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How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

charity.wtf

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Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#31

Post by yieldcrv »

OJFord wrote: post #10

I thought I was going to like this, but other than 'Give people the opening to do better' section, the advised interactions seem not great to me? e.g. I want to say something, but I am having a hard time with it. I have something to say, but I don’t know how you’ll take it. I need to tell you something and I am anxious about your reaction. are (1) making me anxious while I wait for you to say whatever it is; (2) abso…

I met this toxic nutcase who had made up a concept like this, it essentially boiled down to

“I’m going to tell you something thats unsubstantiated about you, which you’ll be obligated to be defensive about, so dont respond at all, and I dont want to talk about it”

its that absolving of any responsibility that gets me

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#32

Post by ketzo »

JohnFen wrote: post #30
ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

I think people forget that the written word has a tendency to come across stern unless you make an effort to soften it. I know I forget this. There have been numerous times even here on HN where people have thought I was being critical or argumentative when that wasn't remotely what I was trying to communicate.

It's the easiest thing in the world to forget -- after all, you know how it's supposed to sound! How could they possibly misinterpret your very clear message? ;)

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#33

Post by [deleted] »

OJFord wrote: post #10

I thought I was going to like this, but other than 'Give people the opening to do better' section, the advised interactions seem not great to me? e.g. I want to say something, but I am having a hard time with it. I have something to say, but I don’t know how you’ll take it. I need to tell you something and I am anxious about your reaction. are (1) making me anxious while I wait for you to say whatever it is; (2) abso…

[deleted]

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#34

Post by andrei_says_ »

glonq wrote: post #2

How timely. My boss just crucified a co-worker today in our meeting and I think something like this could help mend things. Yes, my boss never heard of " praise in public criticize in private ". Welcome to working with a hot-blooded eastern european

Hot blooded Eastern Europeans can learn, too. You do know the difference and concept. If it’s safe, educate.

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#35

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

testfoobar wrote: post #16

This is all well and good advice. But sometimes you have to work with people who demonstrate traits of Narcissism Personality Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder. E.g. someone who never accepts responsibility or someone frequently demonstrating emotional lability. I am not sure the best course of action in these situations.

I do it all the time. There's no "rule book" on it.

Just my PoV:

Everyone is different, and we need to start by doing our best to understand them.

Sometimes, we understand that they are selfish, cowardly pricks, and that we just have to accept that.

That's seldom the case.

One of the lessons I learned, a long time ago, is that hurt people tend to be incredibly self-absorbed. This is people in mental or physical pain. Mother Theresa might have kicked her cat, when she was having a particularly nasty headache. We'll never know.

Understanding people is different from advocating for them, or "taking their side." If you want to understand rats, talk to an exterminator. I know a couple, and they really understand the little buggers.

But also keeping control of my side of the relationship is incredibly important. It should not depend on them. If they are unreliable or dangerous, then it is incumbent upon me, to limit the scope of our relationship.

Easy enough, if we are not in a situation that demands we work together, but I have also done a lot of work, with some very difficult people.

It can be done, but, in my case, it requires that I be quite self-aware, and take responsibility for my part of the relationship; which includes not expecting stuff from people that can't give it.

WFM. YMMV.

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#36

Post by akomtu »

ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

How do lawyers, doctors and actual engineers communicate? Do they use emojis?

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#37

Post by Seattle3503 »

m0llusk wrote: post #28

The Center for Nonviolent Communication has some potentially useful ideas about this: https://www.cnvc.org/ Start with active listening by not interrupting and then confirm with the speaker what you think you heard them say. And so on. There is a community apart from the web site and the core book is worth a read.

It is interesting you mention interruption, because the original NVC book endorses certain kinds of interruptions. "Would you rather have someone pretend to listen, or to interrupt?"

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#38

Post by jasonmp85 »

ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

[dead]

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#39

Post by OJFord »

tptacek wrote: post #25
OJFord wrote: post #10

I thought I was going to like this, but other than 'Give people the opening to do better' section, the advised interactions seem not great to me? e.g. I want to say something, but I am having a hard time with it. I have something to say, but I don’t know how you’ll take it. I need to tell you something and I am anxious about your reaction. are (1) making me anxious while I wait for you to say whatever it is; (2) abso…

I unreservedly love this article and found a lot of it valuable despite decades of career experience stepping in it with coworkers (and vice versa). But I agree with you about up-front acknowledgements of hard conversations. They're the workplace equivalent of "we need to talk". I'm an anxious person by nature, so "we need to talk" is about the most painful thing you can say to me: my mind will immediately project ou…

I didn't misread it, at least I did read it as 'or', I just don't like that either. Yes I will reply Hey no sweat yeah just doing your job cheers whatever - but it's definitely making me feel even worse than I already was about whatever the negative thing was you had to say to me in the first place.

The whole thing is just making it more about the counterparty, like they're the real victim for having unfortunately to give you this bad news - it's not their fault you did the bad thing after all!

I'm afraid the Reddit parlance is lost on me, what's YTA & ESH?

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