I realised after few years, that's what good managers do. They mostly ask right questions and let the team make the decisions and solutions. This way team owns it and have greater sense of ownership... By probing correctly you arrive at decisions rather than directly telling decisions. This works. Speak less and listen more.
Talk Less, Listen More
21–30 of 32 posts
Re: Talk Less, Listen More
#22I'd say it's opposite in dev community, where fresh developers come in from uni and if they only listen (and that's what they normally do) it is super complicated to track what level they are on. Guess it's a different in other industries where in software development we see more intraverts. I tend to encourage talking and making questions unless it's really unstoppable nonsense :)
Re: Talk Less, Listen More
#23So true.
Being quiet and gentle, listening carefully to someone else talking,
this is still always and will always be a good social practise.
Intellectually, delivering a monologue is much easier than understanding the other also.
Re: Talk Less, Listen More
#24I think it's actually cliche', and I'm sure I didn't say it first, but I sell with my ears. This may be specific to B2B markets, but my customers place a high degree of trust in my company's products. If our products fail, large customers will fire teams, small customers will go out of business. In order to be trusted, my customers have to be confident that I understand their technical and business needs. In some cas…
Woah. I wish people like you replace the sales people I deal with almost on a daily basis. It’s like a bunch of vultures trying to rip into my wallet. This is in B2B context with $1M+ sales accounts.
Sales people need to get the fuck off of my lawn. I hate every single one of them on a personal visceral level since they’ve ruined the quality of my professional life. I am forced to deal with these half-baked professionals because we have no choice. Stop aggressively trying to sell shit. Your metrics are probably better, but you’re a nuisance to otherwise kind, calm business conduct.
Re: Talk Less, Listen More
#25I realised after few years, that's what good managers do. They mostly ask right questions and let the team make the decisions and solutions. This way team owns it and have greater sense of ownership... By probing correctly you arrive at decisions rather than directly telling decisions. This works. Speak less and listen more.
I agree that a manager like that is better than a micromanager, but ultimately what I want (and what they deserve higher pay for) in a manager is leadership. Leadership means that they make some of the tough decisions and fess up to them later.
I've worked with managers who only asked questions and let the team decide everything. The problem is that the team is generally already stretched really thin and isn't really free (in terms of workload) or equipped to make decisions. When the manager essentially delegates all of the ugly and messy work to the team (i.e. decision-making) I end up wondering what they're actually doing.
It's one thing to ask and field questions about what everyone thinks about a subject in order to make decisions (and maybe that's what you meant), but in my experience the second part rarely happens. Maybe it's just me, but I feel overwhelmed with being asked a bunch of questions when I actually desire concrete guidance or direction. Granted that's a case by case thing but I feel that managers who do the former aren't that good at the latter in times of need.
Re: Talk Less, Listen More
#26I think it's brilliant advice to young people to not try to seem like an expert when they clearly aren't one. When you're dealing with people who are familiar with your subject, you can't fake it until you make it - you're 22 and they have a pretty good idea of how little a 22 year old is going to know. The good news is that also means they have reasonable expectations of you - be helpful and thoughtful, and they'll…
The caveat, of course, is there are 22 year olds who know your subject better than you. I met those, and I wished they talked more.
1/1000
Re: Talk Less, Listen More
#27I realised after few years, that's what good managers do. They mostly ask right questions and let the team make the decisions and solutions. This way team owns it and have greater sense of ownership... By probing correctly you arrive at decisions rather than directly telling decisions. This works. Speak less and listen more.
I agree that a manager like that is better than a micromanager, but ultimately what I want (and what they deserve higher pay for) in a manager is leadership. Leadership means that they make some of the tough decisions and fess up to them later. I've worked with managers who only asked questions and let the team decide everything. The problem is that the team is generally already stretched really thin and isn't really…
I always admired the "management strategy" of Captain Picard in Star Trek TNG. He asked for advice, listened to people he trusted, and then made a decision that he took total responsibility for. He was always willing to listen, but there was no confusion about who had the ultimate authority. Also, he trusted domain experts to do their work without micromanaging them, but didn't hesitate to bring them into line if they strayed too far from the team's objectives.
Re: Talk Less, Listen More
#28Pushing 45 now, having worked in a lot of industries, I say this is bad advice. Most people who want you to talk less and listen more are just trying to control you and in corporate landscapes, never ever assume anyone is trying to help you. I wasted a lot of years staying silent, reminding myself that other people know more than me. Actually, all the smart, competent people were the ones being quiet in the first pla…
I recognize much of what you say. Worst experience I have is with devs who call themselves 'coach' and know it all. They should be quiet more often.
At the same time, I have this junior dev in my team who is very stubborn and never listens. This is very annoying, she can work days on a single small assignment. When I give advise on how the problem can be tackled I see it is just being ignored.
So, in these cases 'listen more' is good advise :)
Re: Talk Less, Listen More
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Listen to your potential new client. Let them speak. Let them feel seen and heard. The post seems to be talking more about from a sales / client relationship development perspective. Your reply seems to be more about internal comms on a team.
No, the author is pretty clear. They take issue with verbiage they personally hear from younger people. Here is a quote from the article: > “ The first thing I tell them is to talk less and listen more. I don’t know if this is a generational thing or they’re just nervous to talk to me or what, but most of these conversations begin with me getting machine gunned to death with someone’s line of shit right out of the ga…
The context of your quote is someone coming to him for advice, and proceeding to monologue at him.
Why would you go to someone for advice, unless you think they they have something of value to say?
Re: Talk Less, Listen More
#30I'd say it's opposite in dev community, where fresh developers come in from uni and if they only listen (and that's what they normally do) it is super complicated to track what level they are on. Guess it's a different in other industries where in software development we see more intraverts. I tend to encourage talking and making questions unless it's really unstoppable nonsense :)
Hmm. Most likely. He was talking about fresh graduates not having people knowledge. That is probably less relevant in software development.