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‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

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Re: ‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

#51

Post by twic »

apkostka wrote: post #39
Dirlewanger wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not surprised people step up to bat with the strawmen. Speaking with candor != being a dick. People can supply direct and honest feedback without making it personal. Someone can criticize someone else's code until the cows come home, while also being excellent friends with them outside the workplace.

Of course, there's the flip side to this; you can offer constructive criticism to someone without being a dick and they can still take it personally. Some people just can't take any criticism.

Bingo. People need to be able to both offer and receive criticism without involving their ego. Both of these are hard, but i think the latter is considerably harder.

Re: ‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

#53

Post by twic »

hitekker wrote: post #48

There are two comments in the article, copy-pasted below which roughly summarize why this is a terrible idea. ---- Gene Consbruck: You had better not front-stab your boss. Mike Tian: "niceness", "politeness", or "etiquette" were invented to allow strangers to co-exist with less friction. They are a code of conduct to prevent violence when people lived in clans and tribes. It was a good invention. Within a trusted cir…

> You had better not front-stab your boss.

Something my current employer does, which with hindsight is incredibly obvious, is to separate the roles of leader and manager. Leaders guide the day-to-day work, managers guide the careers of employees. I'm the leader of a development team, and while i do spend a lot of time guiding my team as to what to do and how to do it, i don't carry the can for their happiness, professional development, etc. Rather, that's in the hands of various other people in the company [1], who have monthly one-to-ones, collect feedback, give performance reviews, etc.

As a result, one of the people on my team could absolutely front-stab me without fear of the consequences. They could simply say to their manager that i was a shitty team lead. It would then be up to the manager to act on that information, by giving me or my manager that feedback. That's not hypothetical; it's happened (i actually am a shitty team lead).

[1] That's not to say i don't contribute towards that; if the manager of one of the people on my team comes and tells me that that person is keen to learn more about some topic, i'll try to carve out work related to that topic and let that person work on it. But i'm not the prime mover.

Re: ‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

#54

Post by dawnbreez »

coldtea wrote: post #46
dawnbreez wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is to dispel office politics by telling people to stop hiding their feelings and opinions. The problem is that assholes will use it to justify being a dick, just as they used office politics and Ayn Rand.

> just as they used office politics and Ayn Rand. Well, it's not like Ayn Rand can be used any other way.

Having read (almost all of) Atlas Shrugged, I'd say most of the uproar surrounding it occurs because people don't think about what she means when she preaches that making money is a good thing. The problem is a translation error of sorts; when she talks of "making money", she's referring specifically to creating value, not to (say) abusing patents or trimming an extra 5% off your workforce's wages.

Re: ‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

#55

Post by dawnbreez »

jrock08 wrote: post #43
Dirlewanger wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with everything you said, have you (speaking with candor) not been paying attention the past decade or so? A lawsuit-trigger-happy populace coupled with millienials entering the workplace has caused such collective scarring that institutions like academia and workplaces are reacting. We're now equating emotional distress with material injury, and it's having vile reverberations that won't be fully felt…

There is a huge difference between racism, and telling someone that their idea isn't fully thought out. The social justice movement doesn't care about the latter in the slightest. Discouraging racism and sexism in a workplace isn't censorship any more than discouraging swearing is.

The problem people have with Social Justice is that they are perceived as "going overboard"; they attach the same importance to staring at someone's chest that they would attach to grabbing said chest, which is equated to straight-up rape.

This is, of course, a vocal minority speaking--a group of people who attach their entire self-worth to the idea that they're fighting evil. They can't bear to think that the fight is over, because then their life becomes devoid of meaning, so they insist that the fight must be taken even further.

The issue is further complicated by what I call the Villain Effect. Because the other side is opposed to you, they are evil; therefore, any compromise is immoral. This happens on both sides, leading to a destructive stalemate in which everyone fights for an increasingly extreme version of their original vision, with no end in sight.

Re: ‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

#56

Post by dawnbreez »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #22
golemotron wrote: post #20

The clash between this and the culture of "trigger warnings" and "safe-spaces" that people are picking up in universities will be a thing to watch.

Aren't trigger warnings a bit daft? How on earth are you supposed to reasonably account for a universe of possible scenarios that might "trigger" someone. By the way I say this fully aware that I am privileged to not suffer from, well, whatever triggers actually do to people... ("Feel bad" is all I can figure)

The original definition of a "trigger" was for PTSD. However, people have begun to use it for anything upsetting, which makes the term less meaningful. It's now used satirically about as often as it is seriously.

Re: ‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

#57

Post by coldtea »

dawnbreez wrote: post #54
coldtea wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just as they used office politics and Ayn Rand. Well, it's not like Ayn Rand can be used any other way.

Having read (almost all of) Atlas Shrugged, I'd say most of the uproar surrounding it occurs because people don't think about what she means when she preaches that making money is a good thing. The problem is a translation error of sorts; when she talks of "making money", she's referring specifically to creating value , not to (say) abusing patents or trimming an extra 5% off your workforce's wages.

Believing that "making money is a good thing" can be OK.

It's all the other things she said, wrote, and even more so, practiced -- in other word her ethics and ideology -- that make her appalling as an author and as someone people aspire to be like.

Re: ‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

#58

Post by dawnbreez »

coldtea wrote: post #57
dawnbreez wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read (almost all of) Atlas Shrugged, I'd say most of the uproar surrounding it occurs because people don't think about what she means when she preaches that making money is a good thing. The problem is a translation error of sorts; when she talks of "making money", she's referring specifically to creating value , not to (say) abusing patents or trimming an extra 5% off your workforce's wages.

Believing that "making money is a good thing" can be OK. It's all the other things she said, wrote, and even more so, practiced -- in other word her ethics and ideology -- that make her appalling as an author and as someone people aspire to be like.

Care to explain? As mentioned above, I've only read most of Atlas Shrugged, not all. For instance, I don't know what John Galt's final speech is like.

From what I've seen of AS, she believes that the creation of value is good, and that trying to create a system where effort isn't rewarded will lead to people not putting in effort.

There's also all the discussion of sex in AS, which, assuming it's actually relevant to the story, leads me to believe that Rand thought of emotional and physical pleasure as being two sides of the same coin--that is, there's no shame in either. However, sometimes sex is just sex, to paraphrase Freud.

Re: ‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

#59

Post by coldtea »

dawnbreez wrote: post #58
coldtea wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believing that "making money is a good thing" can be OK. It's all the other things she said, wrote, and even more so, practiced -- in other word her ethics and ideology -- that make her appalling as an author and as someone people aspire to be like.

Care to explain? As mentioned above, I've only read most of Atlas Shrugged, not all. For instance, I don't know what John Galt's final speech is like. From what I've seen of AS, she believes that the creation of value is good, and that trying to create a system where effort isn't rewarded will lead to people not putting in effort. There's also all the discussion of sex in AS, which, assuming it's actually relevant to…

>From what I've seen of AS, she believes that the creation of value is good, and that trying to create a system where effort isn't rewarded will lead to people not putting in effort.

Well, that's a very normal idea, and quite widespread. Rand goes far beyond that (and in other directions), praising selfishness and ruthlessness, allowing individuals to trump others, viewing the masses as subhumans who exist solely for the pleasure of the few ubermen, etc.

Here's a quite accurate description:

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/29/10_insane_things_i_learned_a...

But her life story and that of the group of "disciples" she controlled is also enlightening.

Re: ‘Nice’ Is a Four-Letter Word at Companies Practicing Radical Candor

#60

Post by dawnbreez »

coldtea wrote: post #59
dawnbreez wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain? As mentioned above, I've only read most of Atlas Shrugged, not all. For instance, I don't know what John Galt's final speech is like. From what I've seen of AS, she believes that the creation of value is good, and that trying to create a system where effort isn't rewarded will lead to people not putting in effort. There's also all the discussion of sex in AS, which, assuming it's actually relevant to…

> From what I've seen of AS, she believes that the creation of value is good, and that trying to create a system where effort isn't rewarded will lead to people not putting in effort. Well, that's a very normal idea, and quite widespread. Rand goes far beyond that (and in other directions), praising selfishness and ruthlessness, allowing individuals to trump others, viewing the masses as subhumans who exist solely fo…

I'm not sure that Salon is the ideal source for info about this.

That having been said:

She represents two "selfish" heroes as good; one (Rearden) buys up the supply chain tonreduce costs and deliver his new alloy at lower prices, and the other (Galt) is an extremist-capitalist who refuses to give anything away because he believes that it leads to the kind of thing the villains of the book have done. Speaking of, Rearden actually offers to give ten thousand dollars to his brother's charity...and is chastised for it by his brother, who complains that Rearden isn't a true believer, and then demands that the money be delivered in cash so as to not besmirch the charity with a greedy capitalist's name. While Rearden was not giving for the charity's sake so much as he was giving for his brother's sake, it's hard to argue that giving ten thousand dollars to make your brother happy is a "selfish" thing to do.

Allowing people to trump others is presented as good only in the sense that competition encourages improvement. It's not that you've beaten someone, it's that you did so by creating a better metal, or engine, or or or. By letting one man's (better) design become more successful, even at the expense of another man's design, you encourage better design overall. Recall the bright young engineer who made an exceptionally efficient diesel engine, and was worked to the bone for 12 hours a day in response. Were he given a raise instead, others would have found that innovation is rewarded. If the ones who do not make new, better engines are given the same money for less value, then why should anyone make new engines?

As for the problem of the great minds versus the small ones, that's where Rand falls flat. She is right on the money re: value and rewarding it, but she fails to consider that the people who have great ideas are a fairly small group, and that the people on the assembly line are still worth rewarding for other kinds of hard work.

I only know that Rand came to the USA in the midst of the cold war, which explains why she'a so upset over commies.

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