I love this quote: "the plural of anecdote is not data"
I dislike it because it is counterfactual. Each anecdote is a datum.
The plural of anecdotes is non-experimental data, but data nonetheless.
Optimism
131–140 of 165 posts
Re: Optimism
#132Author here. Ask Me Anything.
> You analyze whether your explanations for good things are personal, general, and permanent.
What good things? I mean, not only can I not remember a good thing happening, but I have even forgotten how it is supposed to look like. For example, a good time? a good night of sleep? I kept the memory of these during a few years even though they were not happening any more, but for some time I have forgotten how they feel.
So the prerequisites for this method are not always present.
Re: Optimism
#133Author here. Ask Me Anything.
How does this work for correcting actual systemic issues? If all the negative is temporary, impersonal and specific, how does one notice and correct things that are consistently and generally wrong with oneself?
Re: Optimism
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best advice I received on this topic was that feedback should be actionable, specific, and kind. Actionable and specific mean that the person on the receiving end has a set of concrete actions to take to implement. For example, "get better at programming" isn't specific, and "get a PhD in Computer Science" probably isn't actionable, but "work on improving your ability to write readable code by working through the…
> When giving feedback, some people say that they are brutally honest As someone who prefers giving and receiving terse feedback... I would suggest that there's nothing wrong with brutal honesty for type of people who appreciate receiving it . If I write code and forget to test some specific cases, I would much rather get a code review of "Missing tests for negative numbers, empty string, null" than a longwinded and…
> I don't need to hear compliments on what's right... just what can be improved.
I used to say the same thing, but now I think I was wrong. I didn't want to hear compliments on what's right. But I did need it. Focusing on negatives helped me reduce error rates. But ignoring the positives limited my ability to grow.
What got me to slowly switch was learning about appreciative inquiry. It's a practice of focusing strongly on the good aspects of something and seeking to amplify them. I looked into it because a team I was working with had these brutally negative retrospectives. They were in a rut of flagellating themselves every week about all their failures. They were a great team, but weren't performing well because they became gradually more stressed and discouraged. And after I saw that in them, I eventually saw it in myself, too.
I'm now 6 or 7 years into consciously switching approaches and I'd never go back. Just today I was pairing with a younger programmer, and we even took some time to appreciate their anxiety. That fear of failing was causing them a lot of problems, but instead of asking them not to worry, I asked them to channel their anxiety into areas where it was useful, like writing good tests.
That said, I'm with you on not wanting "nice" versions of things, which I see as a social performance, and not actual kindness.
Re: Optimism
#135Am I the only one who read the paper in a kind of wise-man on high high voice, complete with deep sighs of self-reflecting pauses (perhaps denoted by the '^' characters?). Are those meant to make us think the author is saying something profound and important? I wish I had the motivation to give a self-help lecture at a Rails conference. I'm sure no one would come though, and if anyone did come, they would probably ha…
The "paper" is actually the markdown source for a presentation, the ^ characters are markup indicating that what follows is a speaker's note that does not appear on the slide. Elsewhere in this discussion, you will find a link to a video of the presentation, and I trust that if you go looking for evidence that I am a self-important windbag, you will have no difficulty gathering evidence that is consistent with your p…
It's a little ironic that you used this insider information to gauge the reception and audience to your talk about optimism? It's easier to be optimistic when you can more easily expect an outcome, isn't it?
Re: Optimism
#136I'm finding the in-content markup and heavy in-stream visuals tremendously distracting. A straight-text extract would be a far more useful presentation online. Following an @idlewords-type presentation, with images to the side of the main text would also help. I have modest interest in reading this, but not so much that I'm willing to put up with entirely self-inflicted idiosyncracies to do so.
As mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, this is the markdown source for a presentation. A program called DeckSet turns it into a conventional presentation. Having it in markdown enables some useful things like git/github.
Having it in markdown form should make outputting to a consumable Web format (HTML, ePub, PDF) possible.
I'm on a platform (Android) which doesn't have a Markdown translator readily available. Not even via Termux.
You're publishing, for the public. If you want to provide editorial sources, that's one matter. If you want to make consumption easy for your readers, that's another.
You've failed at it. And repeatedly defended that failure rather than remedied it.
Re: Optimism
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
As mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, this is the markdown source for a presentation. A program called DeckSet turns it into a conventional presentation. Having it in markdown enables some useful things like git/github.
Having it in markdown form should make outputting to a consumable Web format (HTML, ePub, PDF) possible. I'm on a platform (Android) which doesn't have a Markdown translator readily available. Not even via Termux. You're publishing, for the public. If you want to provide editorial sources, that's one matter. If you want to make consumption easy for your readers, that's another. You've failed at it. And repeatedly def…
Wow
Re: Optimism
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best advice I received on this topic was that feedback should be actionable, specific, and kind. Actionable and specific mean that the person on the receiving end has a set of concrete actions to take to implement. For example, "get better at programming" isn't specific, and "get a PhD in Computer Science" probably isn't actionable, but "work on improving your ability to write readable code by working through the…
> When giving feedback, some people say that they are brutally honest As someone who prefers giving and receiving terse feedback... I would suggest that there's nothing wrong with brutal honesty for type of people who appreciate receiving it . If I write code and forget to test some specific cases, I would much rather get a code review of "Missing tests for negative numbers, empty string, null" than a longwinded and…
> for type of people who appreciate receiving it
This is key. I wonder though, what's a good way to signal that to friends and coworkers? I personally declare Crocker's rules[0], but I rarely have the opportunity to communicate that to people I'm talking to.
[0] - https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Crocker's_rules
"By declaring commitment to Crocker's rules, one authorizes other debaters to optimize their messages for information, even when this entails that emotional feelings will be disregarded. This means that you have accepted full responsibility for the operation of your own mind, so that if you're offended, it's your own fault. The underlying assumption is that rudeness is sometimes necessary for effective conveyance of information, if only to signal a lack of patience or tolerance: after all, knowing whether the speaker is becoming angry or despondent is useful rational evidence. Two people using Crocker's Rules should be able to communicate all relevant information in the minimum amount of time, without paraphrasing or social formatting.
Thus, one who has committed to these rules largely gives up the right to complain about emotional provocation, "flaming", "trolling", "abuse" (hopelessly subjective terms) and other alleged violations of etiquette. They give these rights up in the interest of effective debate."
Re: Optimism
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best advice I received on this topic was that feedback should be actionable, specific, and kind. Actionable and specific mean that the person on the receiving end has a set of concrete actions to take to implement. For example, "get better at programming" isn't specific, and "get a PhD in Computer Science" probably isn't actionable, but "work on improving your ability to write readable code by working through the…
> When giving feedback, some people say that they are brutally honest As someone who prefers giving and receiving terse feedback... I would suggest that there's nothing wrong with brutal honesty for type of people who appreciate receiving it . If I write code and forget to test some specific cases, I would much rather get a code review of "Missing tests for negative numbers, empty string, null" than a longwinded and…
I think one of the important takeaways from the talk is that even if people say they want brutal feedback they probably don't. More importantly, feedback can be totally honest without compromising it's optimism.
> I would much rather get a code review of "Missing tests for negative numbers, empty string, null" than a longwinded and "nice" version
I agree that niceness isn't always necessary. Fortunately, that's not what the talk is about. For me, the examples you gave actually fulfills all the criteria for optimistic criticism:
- It's impersonal: the focus is on what the code is missing, not your ability as a coder.
- It's specific: there are hyper-specific criticism.
- It's temporary: the tests are merely "missing" and that's a condition that can be quickly changed.
Re: Optimism
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, assess others in an optimistic way also. I.e. praise: personal, general, and permanent criticism: impersonal, specific and temporal
This seems to fly in direct opposition to research on growth vs. fixed mindset, which claims that praise should be impersonal, specific, and temporal in order to help people realize that they can do better based on the choices they make.
I think an effective compromise would be to make all feedback (positive and negative) impersonal, specific, and temporal.