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When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

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Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#341

Post by II2II »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #328
eweise wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. Having worked with so many engineers with almost no social skills, I think there's a lot of room for improvement in their communication style. "Why didn't you do it this way?" is aggressive and critical. "have you thought about this approach?" makes them feel like you have their back and are trying to help. I agree there's not a huge need to the "I really liked how you tackled this" part but even never praising…

Weird, I perceive these the opposite of how you do. "Why didn't you do it this way?" I trust that you considered many alternatives. Can you tell me your thoughts about the decision you arrived at? “have you thought about this approach?” You probably couldn’t imagine this possibility, let me do it for you. Checkmate! I can also see how they could each be interpreted in the opposite directions. I’m betting it’s more ab…

Rather than asking "why didn't you do it this way?" you could ask "why did you choose this approach?", but only do so if you are prepared to acknowledge their reasoning may be valid (and, ideally, you are known for accepting justifiable approaches).

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#342

Post by mlsu »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #159
thenose wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. The trick is to force yourself to find something about their approach that you liked. There's almost always something likable. It's also the trick to being liked in general. Not everyone cares about that, but I've found it more of an asset than a distraction.

> Not at all [a lie]. The trick is to force yourself to find something about their approach that you liked. A lie is not always a falsehood; it is rather any use of communication with the deliberate intention of worsening somebody’s idea of the state of the world, and cherry-picking evidence (your “trick”) very much counts. I’d say it’s a very popular approach, even. You’re welcome to use a different word than “lie”…

The trick is to have a genuine respect, interest, and empathy for another person's approach, even if you disagree.

If you just take a superficial facsimile of what is suggested, without the actual respect and empathy, it will sound like bullshit as you say: it is.

But stopping to condition yourself to be empathetic first is a way of, I guess, bootstrapping that respect and empathy.

It's a low bar that people frequently don't clear.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#343

Post by gabereiser »

thegrimmest wrote: post #265
Kalium wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These approaches and how effective they are are both culturally and individually sensitive. The "Yes, but" approach works well in a context where people understand it as feedback that they should change. Softening the criticism with praise works for many people. It can also backfire in a context where people distrust praise, where the criticism is not understood as such, or when people have trouble with American busi…

It's a lot easier to teach many people how to receive communication in one style than it is to teach everyone to send communication in many styles. We can, and many organizations do, write style guides for internal communication. The most successful such style guides (eg. military, intelligence) emphasize the ABCs (accuracy, brevity, clarity) any to avoid extraneous verbiage. If your coworkers respond negatively to a…

There’s a whole division dedicated to undoing military communication style to adapt it to the real world in the private sector. Just FYI. Also, the word “didn’t” doesn’t exist in that communication style… “unable”, “status red”, “negative”, “not able”. The words “can’t” and “didn’t” are stricken.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#344

Post by master-lincoln »

madeofpalk wrote: post #146
master-lincoln wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the "correct in private" stance. How can others learn who did not do the mistake? The argument to have critique in private only is probably because of ego and honor culture where people feel personally attacked in topics where it's not about them at all but about the actions they have taken in a professional context with rules and expectations. But I fully agree on not talking to the manager, but p…

Not everything is, or has to be, a learning opportunity for everyone else.

why not? Where is the benefit of not making it one?

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#345

Post by palata »

pxc wrote: post #251
palata wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's awesome. It sets a public precedent for kind behavior and appreciative attitudes. It always makes me happy to see people thanking each other in that chat. Which brings exactly the same problem as the likes: some people always appear on those chats, some people never do. Does that mean that they are doing a bad job? No... they just get less visibility. How do you get more visibility on the "gratitude" c…

My department is pretty siloed, so I don't offhand know who all normally works closely with whom. I don't consult the org chart when I see people praise or thank each other, either, so I don't have a good sense of how much public praise in my department is intra-team puffery. I can say, though, that I've (so far) never used that channel to thank anyone on my own team. On my own small team, my manager already knows wh…

Fair, I totally get your points. I was just saying that as someone who has a "gratitude" chat at work. It has made me realized that I was working very hard for absolutely no recognition, and it destroyed my motivation.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#346

Post by allarm »

gretch wrote: post #277
allarm wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hey I’m glad you patched the bug, but can you give the SREs a heads up next time? I read it as passive aggressive. Pretty much everyone in my culture would read it this way. If you think it is a good example, please reconsider.

Okay, if we worked with each other in real life, I would accept that and I guess never speak to you that way. Since this is a discussion of communication theory, I have to say, it’s crazy to me that you read it as passive aggressive. Like when I say bad things about you, you can just accept those things in a straightforward fashion. However when I say good things about you, that cannot be accept in just as straightfo…

You don’t seem to understand the reasons why I would consider it passive aggressive, and it’s my fault because I didn’t explain it. Thing is, in my culture exactly this phrasing had been a form of passive aggressive tone that had been very common way of working communication. I’m not sure if that’s still the case - I’ve left my country years ago. But this exact phrasing is a strong trigger.

> However when I say good things about you

Yeah, I read it as the exact opposite, in this particular phrasing. Historical reasons.

In fact I’m on the SRE side in this example, and I often have to remind people to suppress alerts when they change something. I normally go with “We got paged for the planned works, could you please turn off alerts next time? Thanks”. I’m not thanking people for their job in this case because it’s likely irrelevant - we’re from different teams and chances are I don’t even know what exactly they’ve been working on (in a broad sense) or for what reason. I’m being polite and straightforward. Never got any complain, at least so far.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#347

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

r00fus wrote: post #271
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #39

I always enjoy reading her posts. She must be an outstanding coworker. I have also found that some people are experts at "weaponized compliments." They can give a compliment that is an insult, or an attack. "That's great, how you roughened the edges." when talking about a graphic asset with obvious mistakes. "I always told Bob how great you are, at that." This is the "stolen valor" compliment. It insinuates that you…

Can you provide more details on this? I've always had a fascination with these kinds of subjects (eg, conversational terrorism like "distorted active listening" that politicians use) and the examples online seem to only hint at how a narcissist weaponizes this.

Well, in my experience, it's usually around "power dynamics."

Some folks always have to be "on top" of every relationship.

Compliments are a way to wrest control.

For example, if we complement someone on being productive, depending on the wording, it can infer that they are only productive because we say they are, or that we are the only ones willing to "credit" them with their productivity.

It can also be used as a way to make ourselves look good, like saying that we are the only ones that noticed a certain pattern or trait, so we are using them as a foil to complement ourselves.

I have spent my entire adult life around some of the most manipulative people on Earth, and have developed a certain level of cynicism. I have also learned ways to "counter" these "compliments."

For example, in the OP, I might say "Huh. I thought it was obvious I screwed that up." That turns the "complement" onto the other, or "Yeah, but I showed Bob that I was good at that, and that's why I got the promotion."

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#348

Post by jjice »

ineptech wrote: post #275
mulmen wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can a correction be private and blameless? In a 1:1 if you talk about what “we” did wrong you’re clearly talking about me.

Those are two separate discussions. Even if I do something dumb and am rightly blamed for it, we can still have a retro to discuss process improvements that would make it harder for that mistake to happen again in the future.

This is what I had in mind, thank you for putting it into better words that I could.

Taking responsibility for messing up is important and part of personal growth. Having the team be aware of an issue and then together develop a way to avoid that issue in the future is huge.

I had a boss who told me that when something like this happened, it was usually an issue with a system in place. Merged bad code that shouldn't have gone to production? We need to improve review processes and testing. Production server outage after system dependencies changed? We need a more accurate staging environment and testing process for our infra.

That mindset was so great to learn and I fully embrace it still.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#349

Post by sequoia »

mulmen wrote: post #197
sequoia wrote: post #90

benefit of starting to give feedback if you're not already: ============================== - a lot risk that giving feedback without asking that hurts the recipient: == - very small 0 ---------------------------- a lot If you are trying to follow this advice but are scared your feedback might "backfire," see the infographic above. The risk is non-zero, but the takeaway here should be "you should start giving feedback…

Weird take. There’s risk in unsolicited feedback but nearly zero cost in simply asking. Why take the chance?

A couple reasons: Some people are excessively modest to the point of self-sabotage & will discourage you from providing deserved praise because they see it as boasting. Also, asking is another step and creates more friction in providing positive feedback. Given that this is something people already don't do, if you're trying to encourage the behaviour it should be made as easy as possible. There will be some people who can overcome their reticence to provide positive feedback, but asking them also to have an awkward conversation with the recipient beforehand is one step too many & they'll revert to simply not giving feedback at all.

So I disagree that there is nearly zero cost. Some people find these conversations awkward & the cost may be them opting out of this process altogether. And again, this guide over-emphasizes the potential "risk" of providing positive feedback.

Your "why take the chance" is precisely the issue I'm talking about–giving praise has been wrongly framed as a "risky" behaviour. It's like saying "you should exercise but be careful not to fall off a cliff! Check for cliffs ahead of time so you don't die!" This is overstating the risk of exercising & putting emphasis in the wrong place.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#350

Post by mcpackieh »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #300
mcpackieh wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you noticed that the people advocating for emotional coddling in this thread also seem to have trouble with nuance? They pose this false dichotomy of "Wow I really love this but..." vs "This sucks go fuck yourself" Simply being direct and forward without wrapping your words with empty praise or naked insults doesn't seem to be an option they recognize.

'I apologize for such a long letter - I didn't have time to write a short one.' - Mark Twain I also notice many people advocating "directness" tend to be bad with words. You may be paid to code, but you're still a professional expected to know how to communicate with peers and everyone else involved. Take time in both your craft and words.

If you can't find the middle-ground between fake smarmy praise and telling people to go fuck themselves, maybe you should check yourself and not go around telling other people they aren't good at communicating.

> In reality, we tend towards one extreme.

This is a personal problem, you should work on improving this.

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