and condescending,

4. And so, finally, you should reject the recommendation to use NVC.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#203

Post by elhudy » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

Zelphyr wrote: post #160

leesalminen wrote: post #126

I’m generally a good conversation participant, but this week has made me second guess myself. My father-in-law is currently hospitalized after his heart stopped this weekend. He’s currently in an induced coma. Brain damage is a foregone conclusion at this point and they’re unsure if he will ever regain consciousness. My wife and I happened to be on vacation in Costa Rica when this happened. We hopped on the next avai…

Don't give up on your brother-in-law. He's making seemingly irrational decisions but look at it from is point of view. His father may be dying. Regardless of his relationship with his father, this is a very difficult thing to go through. And then he suddenly has a lot of responsibility placed on him. He's having to answer questions he's never been asked before much less having given much thought to. He's being told t…

Instead of making space, what are your thoughts on OP leveraging these perceptions to find common ground? E.g., "We understand that we need you to be the man of the family, and appreciate that you have stepped up to be strong for all of us. We would like to support you in doing so and feel that our greatest assistance would be in helping to facilitate communications for you. Is this something you're able to allow?"

Such a communication should probably come from someone other than OP since he's on bad terms following the assault. Thoughts?

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#204

Post by tashian » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

scruple wrote: post #191

chroma wrote: post #156

Calling it "nonviolent communication" is a brilliant marketing move, as it implies that not conversing in this manner is violent. I've seen this style many times in my career, and it always comes off as patronizing. It also tends to be used far more often than recommended. Instead of being deployed in difficult conversations, it gets used in every one-on-one. My guess is that NVC ends up like power posing[1]: pop-psy…

I think there's a (small) subset of people who can pull it (NVC) off but it requires them to have had the empathy in the first place. You can't just manufacture empathy in a way where it passes the sniff test. As an example, a quick Google search just now for "nonviolent communication empathy" turns up an article from 2011 at the "Center for Non-Violent Communication" titled "How to DO empathy." I couldn't possibly r…

So true. I agree that you can't pull it out of a hat or learn it from reading a blog post. But, I believe it is learnable. I've gone from being a person who had no words for my emotions because I literally could not feel them most of the time, to being able to really bring heart and mind together and really speak from that place. I didn't learn it from a self-help book though, I learned it through practice and a lot of personal work, and I was lucky to have some very good guidance along the way.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#205

Post by jillesvangurp » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #106

It's funny, his very first paragraph hints at what I've found to be the most effective way to handle difficult conversations: "All my biggest regrets as a founder are around not having difficult conversations sooner. I could have helped team members improve faster, fired people with the wrong fit earlier, had so many more productive meetings. I could have created a more open company culture." "Sooner". Give difficult…

Depends on culture and formality of the relationship. I noticed some key differences working with people in the US, Scandinavia, Netherlands, India, Germany, Russia, and other places.

In the US, people will insist everything is awesome and great right until they get fired. Reason, they can be on the street in under 15 minutes and that kind of puts some filters in place. It also means that you need to follow up with some questions to get a real feel for what is going on. A peculiar thing with Indians I've worked with (superiors even) is that they seem reluctant to say no even when they mean to. So if you ask a direct question and you get an evasive answer, more questions are needed.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#206

Post by vfinn » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #180

vfinn wrote: post #140

It seems his teachings are based on the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. There are some good audio books by him on Youtube, like Freedom from the Known . On a slightly related note, Jonathan Blow also has a talk called Techniques for dealing with lack of motivation, malaise, depression ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7kh8pNRWOo ), where he also talks about the importance of observational skills as a means of under…

I was shocked when I saw that Krishnamurti quote. J Krishnamurti's talks are some of the most insightful and clear-headed that I've ever encountered. And yet it's very rare to encounter references to him in the wild. Sounds trite to say but some of "his" teachings (he hated that phrasing) got me through some very difficult times in my life. There was a time when I realized that my relationship with my parents was twi…

True about the rarity of Krishnamurti. Not sure how Krishnamurti would feel about Rosenberg, though, since he seems to be offering template solutions.

What comes to your asterisk issue, the help says: "Text surrounded by asterisks is italicized, if the character after the first asterisk isn't whitespace."

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#207

Post by Aeolun » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

leesalminen wrote: post #166

glitchc wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be deep-seated and long-standing resentments playing out here, due to insecurities and perceived differences in status. It's possible your brother-in-law has also never held a position of power or authority. No amount of conversation on your part may fix it as a large portion of the problem is the source (i.e. you). It may be best to back off and let your wife handle it. He's her brother after all. Work thr…

Of course we tried that first. My wife tried, their uncle tried, their cousins tried. I was the last resort. I agree that it’s best now to back off. There’s nothing else I can do. It hurts me to see my wife in additional pain because she’s not allowed to talk to the medical staff herself. She has medical training and is likely to understand the medical “Mumbo Jumbo” better than anyone else in the family.

I’m not sure I understand how it is impossible to talk to the medical staff, even if the brother still holds power of attorney. They won’t tell her anything about her dads condition without it?

She doesn’t want to do it because her brother would freak out?

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#208

Post by patjenk » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

Maybe I am misunderstanding empathy, but the following paragraph sounds more like sympathy: "But when it comes to difficult conversations, I’ve found that empathy has a side-effect. I can get so focused on how the conversation might affect the other person’s feelings that I lose sight of why the conversation is needed in the first place."

In the above circumstance, I thought empathizing with the person would be understanding they (may) benefit from the information you're providing. Sympathizing with them would be reacting to their feelings, which seems to be the approach here.

Am I wrong?

An analogy could be made to a person who recently had a friend die. Sympathizing would be reacting to their sadness and feeling bad for them. Empathizing would be understanding how they're feeling and taking steps to support them (e.g. spending quality time with them).

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#209

Post by skosch » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

wdrw wrote: post #145

tome wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I don't understand. If someone says to me "Three of the numbers in the report were inaccurate" (an observation) that's a lot more helpful to me than "Your work is sloppy" (an evaluation). Did you have something else in mind?

"3 numbers were inaccurate" (great job, that's way below average) "3 numbers were inaccurate" (just an FYI for next time, no big deal) "3 numbers were inaccurate" (and I am annoyed that I had to deal with the consequences, please ensure it doesn't happen again) "3 numbers were inaccurate" (but I understand the pressure you were under and the volume of work you had, so I don't see it as an ongoing problem) "3 numbers…

This is addressed later in the article. The whole formula is: "3 numbers were inaccurate. I feel frustrated because I keep having to [deal with the consequences]. Would you be able to [double-check all calculations from now on]?"

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#210

Post by soheil » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

At the risk of getting a lot of heat for this, I find this type of thinking more of a plague that has cast its ugly web on tech as a whole. An analogy would be anti-something drugs to damp down people who are hyper, might have ADHD and have so much energy and short attention span. As a society if we try to normalize all things and people we're only left with the mediocrity almost by definition and boring middle of the bell curve. This type of communication damps down powerful human interaction that a lot of us are capable of in favor of a much more passive style of communication and muted way of making a point so you don't offend anyone immediately. It's ok if they're offended later because they thought about what you said and read what NVC is and then found out what you "really" meant to tell them, but didn't have the audacity to say it. If we were to truly believe points made in NVC (dogmas?) that would probably be even worse as we would be modifying the way our brain was evolved to reason about things and may be making an un-natural change that may have drastically negative individual and societal impacts in the future.

If my manager tells me "You arrived ten minutes late to the meeting this morning" I would have to be an idiot to think next time he's not going to fire me if I'm late so this is more passive aggressive and nerve racking than if he just told me "don't be late or else!"