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Don’t be spooky

therealadam.com

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Re: Don’t be spooky

#101

Post by munchbunny »

newsbinator wrote: post #2

> When you’re communicating with your team, lead with context and reassurance. Never message someone on your team, “let’s talk when you get a minute”. That’s void of information and scary as heck! This should be engraved on a plaque in every office building.

There’s a pretty simple fix for this too: “do you have a moment to talk about ____”? And if it’s benign, you can just say “I want to ask about ____”.

These days when you have chat as an alternative to saying it out loud with other people around, you can afford to tell someone what negative thing is coming: “hey when you have a moment let’s talk about how you handled _____”.

Then they know what’s coming. It might be unpleasant, but it’s not spooky.

And if you have to drop the news without a prior hint, regularly scheduled meetings can do that without people having their guards up.

Re: Don’t be spooky

#102

Post by atomicnumber3 »

nuclearnice1 wrote: post #11

It’s good advice for many circumstances. Do a little 5 whys analysis and ask why in the absence of information your employees are moved to terror. It might be a normal human reaction and an unavoidable power asymmetry between labor and management. On the other hand, if the median expectation is terror, perhaps that provides some valuable information about the background energy left behind from all your other communic…

Ime, companies that have an environment of terror-by-default generally know, and brand it is "high expectations" or "fast paced work environment".

Sometimes they back that up with high pay, and in those cases, perhaps it's fair enough. Oftentimes though, it is not.

Re: Don’t be spooky

#104

Post by silentsysadmin »

xxpor wrote: post #76
Waterluvian wrote: post #41

Early in my career I got a Monday morning meeting invite on a Friday afternoon just after I left the office. The meeting was called “The future of “ Entire weekend was a write off. I was so anxious. And yep. They shut down the unit (but I got to keep my job). As a result this is forefront in my mind as a manager. One thing that works great is whenever I ask questions about something, anything, I also say “this is on…

Isn't there an unwritten rule about layoff timing that it's always on a Friday? Always do layoffs on Fridays so people have time on the weekend to calm down instead of going postal?

I’m speculating. Perhaps this practice is common because it keeps the books clean on final payouts. Plus it allows the employee to finish any projects they’re working on during the week. Not 100% sure though.

Re: Don’t be spooky

#105

Post by [deleted] »

grantjpowell wrote: post #49
newsbinator wrote: post #2

> When you’re communicating with your team, lead with context and reassurance. Never message someone on your team, “let’s talk when you get a minute”. That’s void of information and scary as heck! This should be engraved on a plaque in every office building.

As silly as it sounds, I use the technique of using of using _really_ informal language to avoid spookiness "Wanna see somthing cool?" "Lets shoot the shit after this" "Yo, you wanna hang for a minute at 4"

[deleted]

Re: Don’t be spooky

#106

Post by pydry »

logicchop wrote: post #32
TeMPOraL wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some degree of mistrust - or should I say, fear - is normal when communicating with your manager/supervisor, because there's a power imbalance in that relationship. Your manager has the power to significantly complicate or even derail your whole life. They're also themselves in a similar relationship with the person above them in the org chart. So no matter how much you trust them, there's always the possibility they…

I don't disagree, but I think it's more about establishing a good rapport where statements like "let's talk" can be informative and not just confusing. If you trust your manager and have good communication with them, "let's talk" should get you worried. Management obviously has a power advantage, but good managers that communicate effectively know how to become reliable signals, even when they aren't in a good positi…

>I don't disagree, but I think it's more about establishing a good rapport where statements like "let's talk" can be informative and not just confusing.

Can take years to establish something like that. That isn't a luxury most managers have.

Moreover, having enough empathy to understand the power imbalance and going out of your way to not be "spooky" when you first start working together is partly how a rapport like that is built.

Re: Don’t be spooky

#107

Post by TheCoelacanth »

logicchop wrote: post #32
TeMPOraL wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some degree of mistrust - or should I say, fear - is normal when communicating with your manager/supervisor, because there's a power imbalance in that relationship. Your manager has the power to significantly complicate or even derail your whole life. They're also themselves in a similar relationship with the person above them in the org chart. So no matter how much you trust them, there's always the possibility they…

I don't disagree, but I think it's more about establishing a good rapport where statements like "let's talk" can be informative and not just confusing. If you trust your manager and have good communication with them, "let's talk" should get you worried. Management obviously has a power advantage, but good managers that communicate effectively know how to become reliable signals, even when they aren't in a good positi…

Even in intimate personal relationships "we need to talk" is frequently assumed to be something bad. You're asking for co-workers to have better rapport than a typical significant-other relationship, which is just not realistic for most working relationships.

Re: Don’t be spooky

#108

Post by TheCoelacanth »

nuclearnice1 wrote: post #11

It’s good advice for many circumstances. Do a little 5 whys analysis and ask why in the absence of information your employees are moved to terror. It might be a normal human reaction and an unavoidable power asymmetry between labor and management. On the other hand, if the median expectation is terror, perhaps that provides some valuable information about the background energy left behind from all your other communic…

Even in romantic relationships, it's a common trope that "we need to talk" is going to be a breakup.

Is it really realistic for working relationships to have a level of trust that even most intimate personal relationships don't achieve?

Re: Don’t be spooky

#109

Post by vorpalhex »

protomyth wrote: post #85
vorpalhex wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike that phrase because it gives me no context. Does my manager want to talk about a specific project? A team change? A goal change? An issue? Does he want to chat about a new marathon he wants to run? Give me context. If you want to chat for twenty minutes just to catch up, then that's fine but just tell me.

So you want every communication with you to have full context? Perhaps the manager needs a couple of things and wants to be respectful of your schedule. They might not know the full extent of the conversation yet. If you work in an environment where full context is necessary to combat paranoia then there are other problems. If you need to have every conversation be formal then don't expect to be the first person a ma…

That's an obvious strawman. You can include context without having to write an essay. If you have a few things to say then list those things.

Re: Don’t be spooky

#110

Post by mszcz »

silentsysadmin wrote: post #104
xxpor wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there an unwritten rule about layoff timing that it's always on a Friday? Always do layoffs on Fridays so people have time on the weekend to calm down instead of going postal?

I’m speculating. Perhaps this practice is common because it keeps the books clean on final payouts. Plus it allows the employee to finish any projects they’re working on during the week. Not 100% sure though.

> Plus it allows the employee to finish any projects they’re working on during the week. Not 100% sure though.

I'm not sure I'd count on an employee that's being laid off to really put in the effort to finish up his projects ;)

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