The problem is that it's considered rude to say no when asked to complete a task by a senior. So when you'd ask an Indian developer if he can complete a project in a week, he might say yes even though he's not sure if he can do it. What he would do is say yes, and then give his best try to complete it in a week. Only when he has failed to do so, he'd report his failure.
Basically, saying no is considered as insubordination/cowardice.
Thus the Windows dialogues which let you choose between "Yes" and "Yes" when localised to English-India.
I call poe.
https://i.imgur.com/gByDqFX.png
There's no 100% accuracy in weather forecasts so a mistake is understandable. Asking you if you finished your task and getting a "yes" when you haven't finished it is outright lying.
I'll assume you're American (I am).
You know how in a healthy, well-led team, if your boss suggests a course of action that's wrong at a meeting and asks for feedback, you and I would pipe up and point out the issues with their approach?
In Asian cultures, my understanding is that would never happen. Instead, everyone would agree at the meeting, then feedback would be given privately to the boss if it were a major issue, and decision changed.
Which one's right? Eh, if they both result in an eventual good choice, does it matter?
If you feel strongly about "yes" being a lie, then bully to you and run with that. But that's kind of like boxing a glacier and expecting to win...
Some people have worked in 16 diff teams in last 10 years and they have friends who have broader experience and they have super close conversation with managers, they don't go to agile rooms and draw something on the white board all the time and come out with no insights or progress after a hour or only have a skilled person come and give a direction in 5 minutes and nullify the whole one hour white board drawing.
I can tell for sure since i have been part of many such teams where we precisely point out any steps in the negative directions and offer tons of suggestions to improvize on the approach and most of the time come up with a way to gently impart some sense into the overseas managers who have no idea how to get what they want.
Your reasoning is so flawed because u didn't know when to use the word never, that doesn't mean your continents reasoning is flawed but i wish in hacker news there is a option to filter out certain people's comment globally forever.
That's incompetent management. The question should be reworded to avoid yes / no answers. "How much has been done?" would be a better question.
You ask me if it's going to rain, and I say yes, because I know with certainty it will rain tomorrow.
Is it fair for you to call me a liar because you carried around an umbrella today?