I don't know how to translate some specific terms to English, but in certain point of my life, I took a course about "internal customer service" at my job, i generally don't like those kind of subjects, but at that time it was part of my duties, so... I went to the course, the teacher started talking like this: "Everyone of us have an 'access code' to communicate with each other" that grabbed my attention, and then he said something like there are "visual, auditive, and kinesthetic" kinds of people. I discovered then, that I was a visual person and finally at my 33yo totally understood why i do not understand others when they talk to me and try to explain anything. To me, school was very hard. So, maybe this could be one of many many reasons, i hope this help others to investigate more about this subject, and take some extra steps before losing your time trying to explain something to someone using an incorrect communication channel.
Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
241–250 of 372 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#242I dunno what’s up with these Ask HNs which are utterly transparent humblebrags but in this case, chances are what you think is clear communication lacks a lot of context and nuance, and despite obviously feeling superior to them, you’re missing or ignoring important information that people want you to possess.
And yet some people just can’t communicate well with any of their co-workers, and that’s what we’re discussing here.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#243Here are some altruistic reasons these events might occur: > - don't directly address the point of your question / provide a much complex answer (or even worse, a non-answer) to a simple question > - don't stay focused to the point of the discussion I often dive deeper if the question itself raises suspicions that the question asker might not fully understand the topic. For example, if someone asked: "can you unbatch…
> For example, if someone asked: "can you unbatch those 1k RPCs?" "Can we do _________?" is the worst question to ask me as an engineer. Like, yes, we probably _can_ do literally almost anything, with enough hours and money. But what's the budget? What really is _______? Eg: If it's "analytics to a page", what do we want to track? Where does the data go? How do people view the data? I need to know the answer to those…
Yup, questions like those are a trap. A direct answer is going to lead to being asked to build some backwards solution to a problem.
My response to that type of question tends to be along the lines of "what are you hoping to achieve?"
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#244A crucial point not mentioned yet: cross cultural issues. In an American culture, it is "self-evident" that clear communication is about being direct and to the point. But this is far from universal. More generally, western cultures tend to conflate earnest and truth. "Telling it like it is" is valued. We don't realize our own "phoniness". I have witnessed countless times people hitting a wall in meetings and other s…
Hm. I am an American, but maybe that American optimism stuff explains some friction I have had at work. I find that being optimistic when important things aren't working is stupid and increases risk.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#245People think every one shares the same definition for words like a dictionary, but people don't learn words from the dictionary they learn them from context of other peoples speech. The fact that context is communication seems to be lost on most people and in an effort to be efficient assume every one else is using and understands their definition. The examples you give could all be caused by this. They could be tryi…
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Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#246The words “yes” and “no” are way undervalued as appropriate responses to a question.
Me (manager): “Hey Bob, did you and the other team figure out a solution for the problem you mentioned last week?”
Bob: “Well, we had a couple of long meetings and went through a lot of issues.”
Me: “Great. Did you come to a conclusion?”
Bob: “Well, there was a lot of disagreement at first, that’s why we spent longer than we intended to in discussions.”
Me: “I see. So did you figure out a solution?”
Bob: “Well, I need to think about the impact now, might need to do a lot of refactoring.”
Me: “Ok, but did… you… agree… on a solution??”
Bob: “Oh. Yes.”
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#247The words “yes” and “no” are way undervalued as appropriate responses to a question. Me (manager): “Hey Bob, did you and the other team figure out a solution for the problem you mentioned last week?” Bob: “Well, we had a couple of long meetings and went through a lot of issues.” Me: “Great. Did you come to a conclusion?” Bob: “Well, there was a lot of disagreement at first, that’s why we spent longer than we intended…
As a manager, this is actually a good response. It gives me insight into what's causing problems for my reports.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
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... In my experience of sometimes being on the other side of these conversations, the problem is that the person asking for ‘yes/no’ answers is exhibiting a lack of understanding of the sub…
You can do that by interrupting and asking them questions. The place to teach them is not by trying to backdoor what you think is important into the answer to some other question that they are asking. They will feel like you're being deceptive, because you are.
You are making a lot of assumptions there and seem to think that this happens to me all the time. I don't have this problem in most conversations.
To the point you're saying without the seeming antagonism - yes, you're right, a quick "wait, I think we need to talk about the background here because we're both making different assumptions" can and does work in most conversations with most people.
In the worst cases, though, some people take it as "ugh, why can't they just provide a yes/no answer to my simple question!?" and the conversation can become increasingly difficult.
If someone's thinking this a lot - like, they think most people are doing this to them to the extent that they wonder why "many people seem to totally lack the capability of understanding simple questions" - it would be wise for them to re-examine their assumptions.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#249I am, charitably, a pretty decent developer. I also have what I think most would agree is a pretty successful career. My career is not built on programming. Rather, it's built on my ability to communicate effectively in writing and in spontaneous speech, and to serve as a translation layer between various parts of an organization. Your frustration is my opportunity. In my experience, few people without the training o…
As someone with a liberal arts degree who also, charitably, is a pretty decent developer, this is spot on. (No disrespect to those educated in different contexts, or those who have difficulty for other neurodiverse, cultural or ESL, or other reasons who excel in other areas.) After years on non-technical or customer-facing teams, followed by a dozen years in technical roles, I've noticed that my ability to effectivel…
Are you sure it's unclear to use commas and parentheses? Is being frowned upon by English professors really the same as being unclear?
Language means compressing and serializing information. Commas and parentheticals are a more efficient way to leave the information in a slightly more compressed state. Generally we are describing a graph serially, and adding the details as we go rather than coming back one by one and zooming in is just more efficient.
Also, I honestly suspect that often people just don't have the detailed level of understanding to be able to add it on the first level. And those details can be quite critical.
I mean, also the actual amount of things that are relevant that they have to say may make their communication seem cluttered compared to someone with a more simplistic knowledge base and thought process.
Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?
#250> Anyone else feeling like this at work?
Yes, and not just because of cross cultural issues, as some of the sibling comments suggest.
I've seen people who don't address questions clearly, sometimes cannot explain their train of thought or reasons for making certain decisions (which may or may not be cargo culting at times), or have especially pronounced challenges in regards to async communication as well - not electing to use a spell checker and usually having typos (both in their messages and code, unfortunately), communicating in cut off short sentences without providing the proper details, or always asking for a call.
I suspect that communicating effectively is a skill like any other and many simply choose not to make an effort to advance it. Alternatively, some may not be comfortable with writing in any capacity (e.g. dyslexia), or alternatively, explaining themselves verbally (e.g. anxiety).
In regards to my latter points, I actually made this site to hopefully give some tips on async communication: https://quick-answers.kronis.dev/
(some of the already existing sites seemed to ridicule these people, which I do not want to do, but rather offer tips)
That said, I am also not perfect and have made the occasional communication blunders myself. That's why nowadays I try to re-read what I'm about to post, or consider how I word things at least a few times before hitting submit. Even in communication that takes place in-person, I try to introduce people to the points I want to make bit by bit, giving them whatever context may be necessary.
As for engaging with others, all you can do is encourage them to share more information as it's necessary, not get sidetracked and be very patient yourself.