Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

ashley.rolfmore.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 305 posts

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#51

Post by atoav »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #41
apsurd wrote: post #11

Agree with the problem but this list reads like a vent. Communicating effectively is the central problem of all humanity! This vent criticizes developers for not knowing how to listen. that's why it comes off condescending. The root problem is that people don't know what they don't know. The best communicators are translators. People listen because the message becomes self evident in their understanding. It's hardly…

> Communicating effectively is the central problem of all humanity! If that were true, there'd be something about it in the Bible.

[dead]

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#53

Post by apsurd »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #41
apsurd wrote: post #11

Agree with the problem but this list reads like a vent. Communicating effectively is the central problem of all humanity! This vent criticizes developers for not knowing how to listen. that's why it comes off condescending. The root problem is that people don't know what they don't know. The best communicators are translators. People listen because the message becomes self evident in their understanding. It's hardly…

> Communicating effectively is the central problem of all humanity! If that were true, there'd be something about it in the Bible.

It is! If I contort a little, the Tower of Babel is the communication problem in reverse. But original sin means we're born sinners so towards effective communication is toward God. But that's not the point of life, the point is serving God as a sinner for salvation (bible stuff, not my point).

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#54

Post by digi59404 »

Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic.

Let me add a couple to this list.

1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept.

2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to your experience, beliefs, and worldview. Judging people is often a self protection mechanism; which means you will almost never listen to someone.

3. Listening often means not jumping to a solution; but absorbing and processing someone’s pain. Product managers for example are quick to jump to a solution, a new feature, or they’ll push the request off as “oh, ok, we’ll make a ticket for that ”

When in actuality, they should be listening to the use case, looking for the pain, and finding a way to solve the pain points. As opposed to trying to understand what feature the user wants to request.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#55

Post by generic92034 »

onion2k wrote: post #17

You assume what they say is the same as what they are thinking The converse is also true. People saying something assume that people listening are understanding and thinking about the same thing. This is why it's important to write things down in details and as-unambiguous-as-you-can forms. If you're in a meeting and someone puts up a slide deck with a 6 word bullet point that 'explains' what they want, that is a sig…

> This is why it's important to write things down in details and as-unambiguous-as-you-can forms.

While that might be a prerequisite for a deep shared understanding, I have made the experience in the last few years that the number of people really reading more than the starting sentence of any message/ticket/email is consistently decreasing. I often have to feed them the information in very small and easy to digest portions. I so dislike that.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#56

Post by apsurd »

atoav wrote: post #49
apsurd wrote: post #11

Agree with the problem but this list reads like a vent. Communicating effectively is the central problem of all humanity! This vent criticizes developers for not knowing how to listen. that's why it comes off condescending. The root problem is that people don't know what they don't know. The best communicators are translators. People listen because the message becomes self evident in their understanding. It's hardly…

I am a developer, I also have worked enough other jobs to know how important communication is and how bad developers can be at it. A typical pattern I recognized is that many developers communicate like bad medical doctors: they do "Mhh, Ahh" and then after a way to short period they fire out a diagnosis of what you need, sometimes without you even having said everything relevant yet. It is nothing new that people in…

Yes, all said, developers likely are the worst communicators because they over index on their self-ascribed strengths: logic (and logic bullying). Not so much because they aren't smart or capable.

But singling out specific archetypes is an obvious contradiction of the article, which is weird. Author is in the UX design space so likely has particular lived experience with specifically eng orgs.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#57

Post by nasretdinov »

apsurd wrote: post #56
atoav wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a developer, I also have worked enough other jobs to know how important communication is and how bad developers can be at it. A typical pattern I recognized is that many developers communicate like bad medical doctors: they do "Mhh, Ahh" and then after a way to short period they fire out a diagnosis of what you need, sometimes without you even having said everything relevant yet. It is nothing new that people in…

Yes, all said, developers likely are the worst communicators because they over index on their self-ascribed strengths: logic (and logic bullying). Not so much because they aren't smart or capable. But singling out specific archetypes is an obvious contradiction of the article, which is weird. Author is in the UX design space so likely has particular lived experience with specifically eng orgs.

> logic bullying

Wow, you've just described my communication style when I'm angry. So consice yet captures the problem so well

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#58

Post by adilkhanovkz »

Interesting. That really resonates. )) I think this is especially relevant for mid level specialists who have recently learned a lot and feel the need to speak up and show off what they know =D. But it’s also relevant for highly knowledgeable people who are truly well-read and versatile.

I think it's a mistake that such people often stop even listening to those who are less well-read or less experienced in a subject; they prefer to adopt the position of the 'source of truth' and the teacher. Although, it seems to me that people who are less 'biased' by extensive reading often come up with original—perhaps unpolished, but original ideas. To hear those ideas, you have to know how to listen and extract thoughts rather than suppress them."

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#59

Post by serial_dev »

generic92034 wrote: post #55
onion2k wrote: post #17

You assume what they say is the same as what they are thinking The converse is also true. People saying something assume that people listening are understanding and thinking about the same thing. This is why it's important to write things down in details and as-unambiguous-as-you-can forms. If you're in a meeting and someone puts up a slide deck with a 6 word bullet point that 'explains' what they want, that is a sig…

> This is why it's important to write things down in details and as-unambiguous-as-you-can forms. While that might be a prerequisite for a deep shared understanding, I have made the experience in the last few years that the number of people really reading more than the starting sentence of any message/ticket/email is consistently decreasing. I often have to feed them the information in very small and easy to digest p…

Nobody reads the docs, tickets, or comments under a task, nobody really checks the code they are reviewing, and nowadays thanks to AI, some people don’t even read the code they “write”.

People love to ask for documentation, as long as it doesn’t exist. It lets them off the hook, “oh I would have known what to do, I wish we had this documented”. Then you point it out that you have it documented with video walkthrough, asked the team to read it and give feedback multiple times, and nobody gave a f.

Managers ask detailed questions about the IC’s tasks and priorities, only to forget it half an hour later and ask again and again.

I don’t see the point of fighting this, I’m sure I do the same to some degree. You just need to assume nobody reads anything and nobody listens or remembers anything, so be patient and explain everything every time… at least I don’t have a better strategy.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#60

Post by layer8 »

sublinear wrote: post #7

> 8. You judge people You know, I was actually hoping for a good listicle of things to watch out for in meetings. The author should take their own advice. Assuming bad faith immediately kills all productivity, so there's no point in finishing reading this. I agree with the general notion that there are often knowledge gaps getting in the way of better planning and execution. I was hoping for techniques to overcome th…

Judging people doesn’t imply bad faith. We are all judging people all the time. It takes constant effort trying to be self-aware of it and trying to compensate for it.
Post reply on HN