Lots of people are afraid to say "I don't know" in my experience. Although, sometimes people ask me a question where I have to work out in my head what the answer is and it feels weird to sit there in silence for 15 seconds as I do so.
Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
11–20 of 372 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#12There can be a variety of factors from learning disabilities to time required to form thoughts correctly. May be they would provide you with a better answer if you ask a question and let them answer it in a couple of weeks.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#13> Why some people do not communicate clearly?
> P.S. Apologies for this rant (that probably lacks clarity as well)
Sigh.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#14YES. Absolutely!
Many people seem to totally lack the capability of understanding simple questions. I often have to ask yes/no questions, and even then I have to say "please answer yes or no". Then I have to go beating 1 bit information at the time... really frustrating, specially with people with master or even PhD degrees! Ok, where I'm now it seems a PhD can be bought around the corner for 2 cents.
In my experience this also happens when they try to explain something. Right now I'm relatively new in my position, and it was a real torture to understand the system, because nobody seems to be able to explain it in a linear way. They start "there is this function, and this function, which depends on that, btw, there is also this here... did I mention this other module?!... ahh ok... no no.. sorry, I forgot this interface..." It was really exasperating!
I think this may correlate strongly with the lack of ability for text comprehension, that is often reported in school tests.
EDIT: I see some answers referring to learning disorders, disabilities, anxiety, not knowing the issue at hand. I'm talking about people which do know the topic (explain the code they have written, for example); in a situation where I'm not the boss, and is no interview, just a coffee talk between equals; witout any diagnosed problem oder disability. As said, even with PhD titles, which imply they had to defend a Thesis in front of a panel with complex topics...
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#15Most systems discussion could benefit from the use of a whiteboard.
Most systems discussion devolve to describing a few key structures that are better represented graphically. Think protocol sequence diagram, flowchart, logic table, state machine, stacked graph.
It's actually your fault for demanding a verbal answer to a graphical question, and rejecting the feedback you receive.
Additionally, highly-educated folks are trained to do this because it is a popular way educators verify comprehension, since asking a verbal question about a graphical fact simplifies the process of "hiding" part of the solution, and verifying that it's been comprehended rather than regurgitated.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#16In my experience it's typically a lack of skill. I've had to mentor people on being better communicators, and some of the typical problems I've seen along the lines of your points:
* They don't know how to politely communicate that they don't understand the question or disagree with the premise. The mental transformation from "that makes no sense, I don't understand what you're asking about" -> "I may be missing context here, but..." isn't something that comes naturally to everyone.
* They don't know precisely how focused they should stay. Sometimes the discussion really is too narrowly scoped and needs to be broadened, and it can be hard to calibrate.
* They don't know how to prompt other people, who may have a very different sense of which angles are relevant or how wide the scope of a conversation should be, to focus back down on what they need to talk about.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#17For some people, if they are invited to a discussion, they believe their job is to talk. If they don’t know the topic well or don’t have an opinion on it, they will instead talk about something they do know and care about.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#18In my experience there are two main reasons:
1) People don't receive formal training in logic and argument formation.
2) People don't properly calibrate their own emotion or take into account the listener's emotions when deciding how to make their argument.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#19This might be a case of low context vs high context culture :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context_c...
The rambling could be a way to communicate some context, emotions, while you are expecting a yes/no answer, typically from a low context culture.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#20If You Think Straight, You Can Speak Straight [1] “If a man writes and speaks "neatly" it is because his thinking is orderly; if his expression is forceful, the thought back of it must be forceful. But if he blunders for words, and uses phrases which express his meaning clumsily, I believe his mind is cluttered and ill-disciplined.” [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_I_Never_Hire_Brilliant_Me...
Not entirely sure I agree with a cluttered mind for every person. I'm very organized but just get nervous communicating and tend to ramble.