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When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

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Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#251

Post by pxc »

palata wrote: post #75
pxc wrote: post #11

Besides some more formal systems for praising/thanking people that my company has, my department has a 'Gratitude' chat on Teams dedicated to thanking people when someone goes out of their way, unblocks you, demonstrates extraordinary patience, gets back to you especially quickly, etc. I think it's awesome. It sets a public precedent for kind behavior and appreciative attitudes. It always makes me happy to see people…

> I think it's awesome. It sets a public precedent for kind behavior and appreciative attitudes. It always makes me happy to see people thanking each other in that chat. Which brings exactly the same problem as the likes: some people always appear on those chats, some people never do. Does that mean that they are doing a bad job? No... they just get less visibility. How do you get more visibility on the "gratitude" c…

My department is pretty siloed, so I don't offhand know who all normally works closely with whom. I don't consult the org chart when I see people praise or thank each other, either, so I don't have a good sense of how much public praise in my department is intra-team puffery.

I can say, though, that I've (so far) never used that channel to thank anyone on my own team. On my own small team, my manager already knows when someone has been especially helpful to someone else. I use that chat in part to make things visible to external managers who otherwise might not know.

> And management sees those who are visible, even if it is not fair.

I admit that even in the best circumstances this could create some bias, but I don't think it has to be that severe. Managers should have other, better sources of information than that which should weigh more heavily than that.

> It can quickly get artificial

Yeah. I think keeping it low stakes and not treating it as some kind of informal metric is important for preserving some level of authenticity.

Truthfully, though, I don't really find myself evaluating the authenticity of exchanges of gratitude between others. I just know that when I use it, I'm genuinely thankful to whomever I'm thanking, and so far I feel like the thanks I've received have also been genuine.

> a bit depressing for the people who don't really appear there.

That's true. I've even felt a bit of that myself. But I think ultimately it's imperative for organizations (especially managers, but to a lesser extent basically everyone) to try to ensure that all kinds of people feel appreciated for their work, including people who are introverts and people whose work is solitary or unsexy maintenance work. And that means that recognition can't just be formulaic or systematic or happen in only one place.

Ideally, feeling underappreciated or left out in a certain system of recognition/thanks would be something you'd bring to your manager during a 1:1. And they could try to answer it by making your impact visible in some other way, like organizing a presentation or a demo of your work, or writing up some kind of report on it and sharing it somewhere, or just DMing you every now and then and letting you know that they had a conversation with so-and-so about how whatever you did was nice, helpful, vital, or whatever, or (hopefully!) arrange something more substantial like a promotion, raise, or bonus.

I like our gratitude chat at work but I wouldn't begrudge anyone still feeling underappreciated for whatever reason or saying that it doesn't do much for them.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#253

Post by neilv »

graypegg wrote: post #236
neilv wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you assuming that you're right?

I think it's about tone; it feels patronizing to me as well. "How does this approach handle {problem}?" is very socratic. You're asking a question meant to make them reconsider their idea in a very round about way. I think that actually comes off as assuming you're right in this conversation. I would imagine the person asking me that is being a snobby asshole showing off how intelligent they are. It's on the other pe…

> You're asking a question meant to make them reconsider their idea in a very round about way.

How would you ask the question differently, if your intent was that you wanted to understand how they handled "{problem}"?

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#254

Post by borroka »

gabereiser wrote: post #213
borroka wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the HR-motivated eternal infantilization of the people. In fact, to the person who went through mental and physical developments with no blockages or traumas, it comes across as a quite paternalistic way of communicating, but it is a style liked and embraced by corporate coaches, HR, and the informal CYA policies.

I disagree. Rather strongly actually. I’ve had bad managers that couldn’t communicate. I’ve been that manager. I’ve learned how to communicate to be more effective with others. Everyone has blockages and traumas (especially now). It’s important to use those in context and draw from that experience. It’s not HR motivated, it’s a style of empathetic communication.

It is important not to think of black-white alternatives. The style "good job, kid!", "great effort, little man/woman!" is undoubtedly paternalistic.

There are people who like this style on both sides of the conversation, but in my experience, these are not high performers who make a difference in an initiative, a company, or a group of friends.

Now, the alternative to paternalism is not rudeness, or brutality, but, as I see it, a clear communication that does not infantilize people, but treat them seriously, like serious adult people, and not kids who have to be coddled or paid excessive attention too, or, even worse, as "damaged goods".

A few years ago, I received a message from someone I had a date with, and they used the sandwich, paternalistic style of communication that most adults dislike. "Hi, it was great to meet you and we had such a great time. Unfortunately, I don't think it would work etc. I wish you the very best/you are a great guy/see you around". Unsurprisingly, they were working in corporate. It is annoying to be treated like kids when there are white hairs on semi-bald heads.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#255

Post by [deleted] »

camdenlock wrote: post #149
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #116

The comments here really demonstrate how this is a culturally-nuanced topic. FWIW, the author comes from a North-American background.

Would be interested to hear anecdotes from your culture. In the NA culture, we’ve reached a “kindergarten” sort of stage, where the prime directive is to protect feelings and reduce “harm”. I suspect this may be due the growing influence of academia on the private sector.

[deleted]

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#256

Post by nemetroid »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #233
nemetroid wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever truly come across a situation with a co-worker where there was no redeedming quality in their code review? This is irrelevant. Calling out specific parts as good is a great idea, if nothing else as clarification of what in particular it was that you didn't like. This is not what people are arguing against. In the example under discussion, the judgement of the work as a whole was "bad", while the commu…

>This is irrelevant. no, it's the entire point. Don't focus all on the bad, we're biased towards that and it's something we should always keep in mind. >In the example under discussion, the judgement of the work as a whole was "bad", exhibit A. Where in that top post was the objective judgement "bad"? As a reminder: > If you are calling out your colleagues for doing bad work, or not the way you would do it work, you…

> If you cant self-introspect and understand different approaches, as well as shortcomings in your own, then yes. I would say you are that hostile worker no one wants to work with.

That is entirely unwarranted, and beside the point.

> Where in that top post was the objective judgement "bad"?

No objective judgement is being made or communicated.

> We're assuming the "caller" in this case is right.

We don't need to assume that, or even take technical merit into consideration. This is not a question of who is right or wrong in a technical sense.

What is communicated by the caller's first sentence is whether the caller liked the approach. By their own admission they did not like it ("bad work"), but they communicated that they did like it ("I really liked").

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#257

Post by pxc »

gabereiser wrote: post #4

>Ask if it’s ok first… This is very astute. Not everyone likes getting praise in public settings or they might not want their micromanaging manager to know they helped you outside the scope of their work. You should be cognizant of when praise should be given (i.e. when is it appropriate) and in what context as mentioned in the article. That said, if you aren’t thanking and praising your colleagues for doing good wor…

> If you are calling out your colleagues for [...] not the way you would do it work, you should try to rephrase into praise w/ direction.

Is the following alternative completely insane? Be more combative, but playful about it:

> I don't like this code. Let's fight about it ;)

> ...

I feel like under a lot of circumstances that would be way more comfortable for me than trying to suss out whether someone was genuinely praising me, criticizing me, etc. Social ambiguity is more uncomfortable to me than disagreement or criticism.

(To be clear, I'm not endorsing this as a general approach.)

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#258

Post by thegrimmest »

pluijzer wrote: post #201
gizmo686 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on context, but I have found the opposite. "Have you thought about this approach" can come across as condcending. Of course I thought about that, it was the first thing I tried before the much more complicated solution that actually works. "Why didn't you do it this way" invites them to share the war story of what happened when they tried doing that.

But your example are cases where you feel strong because you have this war story. How about the cases where you just made a mistake? That said, I never liked the 'sandwhich' method, saying; "Great effort. The result is horrible, like your indentation though."

Then you should be glad someone pointed out your mistake, improved the work, and gave you an opportunity to learn. You should be thanking them.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#259

Post by thegrimmest »

trifurcate wrote: post #234
function_seven wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you understand that people can genuinely like you right? Yeah, I do. And when I get genuine compliments, I like them! But it's obvious when someone consistently prefaces their statements with "softening" compliments. When they're "deploying" a "communications strategy." Talk to me like a real person, please. It will make it easier for those compliments to land when recipients know they're real. But if you're th…

I always have doubts about others' work and suggestions on how they could do it better. To avoid constantly dominating others, I either have to shut my mouth or try to be more accommodating in how I deliver my feedback. I do a mix of both, but if you tell me to be straight with you, then I'll be straight with you. Especially in large corporate organizations where there are vast differences in how people communicate a…

This should just be the default. Many organizations do in fact write this down in their internal communication guides, where it's known as the ABCs (accuracy, brevity, clarity) of professional communication.

> I always have doubts about others' work and suggestions on how they could do it better

If you're right, they should listen to you (gratefully), if you're not they should tell you why so you can learn. There is no good reason to react emotionally to professional criticism, it is a worst-practice which no measures ought be taken to accommodate.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager (2020)

#260

Post by Spooky23 »

gabereiser wrote: post #229
Spooky23 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that performative praise is obnoxious most of the time, and causes more trouble than it’s worth, unless there’s a process behind it. Individual public stuff tends to bias heroics or forget people behind the scenes. In public, team praise is the best policy.

Sometimes you just want someone to acknowledge the hard effort you put into it and share the rejoice that it’s over/complete.

Totally agree. You just need to be mindful of context.

I’m in a senior director role. Part of that is that I need to be cognizant of what I say and how I say it, because Spooky23 is talking, but “corporate officer guy” is who the audience hears.

One early mistake that I made was recognizing a colleague who was essential to my aspect of delivering a key project. Which was true. But because of how I said it and what I didn’t provide (context), a person reached out to me, genuinely hurt and upset because they felt that the (very significant) contributions that they made were forgotten or ignored.

You can’t walk on eggshells, but a celebration should be that.

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