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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

#51

Post by softwaredoug »

My number one advice for handling difficult people is try not to internalize their behavior. It’s not about you or anything you did. It’s a “them” problem.

Articles like this can make people on the receiving end of bad behavior are somehow at fault because they’re not saying please/thank you, etc. it’s a common fallacy, for example, that victims try to anticipate an abusers behavior and take on their own shoulders managing the chaos that is the abusers mood. When in reality there’s nothing you can do.

I’ve learned trust is something you can’t lie to yourself about. It’s mentally so taxing to walk on eggshells constantly. The other side has to put in work.

And I don’t need justification for not trusting someone else. The burden on proof for trust should be relatively high. You can 100% just trust your gut without having to understand or diagnose the other side. In the same way you trust your gut when in love or other situations.

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

#52

Post by Aeolun »

tayo42 wrote: post #44
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…

Surprised to see emoji. I feel like those almost always come across insincere when they're not expected. Idk why, maybe I'm the odd one.

Not sure. I always use them as a stand in for facial expression.

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

#53

Post by tptacek »

softwaredoug wrote: post #51

My number one advice for handling difficult people is try not to internalize their behavior. It’s not about you or anything you did. It’s a “them” problem. Articles like this can make people on the receiving end of bad behavior are somehow at fault because they’re not saying please/thank you, etc. it’s a common fallacy, for example, that victims try to anticipate an abusers behavior and take on their own shoulders ma…

Right, but this is not a guide to dealing with difficult people.

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

#54

Post by OJFord »

jcul wrote: post #41
akomtu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do lawyers, doctors and actual engineers communicate? Do they use emojis?

I would say a lot more verbal conversations and a lot more verbose longer form written communication, where the tone is formal anyway. I don't see many doctors and lawyers using real time IM like slack etc., which is generally a lot more conversational. I use emojies in slack, but I wouldn't use them in emails.

My fianceé's a doctor, and from what I hear it's mainly indirect terse notes on patient files, and confrontational phone calls. (A only calls B to request something - imaging, transfer, whatever; B default doesn't want to do it, but might come around.)

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

#55

Post by mattxxx »

Note that this contrasts with BLUF, a good standard for direct, factual communication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)

In particular, the parts where you are adding buffers + prefaces ahead of the important content.

That said, non-violent communication is super important, so learning to retract from more direct, factual styles in exchange for a style that make people feel understood and respected as a colleague is important.

Tense situations usually evolve because both parties are adding slight amounts of intensity/unhappiness to the situation iteratively, and the only way to get them back to peaceful is by making commitment to making _the next interaction_ some amount less tense/hostile. Do that repeatedly and you'll get somewhere.

PS: Also Stoicism helps especially with these things... great, practical text on it: "The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual" by Farnsworth

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

#56

Post by bGl2YW5j »

tptacek wrote: post #53
softwaredoug wrote: post #51

My number one advice for handling difficult people is try not to internalize their behavior. It’s not about you or anything you did. It’s a “them” problem. Articles like this can make people on the receiving end of bad behavior are somehow at fault because they’re not saying please/thank you, etc. it’s a common fallacy, for example, that victims try to anticipate an abusers behavior and take on their own shoulders ma…

Right, but this is not a guide to dealing with difficult people.

I find the parent comment insightful, because my immediate reaction to seeing this article headline was, "that's what I needed when dealing with that difficult person recently...".

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

#57

Post by gsuuon »

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 used to do this as well, maybe a bit _too_ much. After reading an article somewhere (I forget which) that had just an absolutely excessive amount of exclamations I've toned it back down a lot. But for the folks who don't ever use it -- try it out! It doesn't mean you're shouting, it maps to basically a slight increase in tone.

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

#59

Post by tptacek »

mattxxx wrote: post #55

Note that this contrasts with BLUF, a good standard for direct, factual communication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication) In particular, the parts where you are adding buffers + prefaces ahead of the important content. That said, non-violent communication is super important, so learning to retract from more direct, factual styles in exchange for a style that make people feel understood and respected a…

BLUF ("bottom line up-front") might make a lot of sense in in-person communications, especially regimented ones like the US military (the example from the article). And it's valuable advice for long-form or durable writing. But the constant casual writing ("chat") that characterizes tech work is a different environment with different pitfalls, which message board nerds have known about and discussed for-ev-er. I don't think BLUF squares well with chat environments; it seems like a recipe for being constantly misunderstood and mistrusted.

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

#60

Post by OJFord »

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 like it, it's only a 'social nicety' for the rest right? It's not at all obvious to me that that should be a goal.

It's a lot easier to have your diverse group 'transmit' in the way they each prefer than it is to invert and have them use the others' preference - and it's not clear that that's better anyway? Especially if you're aiming for equity on the team, in which event it would be arbitrary, so why not go for easy.

But really I think people are so diverse in personality and communication style that, especially on a people-you-actually-work-with sized team, gender is irrelevant even if you're correct about its link to exclamation marks, not least because there'll be so much else besides them.

Something I have been doing semi-consciously is using question marks more, even though it was grammatically a statement. Sort of: I'm not ordering you to do this thing (I'm not in a position to anyway but maybe that's not clear) I'm just pretty confident in this, but you should feel able to correct or 'challenge' me.

E.g. (code review context)

    I don't think we should wazzle the foobar here, because the splines aren't reticulated until L94.
Vs.

    I don't think we should wazzle the foobar here, the splines aren't reticulated until L94?
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