Interesting, I never heard this at HN at all and here in Brazil we have the exact opposite perception: americans are very straightforward in business while we worry too much about niceties, ammenities and excessive politeness that borderlines hypocrisy. We consider this a disadvantage in our culture regarding business.
It's an important information-seeking question!
But, for some reason, in many geographies, here, in the US, people often (apparently) take it to mean something like "I don't agree." or "Justify that.". And that triggers defensiveness, and then you aren't getting information.
Because my goal is the information nugget at the end of the quest, I've learned, with most people, until I know them well, to use something like these instead of "why?":
- "Interesting. Why did you decide to do it that way?", or
- "Really? How did you prioritize the trade-offs to come to that conclusion?"
I would think, given my travel and cultural experience, that the US would be one of the least problematic countries from the PoV of being allowed to challenge "authority" and ask "why" without catastrophic career consequences, but would be interested to hear other perspectives.
I never found my co-workers to be defensive when I asked them the same question in Japan (in Japanese). I didn't have any subordinates, and management let the group decide, (at our level), so challenging management rarely came up.
I agree that asking "why" is probably not a career-ending move in the US -- I'm just talking about the subtle first-response I've notices from other Americans in the first place. I don't know that it has any larger relevance than to maybe lend support to the idea that US workers (or engineers, anyway) are afraid to be wrong in public too.
But, in companies that manufactured products intended to compete in the global marketplace (and not something intended to meet some local need), the internal processes for doing root-cause analysis of design, manufacturing or even business model defects was pretty direct/efficient/ruthless and impersonal. To me that makes some sense: If I were on a team of 100 NASA engineers, all of us armed with slide-rules, trying to send some people to the moon and back, I wouldn't want feelings (or social standing) to get in the way of the process of verifying that the calculations were correct.
Your two questions could elicit a better response, even though it's basically the same as "why," because it's at least showing a semblance of effort and the interest to probe deeper.
People in the UK would rather have dour but straightforward service than forced cheeriness that speaks of some kind of “compulsory smiles everyone!” management acting behind the scenes.
Be honest with yourself and others. Self-education is a life-long commitment. Failure to plan is planning to fail. Think for yourself. Think things through. Know when to hold em, and when to fold em.
There. I think that covers probably 70% or so what he expounds on in his 210 principles.
That said, I like reading these kinds of articles because I'm still relatively young and yet to experience the full extent of life. I figure being able to collect the wisdom of those who have been around longer than I have will be quite useful.
Eg How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus - The Atlantic https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http:...
Excessively tough-minded bluntness is frowned upon for good reason.
I think I have some kind of communication issue because often when I'm asking questions about decisions, people often think I'm arguing against them. Example: My boss decides to make a policy of $x. When I ask why, I can see my boss get frustrated.
I'm legitimately asking why, because I'm curious. I'm not trying to be an ass, but I come across that way for some reason I don't understand. I wish I could figure out why, but nobody has been able to articulate to me why they think I'm arguing.
I find this is effective even if you actually do want them to change their decision. Come in with a compliment, then try to lead them to recognize the flaws in the decision themselves.
I think the best way someone introduced me to Ray Dalio's principles is that it gives employee's the freedom, not to be an asshole, but to cut right to the heart of the problem without worrying about social niceties.
it's a common complaint and almost cliche on HN to hear someone say they find American culture ot be a bit "fake" where Fake refers to being polite or dancing around an issue rather than stating it clearly because they're worried about social niceties.
Principle 97 comes right out and says "Don’t let people off the hook."
and Principle 98 follows up with "Don’t assume that people’s answers are correct."
When you are free by the CEO's decree to just flat out not let someone off with a half assed answer I find that you get to the root cause of issues faster.
The downside of course is that asshole's are even more pronounced and even the most well meaning people start to sound a bit like assholes. If you have thin skin it doesn't work well, you need to learn that people aren't attacking you, but attacking the problem instead.
Not everyone transitions well to this type of environment as it can be a bit of a departure from the norm of many companies existing cultures.