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Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)
91–100 of 286 posts
Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds a bit like a fantasy or the rules you’re breaking are completely irrelevant. “I’m going to do X in 5 days if you don’t respond” gives you absolutely no recourse if you do something that can result in reprimand. About the only place where this works is violating some internal design decisions that are irrelevant to the business.
this is a silver bullet for something that needs to be done on a specific timeframe, otherwise it'll be bad. Since the "Boss x do not give approval for it" won't cut in as a reason, and boss x needs to know this before you're doing it. Of course criticality matters. The more critical it is, the more required for you to do a more personal message with said boss, like slack, dms, up to meeting face to face for approval…
This is an important insight. While the "bias towards action" approach works for smaller things, larger efforts may require change management protocols that capture explicit approvals. In regulated industries, you may have no choice but to capture approvals in some official manner (with ink sometimes).
Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)
#93I call this “Don’t Ask, Tell” and it has so many uses inside but also outside work. It really is just a basic communication skill to hone. It leads to concise and decisive outcomes.
I actually have this conversation a lot with my wife. She’s more of an asker. A recent example from earlier this evening. We had arrangements set to meet a group for dinner. Her style is to send a text to the group, 8 people, saying “what time is everyone arriving?” Which is so open ended it would initiate a flurry of comms. But, we knew we would be there an hour early because of where/when we were dropping our kid off for the evening. So I just said TELL them when will be there and TELL them we’ll be at the bar if anyone wants to have a drink beforehand. So much more straight forward, everyone showed up early and it was perfect with minimal comms required. Sure it was a lucky accident that everyone had care for their kids lined up to and was able to make it but the point is It took no time and actually didn’t even require any response at all in the case someone was not monitoring their messages.
It’s somewhat related to the idea of “ask for forgiveness, not permission” which I’m a huge fan of in all kinds of ways. Sure it can be riskier but I’m a rebel at my core so it comes with the territory. But this has its place too, group collaborations like GitHub repos is probably not a good place to yolo big changes that effect other people.
Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)
#94I like the general idea. I read the book “Start with no” a long time ago and the lessons stuck.
The first principle here is that people have an innate need for autonomy and giving them the option to say no gives them peace of mind. Highly recommended.
Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)
#95I'd fire him
> .”Hey, boss, I am going to install action X, which should solve the XYZ problems we’ve been having. Will take care of this on Monday unless I hear differently from you.”
No thank you. I'm the boss. Don't push me around
Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)
#96Yup, this is the meatspace equivalent of "opt out" vs "opt in", and works for pretty much the same reasons.
Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds a bit like a fantasy or the rules you’re breaking are completely irrelevant. “I’m going to do X in 5 days if you don’t respond” gives you absolutely no recourse if you do something that can result in reprimand. About the only place where this works is violating some internal design decisions that are irrelevant to the business.
Have been doing all my life and it has never backfired. It’s not about breaking rules. It’s that I already know what you want. If I buy you ice cream without asking you for the flavor, it’s because I already know what you want because I pay attention to you. And it doesn’t matter when I get it wrong because you appreciated the 500 other times I cared about you.
And decision fatigue is a real thing. Even if the ice cream flavour/engineering decision is maybe not perfectly optimal, there's some value in not having to make the decision myself
Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a bit long. "We're planning on defragging the thingamajig on March 1st unless objections are raised. Please send objections to manager@my.division.com" Honestly, I've been doing this for decades with legal stuff: "Please confirm that my next pickup date for $CHILD is March 1st." often resulted in the other party just remaining silent and, when complaints against her not allowing the child out were made, she re…
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In pearl or php, $variable is standard syntax.
Also used in Bash, ruby, R when referencing elements of a list…
I’m going to guess the GP didn’t want to give their kid’s name here and decided not to insert a generic Billy in its place. So this being a forum with lots of people experienced in $programming_language it’s common to reference a generic placeholder in variable syntax.
Personally, I think comments on HN should use properly type safe syntax, in which case $CHILD is replaced by:
with Ada.Strings.Unbounded;
use Ada.Strings.Unbounded;
Name : Unbounded_String;
Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)
#99This is a critical skill in big companies where everyone is swamped and busy and things get lost. I do this all the time when I’m dealing with people who don’t answer their email, or who tend to stall and delay approvals, or people who are just very busy. I’ll Email and describe the problem and then say the magic phrase “ If I don’t hear back from you in [N] days , I am going to do XYZ on [DAY N].” This way I’m not a…
How do you actually word this? "We plan to defragment the thingamajig on March 1st. We're reaching out to those who might have an interest in case this might cause problems. Please let us know if you have concerns about the defragment. If we don't hear from you by March 1st, the thingamajig will be defragged." Something like this?
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Re: Ask for no, don't ask for yes (2022)
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, we need to do XYZ by April 1st. Let me know if you think that's a problem.
That’s still ambiguous. There’s no default action listed if no response is given. Listing the default action is your CYA that a non response is approval of the default
Hey, we will do XYZ by April 1st. Let me know if you think that's a problem.