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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

#201

Post by Scarblac »

felurx wrote: post #192
none_to_remain wrote: post #170

For me personally, people who try to talk at me this way get mentally noted as low-key malicious. Like PUA for the workplace.

Why? Of course, someone might just be toxic. But if someone is actively trying to repair a relationship, wouldn't it be better for everyone to see it as that and try and reciprocate?

Maybe it's the difference between trying to sound friendly and actually being friendly.

If it's noticeable that someone is using an unusual way of talking, the first impression is that it's merely the first, and insincere.

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

#202

Post by sph »

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 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.

Reminds me of mob movies.

If one of your guys killed the rival's daughter, to avoid a war the best you can do is meet the rival, be sorry, say you should've been more vigilant and offer your guy or two (the sacrifice) so they can punish them and extract revenge.

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

#203

Post by lelanthran »

ako wrote: post #171
notnaut wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it is. Fucking up is part of a job. If you’re working 9-5 on the clock, you don’t have to fix shit after 5. Choosing to stick around to fix your mistake off hours without pay when you could do it the next day or take comp time later is a sacrifice of your time/money.

If I hire someone to work on my house and they fuck up, e.g., hit a water or gas pipe, I expect them to fix it asap, with no additional pay. Fucking up is not part of the job if you’re doing the hiring…… Happened to me once, long time ago, I was cleaning up an oracle db production server, and by accident deleted to system datafile of the database. Sat there till midnight to fix it, but at least I had proof the backup…

You don't see a difference between a contractor and an employee?

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

#204

Post by brightlancer »

vasco wrote: post #182
glonq wrote: post #2

How timely. My boss just crucified a co-worker today in our meeting and I think something like this could help mend things. Yes, my boss never heard of " praise in public criticize in private ". Welcome to working with a hot-blooded eastern european

Nobody should be crucified either in public or in private. But correcting mistakes and making it explicit to the whole team what the problem was and how we'll minimize the chances of reocurring is best done in front of the team. Everyone learns together, and most importantly, they see how you react to mistakes. They won't be afraid to talk about their mistakes if they see your normal reaction. It'll also feel less ba…

> Nobody should be crucified either in public or in private.

Serious reprimands need to happen in private. We can use euphemisms or severe language, but sometimes people need to be told, "You fouled up, you were careless, you were indiscriminate, and your reckless mistake cost the company more money than you make in a year, which may cost someone ELSE their job because of budget cuts."

Always remember that your foul-ups could cost someone their life or their livelihood. This isn't kindergarten. Adults need to be told honestly about the damage they caused.

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

#205

Post by sethammons »

OJFord wrote: post #60
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…

> 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. I really hate to make such a clichéd and usually flawed argument, but can you imagine the reverse going down well? And if the male cohort (to continue this stereotype/generalisation/simplification) don't lik…

Is that why some people overuse question marks? I really, really don't like it as it muddles the sentence. I mentally hear the inflection and it makes the person sound like a valley girl in my head.

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

#206

Post by sethammons »

doix wrote: post #143
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'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! Ha, I've got a funny anecdote about exclamation marks. My now girlfriend (she wasn't at the time) asked me once why I was always yelling in text. I had to ask her what she meant, and she said I used exclamations so much she thought I was always angry. So I guess becareful with using them too often, it could be taken the wrong way also :).

My former boss replied to her cousin over text "ok!"

The cousin took that as yelling and anger not the (what I consider obvious) intended enthusiasm. He didn't talk to her for a really long time and when they finally talked about it he didn't accept the answer and stayed angry.

People are odd.

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

#207

Post by sethammons »

tamimio wrote: post #162
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…

>In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of Not necessarily, I’ve worked with engineers/men who used emojis as a passive aggressive response, goes like “oh no, not like that, it’s XYZ :)”

Can you expand on that? Why is that passive aggression?

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

#208

Post by sethammons »

strken wrote: post #83
Dalewyn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If your communication is straightforwardly positive you can use as many emoji as you want without much in the way of consequences. Sticking :tada: in a Slack announcement of good quarterly performance, or even an official blog post, is unlikely to upset anyone in the same way "You're fired! :fire:" would.

> "You're fired! :fire:"

I snorted at that; thank you

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

#209

Post by Cthulhu_ »

enasterosophes wrote: post #115
aizatto wrote: post #104

I use "communication snippets" or "fillers" for example > Person A: “Hey, do you have any idea why this number is low? It’s a mystery … nobody I’ve talked to yet seems to know.” is really long I just say > curious; why is that number low? other prefixes I use are: 1. adding to the discussion 2. for discussion 3. low pri, no need to respond 4. neutral 5. nonactionable 6. sharing opinion https://www.notion.so/aizatto/c…

Not a criticism: this reminds me of Elcor speech in the Mass Effect trilogy, eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1PKFo1fYCA "Plainly, we discovered our vocal expression was not enough to convey the feelings of our conversations to other species." I never noticed the analogy before between Elcor and written/online communication. Now I'm wondering if it was intended by the game's writers.

There was a thread not long ago about semantic communication (I presume in code reviews) that touched on this same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37118098

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

#210

Post by Cthulhu_ »

none_to_remain wrote: post #170

For me personally, people who try to talk at me this way get mentally noted as low-key malicious. Like PUA for the workplace.

It's a difficult one; it's clearly NOT natural behaviour for a lot of people, that is, it becomes learned behaviour. But because you're aware of it being learned behaviour - techniques people pick up from a book or website - anyone doing it instantly flags up as being untruthful.

Example; some twenty years ago I learned this "factoid" that if you hold your palm downwards when giving a handshake (like turn your hand inwards), you will come across as dominant and assertive.

Cue loads of people trying an awkward downward handshake. But to me it comes across as "I am trying to dominate you", and instantly dislike the person.

It's like Trump yanking people in when giving a handshake.

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