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The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

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Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#31

Post by zrkrlc »

ineedasername wrote: post #5
zrkrlc wrote: post #3

Hmm, in my head, I model conversation as a game of who can get the mine the most "intimacy", if you will, while revealing the least about oneself. So risque topics are, as the adjective suggests, high risk, but also high reward. Correspondingly, small talk is a lot of low risk, low reward back-and-forth. You don't have to be intimate with a stranger, but you need to stick your neck out if you want to progress beyond…

Trying to get the most out of another while giving little or nothing seems like a strange and rather mercenary way to approach interpersonal interactions. Could you explain how you arrive at this mode of communication?

Well, no. My point was that conversations are not zero-sum games. You produce intimacy via information exchanges, which you both benefit from, though there will always be an information asymmetry between you and your conversation partner.

I know analysing social interactions is seen as a rather, if you will forgive the term, "autistic" (or worse, sociopathic) way of looking at things , but some people do not have the natural capacity for social interactions that the vast majority of the population enjoy. I myself have wondered for years if I lay on the autism spectrum before getting diagnosed with ADHD and so all this I had to learn explicitly from years of observation.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#32

Post by mc3 »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #23

I'm a regular reader of Ask a Manager ( https://www.askamanager.org/ ), and one thing that comes up over and over is how both managers and employees will avoid awkward topics ranging from trivial ("your breath smells") to consequential ("you need to step up or you'll be fired!"), to the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody. And I'm guilty of this…

Genuine conversations are sometimes risky. Quitting once you have a job secured can be favorable to being fired, for example.

Not having genuine conversations is part of the game unfortunately. Most orgs are political.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#33

Post by georgewsinger »

sandoooo wrote: post #2

The author misses the point. People are avoiding sensitive questions not because it impacts opinion on average, but because of the rare outliers that ruin it for everybody. It takes just a single asshole reporting you to HR to ruin your life.

Yep -- a classic "Expected Value is not the only thing that matters, but also one's Risk of Ruin" situation.

The counter-argument is this: do we still overestimate our true risk of ruin when it comes to asking sensitive questions? Are we actually going to get fired (or whatever horrendous thing) for not asking that question? I bet the answer is that we still overrate our true probability of ruin when it comes to these things.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#34

Post by zrkrlc »

asveikau wrote: post #12
zrkrlc wrote: post #3

Hmm, in my head, I model conversation as a game of who can get the mine the most "intimacy", if you will, while revealing the least about oneself. So risque topics are, as the adjective suggests, high risk, but also high reward. Correspondingly, small talk is a lot of low risk, low reward back-and-forth. You don't have to be intimate with a stranger, but you need to stick your neck out if you want to progress beyond…

Some personal advice: stop viewing your interactions in this transactional way and just be yourself. Stop giving a shit who reveals what and the perceived balance or imbalance of the same. Be kind and be generous.

I know I don't sound like it, but I completely get where you're coming from. It's weird and rather sketchy to find out that someone you're talking to is just following rules in their head. It's just that for people like me, conversations are not primitive actions. We need an explicit mental model to anchor ourselves, and while that doesn't excuse predatory behaviour, models are still just tools at the end of the day and some people need them to be seen as "normal".

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#35

Post by malnourish »

sandoooo wrote: post #2

The author misses the point. People are avoiding sensitive questions not because it impacts opinion on average, but because of the rare outliers that ruin it for everybody. It takes just a single asshole reporting you to HR to ruin your life.

I'm not sure there's anything one could say that would unjustifiably lead to that.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#36

Post by perl4ever »

krustyburger wrote: post #16
taneq wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not just seeming insincere and manipulative.

You’re right, of course. But I wonder if the parent is aware other people can detect this sort of thing.

If you can't detect it in some cases, how would you know?

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#37

Post by acidburnNSA »

rcurry wrote: post #30
9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #23

I'm a regular reader of Ask a Manager ( https://www.askamanager.org/ ), and one thing that comes up over and over is how both managers and employees will avoid awkward topics ranging from trivial ("your breath smells") to consequential ("you need to step up or you'll be fired!"), to the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody. And I'm guilty of this…

The worst one for me was the guy who didn’t wash his hands after using the restroom. One day, one of my team members told me about this, and I didn’t believe him, ha ha, so a few days later I’m in the restroom and this guy comes out of a stall and just walks out the door. So about a week later my guy who’d complained about it had some problem with one of our other systems, and who do they send over to help him out? Y…

You said stall so I am onboard with your disgust. This always reminds me about a Richard Feynman story where he'd stand in the bathroom and ridicule people who washed their hands after using the urinal, saying the urine was sterile anyway. I find that kind of hilarious. Colleagues complained all the time, like "well I was headed to lunch anyway and always wash my hands before lunch"

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#38

Post by mikestew »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #37
rcurry wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst one for me was the guy who didn’t wash his hands after using the restroom. One day, one of my team members told me about this, and I didn’t believe him, ha ha, so a few days later I’m in the restroom and this guy comes out of a stall and just walks out the door. So about a week later my guy who’d complained about it had some problem with one of our other systems, and who do they send over to help him out? Y…

You said stall so I am onboard with your disgust. This always reminds me about a Richard Feynman story where he'd stand in the bathroom and ridicule people who washed their hands after using the urinal, saying the urine was sterile anyway. I find that kind of hilarious. Colleagues complained all the time, like "well I was headed to lunch anyway and always wash my hands before lunch"

Mr. Feyman’s mistake is assuming I’m trying to wash away urine. I touch stuff other than my dick throughout the day. Post-piss is as good a time as any. Not that I would have ever that I felt I owed such an asshole an explanation.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#39

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

artsyca wrote: post #29
9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #23

I'm a regular reader of Ask a Manager ( https://www.askamanager.org/ ), and one thing that comes up over and over is how both managers and employees will avoid awkward topics ranging from trivial ("your breath smells") to consequential ("you need to step up or you'll be fired!"), to the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody. And I'm guilty of this…

I had a manager like that dude he was house poor and had only one ratty Hilfiger sweater There's no way to relate to people like that and confrontation being avoided is the only way out

Why is there no way to relate to people like that?

Like, an individual you get a vibe from, I get it, but all people who are house poor should be avoided? I'm not sure I follow.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#40

Post by vanniv »

sandoooo wrote: post #2

The author misses the point. People are avoiding sensitive questions not because it impacts opinion on average, but because of the rare outliers that ruin it for everybody. It takes just a single asshole reporting you to HR to ruin your life.

True, though it seems like asking sensitive questions is a moderate risk, whereas answering them is the real high-risk activity.
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