I'm currently re-reading the classic "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, and one of the principles he outlines to win people over to your way of thinking is to "show respect for the other person's opinion. Never say 'you're wrong'." He tells a story from Ben Franklin's autobiography outlining how insolent and opinionated he used to be, to the point that nobody could stand being around him. One day, someone wiser and older pointed this out to him and from that moment, Franklin made it a point to never directly contradict people or positively assert his own opinions. Instead, he'd say things like "I may be wrong. Let's examine the facts." This warmed people up instead of immediately putting them on the defensive and completely changed the success he had in dealing with people. A little tact and diplomacy goes a long way towards persuading others towards your way of thinking. And you never have to say "you're wrong."
Be Kind
101–110 of 401 posts
Re: Be Kind
#102I really like these two paragraphs towards the end: Being kind isn’t the same as being nice. It isn’t about superficial praise. It doesn’t mean dulling your opinions. And it shouldn’t diminish the passion with which you present them. Being kind is fundamentally about taking responsibility for your impact on the people around you. It requires you be mindful of their feelings and considerate of the way your presence af…
Trouble is, tone doesn't come through text very well. Takes a lot more typing and very careful word choice. So haste often comes off as unkind. Maybe we can read comments more kindly, and give terse words the benefit of the doubt?
>Trouble is, tone doesn't come through text very well
PG's a great example of this. In almost every interview I've seen with him, he comes across as warm and sincere. In almost every online comment I've read of his, he comes across as cold and terse to the point of dismissiveness. Clearly these aren't different people, but the medium shapes the message in more ways than many of us grok. Something that sounds matter-of-fact in my head when I write it will often sound dickish to those who read it.
Re: Be Kind
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, this is also incredibly exhausting. Most peoples' reactions to things are arbitrary at best and constant worrying about how they will take something is just way too much BS to put into my day. I bought pretty deeply into this philosophy once and it just made me neurotic and quiet at a time of my life where those things very much hurt me. I think being selectively kind makes a lot more sense. I'm kind to c…
> "People at work, retail staff, etc should be prepared to not have their emotions constantly validated and deal with disagreement and other things that are unpleasant." The addition of "retail staff" here surprised me. I'm a techie who took a break from tech and startups the past few months to help out my S.O., who owns a retail store. I worked the front counter, ran inventory, etc. for the past 3 months. I had neve…
Not the OP, and cool story; however, what they're paid doesn't matter, it's a red herring. It's their JOB to deal with people and and it's not my job as a shopper to validate the emotions of the counter worker or my co-workers. Ring up my stuff, take my money, and let me leave.
You're chastising him for his "attitude"; what attitude? He's correct and he didn't display any attitude other than simple honesty.
Re: Be Kind
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is very evident in the styles people do interviews. For example, Bill O'Reilly is loud, calls names etc when his guests disagree with him - to the point that some of his conversations end up being loud shouting matches and the only thing left to do (as a viewer) is to turn it off. Jon Stewart on the other hand - he disagrees with his guests in a kind, calm and funny manner - it is interesting to watch him and hi…
Unfortunately some claim [1] that if Jon Stewart really disagrees with you, he has no qualms against using editing tricks and false pretenses to make you look foolish and stupid. [1] http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-23/don-t-ever-...
Wow, didn't know that :( Thanks for the link.
Re: Be Kind
#105I really like these two paragraphs towards the end: Being kind isn’t the same as being nice. It isn’t about superficial praise. It doesn’t mean dulling your opinions. And it shouldn’t diminish the passion with which you present them. Being kind is fundamentally about taking responsibility for your impact on the people around you. It requires you be mindful of their feelings and considerate of the way your presence af…
This is very evident in the styles people do interviews. For example, Bill O'Reilly is loud, calls names etc when his guests disagree with him - to the point that some of his conversations end up being loud shouting matches and the only thing left to do (as a viewer) is to turn it off. Jon Stewart on the other hand - he disagrees with his guests in a kind, calm and funny manner - it is interesting to watch him and hi…
Isn't O'Riley trying to rile up his target audience by getting his guest worked up though? If he makes the guest look unruly, even by becoming unruly himself, he can blame the guest and make the guest look bad. It's the attraction to the show.
I don't watch O'Riley, but that's my perception from reading about things he's done/said.
Re: Be Kind
#106This is a fantastic article from Boz. I have to be blunt in my criticism, however, as I imagine Boz would expect and appreciate. I had a few run-ins with him in the early 2010s and I don't see much evidence that he learned from these experiences or changed his basic working pattern. Or maybe he was even more raw before I met him. :) I learned very early on not to have anything Boz wanted nor to cross him. It's hard t…
Yup, this post is about the start of a journey that is still ongoing for me. It still takes work and I still lose focus and do poorly and tried to call that out at the end.
To your specific point, I probably was even worse in 2008 than what you experienced in 2010. That's probably true at every point since. I'm getting better, but I am sure you can find people even in the last year who would say this post doesn't reflect the Boz they met. I believe those people are getting fewer and their experiences less bad, but I am definitely not great at this yet so the post should be taken as a belief I hold and a behavior I aspire to.
Re: Be Kind
#107Several well-known people in tech are notorious jerks. So I don't think being kind is a necessary condition for career success (though it can't hurt). But I suspect it's necessary to have a happy life.
Imagine what they could achieve if they were kinder to people.
Re: Be Kind
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Based off of my vague memory, in "How To Win Friends and Influence People", one main point is not to contradict people. In text or in person, never tell someone they're wrong. In general, when I want to correct someone's understanding I frame it as a failure of my own understanding. Like, hey, I'm the asshole here, would you do me a favor by going over this one more time for me? This is great because it allows the ot…
I rather liked that book and want to disagree with many of the points it tries to make, but find myself choosing not to. It is not economically or socially beneficial for me to be as blunt as I am - but my personal morality triumphs over both of those. If someone is wrong, they are wrong and I will let them know they are wrong. It won't win me any friends and it isn't beneficial for me to be as blunt as I am - but I…
I strongly believe cooperation yields better long term outcomes for everyone, and because of that I pick low cost pro-social strategies over low cost anti-social strategies. I don't frame this as "trying to maximize use out of people". I think about it as sparing people from having unnecessary unpleasant interactions.
I see telling people they're wrong as selfish. It's almost never necessary, and in a probabilistic sense is not the most efficient way to make them correct, because instead of just changing their mind, they have to tamp down their ego, avoid getting ticked at you, and then change their mind. Bam: you've just made their lives harder, for the satisfaction of being explicit that you're more correct than they are.
Re: Be Kind
#109Re: Be Kind
#110I had a completely different interpretation of the incident at Facebook. He had developed some key features that were now important. Instead of mentoring him to work better with others, his boss demoted him. The boss was giving someone else a favor, making them the lead of this now-important project, some up-and-coming hotshot. He made up an excuse about "bad attitude", while just using it as cover for backstabbing h…
I'm going to write a follow up about how I wasn't mad about the feedback as much as I was mad nobody had told me sooner. We were a young company and didn't really have a management or mentorship skillset yet. We would all develop that together in the ensuing years and this was a major part of my motivation for pushing for it.