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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

#121

Post by calderwoodra »

Dalewyn wrote: post #70
TylerE wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the occasional emoji is ok, especially in chat, but excess, especially multiples of the same emoji in a row are just childish.

Emojis and emoticons in any serious piece of communication are simply unprofessional and insincere. Do not use them, unless your intent is actually to piss your recipient off. Textbook example is the recent fiasco over at Linus Tech Tips, where they even used an emoji in an email to Billet Labs saying they "accidentally" auctioned off Billet's stuff. Anyone worth their paycheck doesn't use emojis in business communiq…

What's your opinion of slack? Seems to be the gold standard of team communication platforms (all other platforms follow their lead) and emojis are an integral part of it.

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

#123

Post by drewcoo »

ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

> You have every right to feel that way. I do think it is just categorically wrong, though.

"You have every right to feel the way that you do, even though I think what you feel is wrong?" Seriously?

Is that sarcasm? Trolling?

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

#124

Post by leetcrew »

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…

I don't agree. I am what you would call a Cold, but maybe just have slightly more social awareness than you're imagining. I can't just "filter out the niceties". I perceive them as setting the expectation that I will reciprocate similarly. I usually at least try to do so, but it not intuitive for me and requires a lot of energy.

not a big deal either way, I can muster up a few friendly greetings on my way into the office every day, and the Warms I encounter could also try to read the room a little better. I just don't agree that the impact is as asymmetric as you say.

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

#125

Post by leetcrew »

nickjj wrote: post #120
tayo42 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised to see emoji. I feel like those almost always come across insincere when they're not expected. Idk why, maybe I'm the odd one.

You're right about the "unexpected" part. I think it really depends on the context and the person. Both factors play a big role here. Imagine being in a spot to review a new hire's PR and you've barely interacted with them before this encounter. A reply of "Your method technically works but next time try xyz instead. It's more efficient. ;)" is extremely hostile in my mind. That phrasing is already over the top horre…

the fact that neither of your wordings makes it clear whether I actually have to address your comment to get my code merged is much worse than the tone of the first version.

like it or not, you are temporarily in a position of power when you are a required reviewer on someone else's change. they need to satisfy you to move their ticket into the "done" column, and you both know it. rather than dance around this uncomfortable situation with soft wordings, just focus on making it clear what is mandatory and what is optional.

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

#126

Post by NateEag »

generationP wrote: post #65

> Person B: “…. Hey, sorry to interrupt, but the story in my head is that you think owning that number is part of my job, and now you’re upset with me, or you think I’m incompetent at my job.” Do... people... talk like that?

It's a bit clumsy, but yes - this is a clunky version of explicitly stating your own emotions and what's giving rise to those feelings.

Putting those things out clearly in the open during difficult discussions can be incredibly powerful, awkward though it may be to achieve.

Nonviolent Communication is the gold standard text on how to use this style of communication, and for people like myself who didn't learn how to communicate about emotions as children, it can be life-changing.

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

#127

Post by jfengel »

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,…

If you trusted that a sacrifice would be received, you wouldn't need to make it. You'd already have trust.

Instead, both sides will view themselves as disadvantaged. That's how you got into this mess.

You can do it anyway, and live with the fact that you expect it to be a waste. Sometimes that touches off a virtuous cycle. Sometimes it reinforces a vicious one. There's no way to know beforehand.

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

#128

Post by saghm »

JohnFen wrote: post #30
ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

I think people forget that the written word has a tendency to come across stern unless you make an effort to soften it. I know I forget this. There have been numerous times even here on HN where people have thought I was being critical or argumentative when that wasn't remotely what I was trying to communicate.

It's definitely a problem I've run into on both the sending and receiving side, despite being very familiar with it. I can't say that I know any universal solutions, but I've found it effective to essentially acknowledge it up front when first communicating with someone (e.g. a new member joining the team); despite working remotely, I always try to hop on a voice call with new teammates the first time I ever help them with anything so that I can better convey that I genuinely do want them to feel comfortable reaching out to me and that I will never be unhappy with them reaching out to ask something, even if it turns out that I might not be able to for some reason. At least for people I need to communicate with on an ongoing basis, being able to make a clear first impression can help mitigate any potential misunderstandings later on.

In the absence of being able to do a voice call for an initial impression (e.g. if someone needs immediate help and I'm not available to do a call, or if it's someone I don't expect to need to talk to again in the future), the best strategy I've found is to directly state my good intentions. When I've had one-off discussions with support engineers at my current job to try to help them figure out a customer issue, I often start off by saying something like "I definitely can help you with this issue! If I'm slow to respond or accidentally miss some piece of information, it's totally fine to ping me again as much as needed; I might have to temporarily stop focusing on helping you to deal with other stuff that comes my way, but if I haven't said otherwise, you can assume that any prolonged radio silence on my end is from me forgetting rather than not wanting to help still :)". Even though this doesn't specifically address the idea of messages sounding more stern than intended, my experience is that being able to assure someone of good faith in general will help prevent any misunderstandings later on, regardless of the specific circumstances.

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

#129

Post by nerdponx »

jfengel wrote: post #127
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,…

If you trusted that a sacrifice would be received, you wouldn't need to make it. You'd already have trust. Instead, both sides will view themselves as disadvantaged. That's how you got into this mess. You can do it anyway, and live with the fact that you expect it to be a waste. Sometimes that touches off a virtuous cycle. Sometimes it reinforces a vicious one. There's no way to know beforehand.

The question is: is it worth it? How far do you have to degrade yourself before you decide that the other person won't come around? Maybe it's better to just split and spend your effort elsewhere.

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

#130

Post by dilyevsky »

tptacek wrote: post #27
dilyevsky wrote: post #13

From experience CC advice and other similar corp bs techniques are like “self defense class” techniques of communication meaning they only work if the other party is well meaning and actively cooperating. Which is to say they rarely work even if properly executed.

If your team is mostly comprised of people operating in bad faith, no advice (other than "disband") is going to help you. The premise of this article is that you have a team operating in good faith, but with fragile trust, which is a much more common problem in startups than a team of vipers.

That’s certainly true but these techniques also dont work on people who just don’t care rather than being outright malicious and there seems to be a lot more of those
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