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Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?

#311

Post by khazhoux »

thom wrote: post #305
khazhoux wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes one just needs a direct answer to a question. In fact, it’s a common anti-pattern of effective communication, to think that “more detail ( all the detail ) is always better.” Sometimes we just need an answer to the question, and will ask follow-ups as needed. I find a correlation actually where people who struggle to give clear answers/explanations, struggle in their own decision-making. They get ensnarled…

All the examples you've given are of team members struggling in a wider ecosystem. Yes, you can stamp your foot and hold them to their responsibilities on a single task. But you might deliver more value if you listened to the things holding them back, because there will always be future tasks.

Again... in many contexts, yes I appreciate the detail. I'm not saying engineer-to-manager or engineer-to-engineer communication should also be terse.

But some people struggle to collect their thoughts clearly, and struggle to articulate simple answers to even the simplest of questions. I have seen this, and seen how detrimental it is to their effectiveness as engineers and teammates. My approach is to actively coach people on my team that I see with poor communication.

And it's a valuable skill that I'm advocating. When an engineer is invited to a VP presentation, and the VP asks "Has this feature launched?", you better believe they don't want a 3-minute ramble of the challenges they faced, or what they'd do differently, or whatever. They want to know: "Has. This. Feature. Shipped?"

Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?

#312

Post by cdavid »

yrgulation wrote: post #296
cdavid wrote: post #223

A 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…

Quoted post unavailable.

I agree you don't want to stretch the cultural too far, or you will end up essentializing people. There is obviously a lot of diversity within each culture. You don't want to treat people just based on their culture: it would be morally repugnant. But in my experience at least, ignoring the culture will cause a lot of issues as well.

Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?

#313

Post by pdntspa »

manmal wrote: post #282
pdntspa wrote: post #225

One of the things I've struggled with in my communications with nontechnicals is that they often want simple answers to complex questions, when that simple answer often hides important details that might make it incorrect, dishonest, or disingenuous. I think people should generally fight this need for simple answers... the world is a messy place, and if you're turning to a practitioner of said mess for advice then yo…

No answer is ever fully comprehensive though. Even your complex answer is just a very shallow attempt at one, because there‘s always another layer or angle to consider. So, I don’t find it disingenuous to give a simple answer. It’s just a slightly less detailed one than the one I might have used with a technical person.

But it's the technical person's responsibility to figure out the appropriate level of abstraction, if one cares about an accurate and thorough answer, since they are the ones holding the expertise.... but I agree that it would be absurd to expect an speech on networking fundamentals if the question is "why is my website down?".

But if they have to give a "yes*" or "yes, but..." answer, than some of those fundamentals might be relevant. But you wouldn't expect the discussion to get into signalling theory, again, unless it was relevant.

Given that nontechnicals have such a hard time grasping something as basic as abstraction, I certainly would not trust them to make judgement calls on it effectively.

Which again leads to the question of just how accurate an answer is the nontechnical person looking for?

Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?

#314

Post by throw149102 »

One time I had a conversation with a coworker who was asking me what they thought was a simple question.

I tried to explain over and over again that I didn't think the question was very simple, that there could be at least 3 different answers depending on the context and that he would have to specify more. But he was so certain that it was simple that he didn't want to listen to any of my explanations. Eventually it came down to him trying to force me into saying either:

a. That I was too stupid to answer or even understand the question. b. Some false solution to the problem that I already knew wouldn't work with the reliability we needed.

From that point on, I was pretty damn sure that I didn't want to work with this coworker ever again, and I eventually left the company largely because of them (this obviously wasn't the only issue I had with them, or the company at large, but still it played a large role).

Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?

#315

Post by j33zusjuice »

cdavid wrote: post #286
zwkrt wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a mildly autistic person who grew up in the Midwest, my understanding is that it is not at all direct haha. East coast is much more abrasive and easier to get. If someone things you’re an ass they’ll let you know. And you can let them know why they’re wrong in a loud back-and forth. Then laugh and get a drink. In the Midwest people are too polite to say anything. Many midwesterners will bear an annoyance for years…

The east coast/west coast is super striking. A few American friends were surprised when I told them I thought East/West coast divide was wider than e.g. NY/France, culture-wise. New York always felt like a more culturally diverse, bigger, English speaking Paris. When I am in Japan, there is an obvious "this is not Kansas anymore" aspect. I love it, I lived there > 10 years but I don't need any effort to know I am lik…

As an American, I expected a big difference in Europe, but it felt kinda like an older, smaller town. New Orleans feels very European. And my point is that it’s distinct, and you know what it is that you’re feeling.

The mind fucking thing you’re talking about, the “uncanny valley,” is Canada. Vancouver is so much like Seattle, or any other US city in some ways, but there’s something off that you can’t quite explain. There are small details that are just wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?

#316

Post by b33j0r »

pschuegr wrote: post #262
cdavid wrote: post #223

A 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…

I'd say this is a solid portion of the reason. Ideally, we could talk about software in a completely neutral and dispassionate way without worrying about how the recipient will receive the information, or what the potential implications on ourselves are; this is the idea behind no-blame retros and psychological safety, etc. The fact is that a lot of work cultures are not in a state where this works, so even if people…

>The other big piece of it is... communicating is a messy activity. I'm always amazed how often you can think people are aligned on something

I wonder if this is a bug, or a feature, if you will. Maybe the random distribution of variations in our understandings is an essential part of working as a team.

Let’s say, every ant is trained to react by spitting acid as a XOR: if A or B, but not A and B, attack!

If the social behavior is not a function of the rules, but more driven by whether a given ant believes {A, B}, and this varies in some distribution, I can imagine some interesting outcomes. Perhaps…

One ant accidentally believes A ~B. That is their sensory input but not the truth. They accidentally hit a beetle, score! Wildcard ant! You get to reproduce.

Not clear if that thought experiment extends into cultural differences. I’d say that means different rules, in my take.

But within one group with the same rules, a distribution of different and even wrong information seems like an advantage.

Maybe not for that one poor schmuck who wrongly believed A and B, and got his head bitten off. But antmortized we’re probably all better off.

Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?

#317

Post by zwkrt »

narcraft wrote: post #307
zwkrt wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a mildly autistic person who grew up in the Midwest, my understanding is that it is not at all direct haha. East coast is much more abrasive and easier to get. If someone things you’re an ass they’ll let you know. And you can let them know why they’re wrong in a loud back-and forth. Then laugh and get a drink. In the Midwest people are too polite to say anything. Many midwesterners will bear an annoyance for years…

As someone who grew up in the Midwest and currently living on the East coast, I always get a little pissed off when I hear this trope. People in the Midwest are honest and just genuinely nice and friendly. Politeness to me has performative connotations. Most of my peers from back home talk like sailors. I think rural vs suburban vs urban mannerisms might be a confounding variable here as well. I'm from the suburbs.

It's all stereotypes. As I've done more therapy though I just realize that all the people that I know from the midwest really /really/ don't want to open up about how they are feeling. It isn't about swearing or being a part of 'polite society', it's about not addressing perceived issues interpersonally or in a group dynamic.

Like I just see from my hometown near Minneapolis that people would rather just act like uncomfortable things aren't happening or don't exist. They put on a smile and act all nice to each other but secretly there's all this shit that they harbor against one another. It is definitely a small-town thing too though. In a small town the people you are around have been there for a long time and they are going to be there for a long time in the future, so one way to cope with disagreement is to paper it over. Just not my personally favorite interaction style.

Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?

#318

Post by yrgulation »

diordiderot wrote: post #302
yrgulation wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

This post leads me to believe you don't have much experience with people from diverse backgrounds. You should see how different 'white people' are on average every few hundred miles in Europe

Looking different and having different customs does mean having different psychologies. If anything i believe it’s you who hasnt been working with people of diverse backgrounds, otherwise you’d know personality traits are shared among cultures and ethnicities. Otherwise you’d have a different psychology manual for each nation and ethnicity. The question original question is asking about why some people are beating the bush when discussing topics, not how it’s customary to express disagreement. But even that is shared between cultures and the more you work with people of different backgrounds the more you know its the same.

Re: Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?

#320

Post by yrgulation »

defrost wrote: post #300
yrgulation wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

"French" isn't a racial trait - it's a teeming blob of culture with many facets and internal differences with a distinction albeit some overlap to other EU and global cultures. Please don't drag "race" into a comment that clearly addresses cultural distinctions from the outset.

Please read the definition of the word race and try not to make everything about it. Try and work with more diverse people so you can observe there are strong similarities regardless of race, instead of shutting yourself in a small bubble that explains everything around based on that.
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