Redux: why are you lying to me?
Some criticism from folks on Hacker News
My essay Why are you lying to me? What the hell is wrong with you? was discussed on Hacker News, where many people were highly critical of the story. Their comments and my responses:
deanmoriarty wrote:
In my opinion, there are ways to share feedback that allow another person to save face, letting them process it on their own terms instead of pounding them like this in a single session until they are “defeated”.
Such feedback can then be politely repeated, if the issue reoccurs later on, and formally documented as part of a performance warning, simply letting the other person know, once again without insisting, that this is a serious behavioral issue that will have repercussions if not actioned, and that you are there to provide any context should they want to talk about it more.
That is, in my opinion, a way for a leader to show that every team member is treated as an adult and responsible for their own actions and outcome.
About "politely repeated." Yes, you can gently, politely, diplomatically nudge them. Week after week, month after month, year after year, you can gently nudge them in the right direction. Of course, once you've made clear that you are afraid to confront them, then they have no actual reason to change their behavior. They can ignore your nudging. Your nudging is meaningless. If they think you are a coward, then they can simply call your bluff. But what's worse, if you are afraid to call out the disrespect they show to the other teams, or to someone like Sonia, then you become complicit. When Jerry is disrespectful to Sonia, if the rest of us don't respond, then we are also being disrespectful to Sonia. When Jerry is disrespectful to the product team, if the rest of us don't respond, then we are also being disrespectful to the product team. If you allow disrespect to fester, then you are a terrible leader. This also applies to co-workers: if you allow disrespect to fester, you are a bad co-worker.
Many of the people on Hacker News were appalled by my attempt to resolve the situation in a single session. They would apparently prefer to drag out the process over weeks and weeks, or months and months. They are not thinking clearly about the damage this does to team dynamics. When you are in a leadership position, always consider the benefits of pushing an issue so hard that it resolves after one conversation. Either the other person will realize that they need to align with all of the other teams, or they will quit, but either way, a single conversation ends the conflict.
Several people read this story and seemed to think that the time spent was somehow an issue in this this story, for instance, Hasu wrote:
The author 1) created the ticket and its estimation 2) assigned it to Jerry without further comment 3) had another ticket created and assigned to Jerry without talking to Jerry about it 4) got mad when Jerry closed what looked like a duplicate ticket 5) told Jerry that he has no agency in his work and he must do only what the product team says 6) took the ticket himself 7) yelled at Jerry about not sticking to an estimate Jerry had nothing to do with 8) finally extracted an agreement with Jerry that Jerry will do no work without explicit authorization from the author. This is just a chain of management failures. I hope Jerry got a new job with a better boss.
Absolutely baffling how anyone thought the time issue was some kind of problem. And yet several people on Hacker News raised this issue. To be clear, this was not a case where I said, "This ticket should take 4 hours" and then Jerry needed 20 hours, therefore he was in trouble. Rather, he only used 15 minutes of the 4 hours because he didn't take the issue seriously — and his attitude was the point of conflict, not the amount of time spent. The way we typically worked with bugs was that we would first have an "exploration" ticket where we would try to figure out why the bug happened, then we would write a second ticket to do the actual work. So what I assumed would happen was that Jerry would use 4 hours to do an investigation, and maybe decide that 20 hours were then needed to fix the problem, then he would write himself a second ticket and he would grant himself 20 hours. That is how we handled most bugs.
I agree with the sentiment of "I hope Jerry got a new job" if for some reason Jerry felt that he could not align himself with the rest of the team. If he was completely unable to show any respect for the tech team, or Sonia, or the product team, then why would he want to stay? Always remember the adage, "People don't quit jobs, they quit managers." You should aspire to be the kind of manager that makes people want to quit, if those people are incapable of showing respect for any other team or person. Firing someone is a hassle, you have to document everything in exhausting detail and even then you might be forced to pay them some kind of severance. Life is easier if they simply quit. Always aim to be the manager that makes a person want to quit, if the person is disrespectful to everyone at the company.
About "He told Jerry that he has no agency in his work."
Agency is something that comes from inside of you. Your manager cannot give you agency, any more than your parents could give you maturity. Both agency and maturity are things that you develop on your own, and hopefully developing these two attributes is important to you. But how does a high-agency software developer act? They go to the product team and forcefully make their opinions known. They go to Sonia and bluntly explain to her why she is making a mistake. They demand a meeting of the tech team and transparently argue why we must follow their lead on a project. If Jerry had high levels of agency, he would have done these things. It is not high-agency to skulk around in the shadows, like a coward, making secret changes to the code, but too afraid to tell anyone why those changes are a good idea. And it is the opposite of high-agency to avoid these conversations because you are afraid people won't like your ideas. Whatever you have to say, say it forthrightly. Whatever your opinion is, argue it in the open. If everyone hates your idea, accept that. If everyone loves your idea, then you have the satisfaction of seeing the team unite behind you.
By the way, many of my critics on Hacker News had usernames like "throwaway8743" and no personal information on their profile. They do not write using their legal, public names. They use anonymous accounts. These are frightened people, who live in the shadows. I suspect their reaction to my essay was shaped by their lifetime habit of avoiding strong confrontations when using their full legal, public identity. They need to find their courage. They need to learn how to say what they believe in face-to-face encounters.
I have noticed that some of the people who complain the most about “tyrant bosses” are frightened people who inflict censorship on themselves. They lack the courage to say what they believe, and they blame their bosses for their own lack of courage.
Personally, I've used my public, legal name since I first got the Web 30 years ago. I've never felt any need to hide my opinion behind an anonymous account. I would urge people to consider whether they really need to use an anonymous account. You have a fundamental human right to freedom of speech, so why not use that right and state your opinions under your real name?
cleverwebble wrote:
"No, I'll do it myself" and "I feel like you aren't listening to me" comes straight out of couple's therapy handbooks on what not to do. You can be direct and respectful, but this was not respectful, this was just aggressive.
This is the most common mistake that I saw made by those who wrote on Hacker News. To be clear, I am not Jerry's spouse, nor his therapist, nor his priest, nor his mom or dad. I shouldn't need to guess at his intent or motivation, he should simply tell me. We have a commercial relationship, he is being paid to perform some work in exchange for cash, that is all. He is expected to be professional, manage his own emotions, or quit.
As I've said elsewhere, you'll often want to do one-on-one's with the people you work with, especially the best people, to be sure you understand their motivations and needs. But when someone has flagrantly broken the rules of the organization, the urgent, short-term question is whether they are able and willing to get back in line. Everything else is secondary to that.
Really, this much would be true even among friends, outside of any commercial setting. If a friend lies to you, then you first need some assurance that they will never lie to you again. Everything else in the friendship is secondary to that. If they can't give you some absolute assurance that it will never happen again, then it's time to end the friendship.
Firm boundaries are good for all forms of relationships, both commercial ones and also personal ones. I've had friendships that started with bruising arguments — that is especially true with my friends who disagree with me on political topics. At least we each understood where the other was coming from. Never be afraid of a sharp fight — so long as everyone is honest, then the relationship may end up strengthened by the conflict.