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Willingness to look stupid

danluu.com

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Re: Willingness to look stupid

#751

Post by gremloni »

mywittyname wrote: post #360
andrewla wrote: post #338

This has happened to me frequently at my current company. I get pulled into a meeting about something that I have no context on because it touches my area of expertise, and the discussions have apparently been stalling out. I brace myself to be the idiot. I'm going to waste everyone's time asking questions that everyone knows the answer to, and I just got looped in, so everyone's going to feel like they need to walk…

One of the best people I've ever worked with used this approach. "I'm going to ask stupid questions now." and "Just so I'm understanding the problem, ." were two phrases she used all the time . I am surprised at how difficult it has been to emulate her technique. Feeling comfortable asking the obvious questions is one half of the battle, but the other, more difficult half, is knowing what obvious questions to ask. Mo…

Same.

“Just making sure I understand this correctly… stop me if I’m wrong” has worked wonders for my ability to contribute to a meeting.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#752

Post by pksebben »

nimbius wrote: post #742
mywittyname wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best people I've ever worked with used this approach. "I'm going to ask stupid questions now." and "Just so I'm understanding the problem, ." were two phrases she used all the time . I am surprised at how difficult it has been to emulate her technique. Feeling comfortable asking the obvious questions is one half of the battle, but the other, more difficult half, is knowing what obvious questions to ask. Mo…

the problem with this approach is that it makes building trust very difficult, as trust is based on a combination of character and competence. inquisitiveness during problem solving is admirable and good, but in the article many of the applications of 'looking stupid' only serve to render the author untrustworthy.

I know this might come off as adversarial, but might that say more about your metrics for trustworthiness than the party at question? Which bullets from the article would you consider untrustworthy?

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#753

Post by ycombinete »

HeckFeck wrote: post #101
dusted wrote: post #50

When I was younger, I often met people who seemed kind of dim to me, at first, and later found the majority of them to be orders of magnitude brighter than me. It was not hard to connect the dots, the reason they were so much brighter was (in part) exactly because of what made them initially seem dim.. They asked questions, honestly. Not the showoff kind of question you ask to show how much you know, but real, honest…

This reminds me of the simple brilliance of Socrates. He began from the premise that he knew nothing, and would ask all manner of simple questions building on top of the previous answers. It wasn't long before he uncovered how little everyone else actually knew, but what separated Socrates was his honesty: he knew nothing and admitted it. Naturally, the established powers and polite society didn't find this to their…

Socrates was deeply ironic, and usually only played the fool. In very few (maybe all but one) of his dialogues is he actually less informed than the people that he’s talking to.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#754

Post by mandeepj »

mywittyname wrote: post #360
andrewla wrote: post #338

This has happened to me frequently at my current company. I get pulled into a meeting about something that I have no context on because it touches my area of expertise, and the discussions have apparently been stalling out. I brace myself to be the idiot. I'm going to waste everyone's time asking questions that everyone knows the answer to, and I just got looped in, so everyone's going to feel like they need to walk…

One of the best people I've ever worked with used this approach. "I'm going to ask stupid questions now." and "Just so I'm understanding the problem, ." were two phrases she used all the time . I am surprised at how difficult it has been to emulate her technique. Feeling comfortable asking the obvious questions is one half of the battle, but the other, more difficult half, is knowing what obvious questions to ask. Mo…

> Most of the time when I ask obvious questions, the replies are yes/no.

I guess you might be asking straight up binary questions like - is it happening due to xyz? Maybe, changing the question format to something like - what do you think could be the cause behind _fill the situation here___? Just my humble opinion.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#755

Post by Ensorceled »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #560
Ensorceled wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say, this example did make me switch my view of the author from some one who wasn't afraid to ask the "stupid" questions to being either a deliberately "just asking questions" asshole who likes to fuck with people or, to be more charitable, someone with a bit of a spectrum disorder.

>someone with a bit of a spectrum disorder. I'm surprised I had to scroll this far to see someone suggesting this, since it seems extremely obvious to me that this is part of the case. It's becoming fairly well-documented that one of the primary differences in people on the spectrum is a difference in communication style , which anecdotally seems to be more direct and less apologetic or prone to "superfluous" verbal…

I think the problem is that there are really three people this behaviour would apply to:

1. Someone with a spectrum disorder.

2. Someone who enjoys dicking around with people.

3. Someone with a spectrum disorder who enjoys dicking around with people.

I'm trying to figure out if the person is in group 1 or 3. If you encounter a few people in Group 3, it's then harder to see people in Group 2 in a good light.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#756

Post by philosopher1234 »

hunterb123 wrote: post #697
csnover wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, Minneapolitan here. I try not to wade into these sorts of discussions because it is usually unproductive or even counterproductive, but since you have expressed a sincere interest in talking about the facts of the situation, here’s what they actually are here. The police budget for MPD in 2014 was $145.6M for 850 officers. In 2020, the year you suggest they were defunded, the budget was $181.9M for 770 officers—a…

December 2020, the Minneapolis city council voted to defund the police department $8 million for the 2021 budget. [1] February 2021, the Minneapolis city council voted to add $6.4 million to the police budget. [2] [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-city-council-v... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/us/minneapolis-police-fun... [2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-to-spend-2464-... Th…

How precisely did the supposed defunding lead to an increase in crime?

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#757

Post by hunterb123 »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #756
hunterb123 wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

December 2020, the Minneapolis city council voted to defund the police department $8 million for the 2021 budget. [1] February 2021, the Minneapolis city council voted to add $6.4 million to the police budget. [2] [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-city-council-v... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/us/minneapolis-police-fun... [2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-to-spend-2464-... Th…

How precisely did the supposed defunding lead to an increase in crime?

The same way defunding a fire department will lead to an increase in fire damage.

Less resources means slower response times or no response at all.

That wasn't the premise though, the question was whether they defunded and then later refunded when crime was rising.

Above I showed GP that Minneapolis did in fact do this, as did many other cities.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#758

Post by threatofrain »

entropyie wrote: post #725
genewitch wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd lie to the employee? He touches on this later in the article after comparing thoughts to another person (who is block quoted) who seems to wonder the same things as a lot of commenters here...

I would have synthesised a brief approximation of the real reason. Transport being one real possibility. The point is that this is a two way transaction with a real person, who has their own hidden state, goals and limits that are not always apparent to a consumer. E.g. company policy on deducing what the customer really needs. How was the employee to know Dan was the one person who actually knew what they needed, ou…

IMO, falsehoods do not constitute dishonesty anymore than truths constitute honesty. Honesty is about the sharing of clarity, and sometimes teachers Lie To Children¹ and other times people confuse or obscure with facts. What matters is a sensitive understanding of what clarity means to others.

Anyways, if you tell a store person "oh, I'm getting this for my husband" when it's a gift for yourself, that's more honesty than dishonesty, because to the store person, "clarity" with a customer is very goal oriented. Dan Luu wasn't trying to screw with the store person, and in the end they all got what they wanted, even if Dan Luu walked away "looking stupid".

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#759

Post by browningstreet »

sharkweek wrote: post #370
mywittyname wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best people I've ever worked with used this approach. "I'm going to ask stupid questions now." and "Just so I'm understanding the problem, ." were two phrases she used all the time . I am surprised at how difficult it has been to emulate her technique. Feeling comfortable asking the obvious questions is one half of the battle, but the other, more difficult half, is knowing what obvious questions to ask. Mo…

VP in my org does this, and it really disarms the room. She’s big on that exact phrase of “this could be a really stupid question, but…” She’s also really good about making sure other people are rewarded for doing the same by reassuring someone asking what might be a dumb question as, “that’s a a great question and I’m sure others were wondering the same…” before responding. Great leadership, IMO.

Long time CTO here. I brazenly and declaratively ask stupid questions and suggest stupid ideas. It usually leads to a break in a logjam, and I recognize that people in the room don’t always feel as free as me to be naive or uninformed. It’s the nature of my job and the coverage I need to manage across the org… devs aren’t as inclined to go this route, but this is also why some of my personality driven PMs are often so successful in a similar vein… they’re not invested in being or looking right, or even smart.

Re: Willingness to look stupid

#760

Post by JJMcJ »

rossvor wrote: post #580
JJMcJ wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know nothing about the products involved, but I assume it was along the lines of "I want a Mac Foo 342, which happens to come in the smallest box, so you can't miss it".

But surely the "I want a Mac Foo 342" is sufficient? The latter part of sentence just adds unnecessary confusion. I worked selling laptops before, and I honestly wouldn't remember which one came in the smallest box (and they usually came in very similar sized boxes anyway, so likely there would be several different models matching "smallest box" criteria). I think Apple employee was fully justified in their bafflemen…

I think we are in agreement.

Author was just trying to be clever at the expense of retail employees.

Generally trying to be clever is ordinary life is not a good idea.

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