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Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

ashley.rolfmore.com

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Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#101

Post by watwut »

sublinear wrote: post #7

> 8. You judge people You know, I was actually hoping for a good listicle of things to watch out for in meetings. The author should take their own advice. Assuming bad faith immediately kills all productivity, so there's no point in finishing reading this. I agree with the general notion that there are often knowledge gaps getting in the way of better planning and execution. I was hoping for techniques to overcome th…

> Assuming bad faith immediately kills all productivity, so there's no point in finishing reading this.

First, the author is not assuming bad faith. They are saying that judging people is common pitfall. And the "hating or dismissing people for misunderstanding the thing you documented badly" is something I have seen done so many times, that yep, it exists.

But second unrelated thing is, sometimes there is a bad faith. Refusing to accept that bad faith situation can happen just makes it massively harder to solve the issue. It empowers the person acting in bad faith.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#102

Post by nottorp »

yetihehe wrote: post #81
rrgok wrote: post #77

I have better a idea, since everybody need an engineer to build the damn thing, how about we teach non engineer people to talk to engineer people. Why is it always our burden to learn and improve. UX problem, blame the engineer. Comunication problem, blame the engineer. Documentation problem, blame the engineer. I'm so sick of it. Comunication is a tango. If you - who need the product and are ready to pay for it - do…

> If you - who need the product and are ready to pay for it - don't take your damn time to effectively articulate what are your needs then you should go to school again and learn it. Instead they will go and buy a product that was made by engineers who asked them "what they actually need" and "how can we make it easier for you". It's not about "why should I always care, I have enough". It's about "who will make bette…

The thing is, neither the software engineers nor the users know wtf should be done completely. Communication across domains is hard.

Let's try a physical items example: have you ever ordered a piece of furniture or other home improvement thing, got exactly what you asked for, professionally done... and then later found out there were better ways to do it (at similar cost) that you hadn't even imagined?

Was it because you didn't know what to ask for? Was it because the experts in home improvement didn't volunteer that there are other options? Was it because they sell one thing and didn't even know there are other options? Did you even ask what options you have or did you just order the thing?

Communication is damn hard, again.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#103

Post by redrecpeng »

b3lvedere wrote: post #86
azath92 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Id guess by your smile there is an element of humor in your response, so this isn't a rebuttal, but rather i identified a lot with your point, and I was thinking that this is such a human response to vulnerability. If it was guaranteed that it will not be abused or that I would regret it, it would not _be_ vulnerable. Just like its not bravery if I am not afraid or I am assured of my safety. Such a paradox. Being vul…

I've had the privilege to have been more than half a century on this planet and my experience has not been super great regarding being vulnerable. It takes great skill to not have it mentally affect you. Even if you get ten thousand positive results, a mere two bad results will affect you even more. Nevertheless i agreee it is always better to start with empathy.

[dead]

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#104

Post by 6P58r3MXJSLi »

b3lvedere wrote: post #78
6P58r3MXJSLi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state if it's not two ways, stop trying, stand up and leave.

What a privilige it must be to be able to have a job where you can stand up and leave when your psyche can't handle it. Ever done tech support for ten hours a day? :)

I've done tech support for years, since 1996.

Your assumptions are also very wrong, my psyche could kill you, I simply know what I want on my side and you on your side, we have to meet somewhere in the middle, otherwise it's not listening, it's abuse.

If you don't stand up for yourself, nobody will.

Your view is US centric, I live in Europe, we have rights, we can't be fired for having opinions. We don't work 10 hours a day, we have rights.

You have this strange stance where employees are slaves, living in a one man dictatorship.

We are not.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#105

Post by rrgok »

watwut wrote: post #100
yetihehe wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you - who need the product and are ready to pay for it - don't take your damn time to effectively articulate what are your needs then you should go to school again and learn it. Instead they will go and buy a product that was made by engineers who asked them "what they actually need" and "how can we make it easier for you". It's not about "why should I always care, I have enough". It's about "who will make bette…

> Instead they will go and buy a product that was made by engineers who asked them "what they actually need" and "how can we make it easier for you". That sort of decision making is not done by engineers. You are blaming engineers about product decisions made by management, product management, UIX design, analysts ...

> That sort of decision making is not done by engineers. You are blaming engineers about product decisions made by management, product management, UIX design, analysts ...

Thank fucking god someone who understand it. Sometime I feel an alien listening people bitch about engineers. A product is not just the result of engineers.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#106

Post by duskdozer »

generic92034 wrote: post #55
onion2k wrote: post #17

You assume what they say is the same as what they are thinking The converse is also true. People saying something assume that people listening are understanding and thinking about the same thing. This is why it's important to write things down in details and as-unambiguous-as-you-can forms. If you're in a meeting and someone puts up a slide deck with a 6 word bullet point that 'explains' what they want, that is a sig…

> This is why it's important to write things down in details and as-unambiguous-as-you-can forms. While that might be a prerequisite for a deep shared understanding, I have made the experience in the last few years that the number of people really reading more than the starting sentence of any message/ticket/email is consistently decreasing. I often have to feed them the information in very small and easy to digest p…

This is why I'm assuming so many people aren't averse to LLM-generated/filtered text. If you never really read or wrote what you were reading and writing anyway, the LLM can get something similar without much effort. Frustrating if you actually need something

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#107

Post by yetihehe »

nottorp wrote: post #102
yetihehe wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you - who need the product and are ready to pay for it - don't take your damn time to effectively articulate what are your needs then you should go to school again and learn it. Instead they will go and buy a product that was made by engineers who asked them "what they actually need" and "how can we make it easier for you". It's not about "why should I always care, I have enough". It's about "who will make bette…

The thing is, neither the software engineers nor the users know wtf should be done completely. Communication across domains is hard. Let's try a physical items example: have you ever ordered a piece of furniture or other home improvement thing, got exactly what you asked for, professionally done... and then later found out there were better ways to do it (at similar cost) that you hadn't even imagined? Was it because…

> Communication is damn hard, again.

Yes, but it is necessary to achieve better results.

> Was it because you didn't know what to ask for? Was it because the experts in home improvement didn't volunteer that there are other options?

That's bad communication from both sides. Having good information on each of the sides leads to better communication. Client with better communication will have better results for himself. Seller having better communication will give better results to his clients. Worse than his average to clients with bad communication, better than his average to clients with better communication. But his average will be higher than average of seller with bad communication.

Sellers with better communication will provide better service and will attract customers. Sad corollary: he will also attract a lot of customers with bad communication.

> Was it because you didn't know what to ask for?

Yeah, when I don't know what to ask for, I search for expert who will know what I should ask and will help me with expanding my knowledge of the options.

> Let's try a physical items example: have you ever ordered a piece of furniture or other home improvement thing, got exactly what you asked for, professionally done... and then later found out there were better ways to do it (at similar cost) that you hadn't even imagined?

Yes, I speak from experience of such moments.

> The thing is, neither the software engineers nor the users know wtf should be done completely.

It's easier and more effective to educate a small group of software engineers than a lot of users, that's why engineers SHOULD try to communicate better.

> Communication across domains is hard.

It is. But the expert has typically to communicate across one domain, his own against "no_domain". User would have to learn to communicate better or become domain expert in a lot of different domains.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#108

Post by yetihehe »

watwut wrote: post #100
yetihehe wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you - who need the product and are ready to pay for it - don't take your damn time to effectively articulate what are your needs then you should go to school again and learn it. Instead they will go and buy a product that was made by engineers who asked them "what they actually need" and "how can we make it easier for you". It's not about "why should I always care, I have enough". It's about "who will make bette…

> Instead they will go and buy a product that was made by engineers who asked them "what they actually need" and "how can we make it easier for you". That sort of decision making is not done by engineers. You are blaming engineers about product decisions made by management, product management, UIX design, analysts ...

Well, you are right. I conflated "engineers" with "experts". UX people, product management, analysts should improve their communication skills. Engineers (like me) too.

Engineers should have better communication skills, but if the whole weight of communication is put on engineers instead of people hired to actually be responsible for this, engineers will be burned out.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#109

Post by layer8 »

sublinear wrote: post #94
layer8 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging people doesn’t imply bad faith. We are all judging people all the time. It takes constant effort trying to be self-aware of it and trying to compensate for it.

Oh the author continued by saying: "Stop assuming they are bad at their job or their lives". This was too absurd and hostile for me to continue listening. I asked myself whether I thought the author was bad at writing, and realized I fell into their trap. I asked myself how lost and angry someone has to be to write crap like this, and realized I did it again. Some people have a real knack for being so defensive and i…

I take it seriously and don’t feel like a victim at all. Maybe you never think that someone is bad at their job or their life, but many people do, myself included. It’s neither absurd nor hostile when someone points it out. The article isn’t about morals, it’s about what is a constructive way to get useful results.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#110

Post by finghin »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #66
digi59404 wrote: post #54

Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic. Let me add a couple to this list. 1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept. 2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to y…

> No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept. Not sure it's ever good to assume this beforehand though. Most things are negotiable, if you know how to negotiate right.

You don’t have to assume it, but you should be more than prepared for it to be the case
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