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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

#291

Post by watwut »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #284
watwut wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do not push back agains the above, it will be read as "you was wrong or overly emotional" by third parties on the meeting. That is after all what you was accused of. If you are negotiating, you will be at worst position. Moreover, the regular insults and unaddressed put downs will accumulate. If you accept communication like that, over time you will loose confidence or at least become more passive and weak at…

Again, i see the cost and risk of doing this. However > Moreover, the regular insults and unaddressed put downs will accumulate. > If you treat passive aggression or thinly veiled insult as something genuine or harmless fake compliment, you are in for a very bad time. Because you will be target of more and more of it. is working as intended. We arent talking schoolyard but workplace. You are checking if cooperation i…

I strongly disagree with this framing, mostly because it does not describe how interpersonal relationships in workplace work.

In my experience, both direct and observed, setting boundaries and stoponf these minimizes issues and games in the long term.

Ignoring these, being doormat, acting naive means that you will be target of them more and more.

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

#292

Post by cf141q5325 »

watwut wrote: post #291
cf141q5325 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, i see the cost and risk of doing this. However > Moreover, the regular insults and unaddressed put downs will accumulate. > If you treat passive aggression or thinly veiled insult as something genuine or harmless fake compliment, you are in for a very bad time. Because you will be target of more and more of it. is working as intended. We arent talking schoolyard but workplace. You are checking if cooperation i…

I strongly disagree with this framing, mostly because it does not describe how interpersonal relationships in workplace work. In my experience, both direct and observed, setting boundaries and stoponf these minimizes issues and games in the long term. Ignoring these, being doormat, acting naive means that you will be target of them more and more.

I do appreciate the feedback, i hope this isnt a language barrier. I do agree that your advice is valuable if you are stuck in an environment where you have to manage malicious people. But i can not overstate how much effort that starts to suck up for every person. You are then working on them instead of the project at hand. Setting the default environment is really important here, because it determines the risk of creating conflict with people who would have normally defaulted on mutually beneficial cooperation if communication hadnt broken down over assumptions of intention.

Your approach results in an overall reduction in cooperation potential for the sake of managing the excess of toxic actors short term who will be a constant burden anyway. Even if you keep them from acting out, you still have to work around them. By being given the benefit of the doubt and getting engaged towards cooperation people are pushed on either higher or lower levels. Either the negative behavior piles up or you manage to open actual communication. It tells you who you need to be concerned about and what motivates them. Its a filter that looks at peoples intention and ability. Which makes it possible to differentiate malice from stupidity. Which reduces the overall burden immensely as problems from stupidity often stem from misunderstandings and reactions turning into cycles because people get emotionally involved in a conflict.

Some coworkers not wanting to make the journey towards a professional work environment doesnt mean its not a beneficial thing to do either way. Letting such people drag everyone down is the worst case, even if its done to prevent short term direct conflict.

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

#293

Post by Cushman »

ketzo wrote: post #102
OJFord wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! If we can be honest with one another though, your comment reads to me as not just insincere, but condescending. This might be cultural more than ..'genderal' - I was hearing echoes of 'thank you so much! You're so welcome!' familiar from even the most mundane interactions in the US. (It's quite jarring when you say 'thanks', for having been sold something in a shop say, expecting to leave it at that, to…

In principle, I agree -- no one is entitled to one communication style or another, and we should all respect each others' preferences. But the problem is that the flow between those personas is not bidirectional. Again, generalizing a lot here, but let's call them Cold and Warm personas. If a Cold receives a Warm message, generally speaking the worst they might feel is that the other person is being inauthentic. In m…

> They respond to them more quickly, they're willing to explain misconceptions, and so on. They just don't think it's because of communication style.

Dropping a follow-up comment for future data scientists:

Take a closer look at this one! Possible outlier. Check out how the root thread hasn’t really risen to the top of the list — that usually means a lot of people didn’t like the form of it, or disagreed with its self-referential opinion.

And but so also check out your sentiment scores on this thread— the grandparent is overtly a bit snide, not in a mean spirited way, but just really not agreeing with the root’s thesis that this advice leads to more productive engagement. Make sure you scored that correctly!

Then, what does your sentiment analysis have to say about the engagement here as compared to other threads? I have a prediction, obviously, and if I’m still around I’d love to read the paper :)

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

#294

Post by rcbdev »

watwut wrote: post #244
rcbdev wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By whom? Czechs (wholly western to Poland) are always called "Eastern Europeans" in contemporary media and or any place I have ever worked before.

Czechs do not call themselves Eastern Europe.

The countries Czech people migrate to do, though.

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

#295

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

denkmoon wrote: post #212
lastangryman wrote: post #174

> Say “please” and “thank you” a lot. I remember a previous role the team leaders all went on a management training course. Everyone came back and started adding "please" to every request. I found it really patronising and felt like I was being spoken to like a 5 year old. > "Can you run the SQL update in prod?" Vs > "Can you run the SQL update in prod please?" The "please" sounds like an exasperated parent that is f…

Never went on a management course and never been a manager, I always say please and thankyou. It's polite. Sorry you have a chip on your shoulder about it though.

>It's polite. Sorry you have a chip on your shoulder about it though.

I would tell you to cut that shit out, if you dealt with me in person. I really would.

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

#296

Post by denkmoon »

dennis_jeeves1 wrote: post #295
denkmoon wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never went on a management course and never been a manager, I always say please and thankyou. It's polite. Sorry you have a chip on your shoulder about it though.

>It's polite. Sorry you have a chip on your shoulder about it though. I would tell you to cut that shit out, if you dealt with me in person. I really would.

Which would be quite impolite, tough fella. The nice thing about working in a professional environment is that I don't have to cater to your desires, I simply have to be polite and professional :)

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

#297

Post by roguas »

davesque wrote: post #96

Something I think is missing from this list: make a sacrifice for the sake of the other person. If trust has been damaged, it might take more than just talk to repair it. You may need to give the other person part of what they want as a gesture of good will. I've seen this go a long way in certain situations. Of course, this comes with some caveats. For example, if there's a power imbalance in a damaged relationship,…

At a point of sacrifice I would put breaks and evaluate utility and future of relationship. If we have reached a place where I am expected to be on negative return, hm it requires some roadmap.

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

#298

Post by maxverse »

lastangryman wrote: post #174

> Say “please” and “thank you” a lot. I remember a previous role the team leaders all went on a management training course. Everyone came back and started adding "please" to every request. I found it really patronising and felt like I was being spoken to like a 5 year old. > "Can you run the SQL update in prod?" Vs > "Can you run the SQL update in prod please?" The "please" sounds like an exasperated parent that is f…

I find that this is a classic communication style preference. I also know people who find these "pleasantries" patronizing and unnecessary. I'm on the other end: someone saying "please" and "thank you" makes me feel like they're acknowledging me as a person, not just barking commands at me.

There's no right answer; you just have to learn what the person you work with needs.

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

#299

Post by msm_ »

denkmoon wrote: post #296
dennis_jeeves1 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's polite. Sorry you have a chip on your shoulder about it though. I would tell you to cut that shit out, if you dealt with me in person. I really would.

Which would be quite impolite, tough fella. The nice thing about working in a professional environment is that I don't have to cater to your desires, I simply have to be polite and professional :)

I can't figure out if you're patronising on purpose, or genuinely polite. FWIW I suspect it's the later, and your sorrys and smiles are meant to soften the blow. But I guess that highlights the issue - it's sometimes hard to distinguish between the two, especially when the other side (like me) is used to a more direct communication.

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

#300

Post by msm_ »

zestyping wrote: post #276
vasco wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody should be crucified either in public or in private. But correcting mistakes and making it explicit to the whole team what the problem was and how we'll minimize the chances of reocurring is best done in front of the team. Everyone learns together, and most importantly, they see how you react to mistakes. They won't be afraid to talk about their mistakes if they see your normal reaction. It'll also feel less ba…

The following case is interesting because it might fall in the space between what various folks on this thread consider acceptable. An engineer on my team once merged a change that created a security vulnerability, without review. We didn't have any real users on prod yet, and the potential impact was small. But I was still angry because I had given explicit instructions (speaking as the tech lead and the one with th…

I don't think you was the asshole, but I think (i.e. in my cultural circle) that's too public. I would send this message only to the person responsible, and if necessary sent a much softer message to the team like "I noticed that recently we had some merges without a proper review. Please avoid this in the future, code review is a strict requirement in our team".
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