For any such mentor, you can say "forget about the bad, focus on highlighting what the person did right". This will almost always dramatically increase the mentee's rate of progress.
This is because for any given task there are a million ways to get things wrong, but only one/very few ways to get things right. So people learn almost nothing from "don't". You can eliminate negative feedback altogether and lose almost nothing.
Of course, it can be useful in very specific situations, and these are generally not cases you need to sugarcoat because they are very technical (e.g. "don't spike the ball when leading by more than 14 points", "don't close the issue when a manager has commented on it", etc).
The issue with managers giving negative feedback is that they are either flat out not equipped to do so or they expect that their feedback can just be given without being involved with solving problems themselves.
What technical workers need from managers is that they explain problems _as is_. Then problems can be solved _together_, meaning behavior has to be changed up the chain as well.
For example it's completely useless and counterproductive to say "you're not on time" - yeah we know that. We don't decide not to be on time. Actually useful feedback is more nuanced and honest like "our customer wants to cancel that service they want to get rid of by end of the month, so they need time to enter this data by then. They only have two people working on that part time." - Now we're talking. We can talk about deploying a simplified, stripped down feature so we can take our time with the polished/richer version. One of us can schedule a video call with them to get them up to speed.
It's involving the _actual workers_ end-to-end that solves these kind of problems. Strip away the bullshit and the artificial metrics. Look at what needs to be done, what the actual problems are. Bring _that_ to us. Coordinate the right people (workers). Trust them to make sensible decisions and listen to their problems. That's useful _actionable_ feedback.
> This is because for any given task there are a million ways to get things wrong, but only one/very few ways to get things right.
Okay, but if someone doesn't get things right, how do you help them if you can't tell them what they shouldn't have done, and what they should have done instead?
- does it matter if they don’t improve fast enough in this dimension?
- they will improve by themselves over time. Encouragements are better than finding issues with someone.
Improving fast is better than improving slow. This question presumes that improving (or the feedback that leads to the improvement) is somehow bad.
> Encouragements are better than finding issues with someone.
This is a false dichotomy, you don't have to do either one or the other. Also, "finding issues" sounds like you're assuming I'm trying to make up issues where none exist.
What's wrong with telling people where they could improve?
See, I completely disagree with that statement. I think there is nothing wrong with being slow. Unless, again, it's fucking up with other people and you need to change your behavior.
> you don't have to do either one or the other
I would argue that yes you do. It's part of many company's manager training: you need to praise your employees. And it's also part of all the lists on burning out: not feeling valued.
> What's wrong with telling people where they could improve?
some people are not into self-improvement, or the never-ending quest of improving themselves. They just want to do their job, cash their paycheck, and go back to their loved ones.
Cynic warning. Why wouldn't they instead choose to work with something they enjoy doing? Is that just a euphemism for some people being so bad at what they do in general that no one would pay them for doing the things they enjoy, while they just pass the bar in some things (which they dislike), just enough for them to get paid? Because that would explain it.
And the original question wasn't even about that, it was about receiving tips/pointers about improving. It doesn't have to be a "never-ending quest" (although isn't life supposed to be just that?). If you're doing some work, and someone points out how you can do it better, he's either wrong, or you refuse to improve... why?
One "why" is simply because people don't actually like doing what they do. They've simply accept it as a worthy tradeoff for the money they get/need. But they're certainly not willing to do any more than the bare minimum.
Do you have other "why's" that I don't see?
I mean sure, if you like chopping wood with a small axe between your toes and someone tells you that holding it properly with your hands would yield a better result then you're fine telling him that you prefer it your way (because you enjoy it), but if you work in a company where you're expected to perform up to a certain level then you can't really use that argument. Feel free to start a competing foot-chopping company!
> since my default is to just keep doing what I'm doing anyway, I don't need to be specifically told that
I had reviews that were something along these lines in the past:
Q1 review: * "You need to work on your communication and keeping stakeholders in the loop."
[I move all design discussions from DMs to non-private Slack channels, post regular updates on Slack, and set up biweekly status update meetings on Zoom.]
Q2 review: * "Posting updates on Slack is nice, but not solving the issue." <-- Good to know, but less valuable information than: * "Using Slack channels + the biweekly Zoom updates have adequately addressed the issue."
TL;DR: If you've changed nothing, then positive feedback is useless. If you're experimenting with various solutions, positive feedback when one works is critical ['cause I'd drop Zoom meetings in a heartbeat if they proved useless].
I would say, rather, that any "don't" should be paired with an "instead, do X when attempting to do <thing they were trying to accomplish>". "Don't do this one narrow thing" does very little to shrink their search space, while a concrete alternative does a lot, and is actionable.
(And yes, I've followed my own advice by saying "don't say 'don't', do it this other way instead"!)
> Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Same as a computer system has one way that works, but many things which can go wrong.
It's why entropy is a thing; there's only a few ways to build a stable structure, but zillions upon zillions of ways to build a crumbling pile of dust. Almost any change from wind/pressure/radiation will move it towards a less structured state.
It's related to why the Pyramids are so stable, they are shaped like the aftermath of a fallen building, a pile of stone can't easily collapse any further.
It seems like a farce, really. I also had quarters in which I got glowing peer reviews where folks declined to fill in the development piece, and my very off hands manager came up with some made up generic negative feedback for me that did not come up before.
I hate this so much! The company has decided that my colleagues deserve negative feedback for their work (why? no reason at all, just to remind them of their place I guess), but I am the one who is told to make up some and deliver it to them. Fuck no! How about you play your crazy mind games yourself. Next time, will you also ask me to spit in their faces?
So my "negative feedback" is usually of the type: works too hard, or cares about the project too much.
The real reason for this forced negative feedback is probably to give managers some material to quote when your colleague will ask for a raise, so they don't even have to bother making up the reason for rejection themselves. As a bonus, if the colleague knows that you wrote the part they quoted, it makes you the bad guy, not the company.
Are these new trends in company management modelled after abusive relatioships? Or is this just the natural behavior of people who are born to be bosses?
Those in power abusing the people under them has been a human flaw since the beginning of history.
"While you are well-known as an excellent worker, sometimes those who are not engaged on the same workflows will, notwithstanding their own excellent and well-known communication skills, find it still time-consuming, if not time-inefficient, to reconfigure your updates into modes that are more familiar within their own teams' communications styles, thus necessitating an extra step of interpretation, that many, if not most, would be unwilling, or unable, to provide, at least within the timeframe that would accommodate both their own project and yours, as well as the percentages of their own workdays, and yours, that they can usefully devote, on a regular basis, to a teasing out, or a finessing, for a fuller understanding, such as you and they can both agree, as to what the final product, or product at any given stage of a deliverable, might contribute, both to the end-goals of their team and yours, balanced against the novel, or at least additional, requirements that would be entailed, or at least implied, if they were to adopt, or afford options for integrating with, the...
If my manager cannot tell me what to focus on next,where my long term gaps are,I feel they are not doing they job (not paying attention to me / not caring enough). My sister has even changed jobs over a manager who failed to provide any actionable feedback over a year (she's very ambitious and thus expects direction / support for improvement from her leadership & support structure).
I want to improve and advance and do better; "nice job" is nice to hear (no sarcasm; we all need it in our lives:) but doesn't alone help me move the needle. I personally strive for a "great job! here's what to focus on next / even better if..." from a good manager or mentor.
(I may not be a majority and I recognize that. I'm comfy in absolute metrics - I hate being told "awesome job!" all the time in a meaningless attempt at validation. I'm happy to hear I'm a 3 out of 100 on some specific axis I'm new at, as long as you help me reach 3.5 tomorrow and 4 next week).
Even if my immediate manager was such a superstar in my field that I would otherwise love to have them as my coach if they weren’t my manager, I’d still be reluctant to treat them as such because of all the conflict of interest. What’s best for me, my growth, my career isn’t necessarily what’s best for the company, team, or them.
First, I 100% agree that one should seek coaches and mentors outside of their boss, team, and even department/organization/practice. Somebody to provide broad, long-term perspective and awareness; open up eyes beyond the immediate.
However, in practical terms, your team lead / boss / manager should have the most immediate awareness and visibility of what you're doing and how, and would be able to provide most granular and tactical feedback. Some of it may be technical-skillset oriented, but a lot of it would be around business priorities and how to best achieved them - focus and prioritization. If they are unable or unwilling to provide that mentorship and guidance effectively, I hold it against them and I feel they are not performing their duties to the fullest - that is the gist of my original point.
----
That does bring us to our point of likely disagreement though: There is a very vocal sentiment on HN that individuals and teams/companies inherently do not align, and we as employees should not stay long / invest in the teams and companies, and treat them as very temporary allies at best, if not passive permanent antagonists. Come in, take / learn what we need, depart. I will put forward that an organization where employees, teams, and business pervasively do not align in their interest and goals, is at best dynamically unstable and more realistically inherently dysfunctional. While company may survive some percentage of prima donas, writ large, if every employee had distinct differing goals from the team and business, that is pure Brownian motion - moving fast but going nowhere.
---
Beyond organizational, down to personal - much of it may come to individuals and personalities. Some people (hopefully many!) may agree with business goals, like their teams, and want to support them long term, grow something together. I've been in the same company for almost two decades, love many (not all! :) of the people I've been surrounded on many & various teams in that time, and have sought leaders/managers/bosses I respect, appreciate and want to learn from (our personal agency and ability to choose/move does not only exist between jobs & companies; a little attention and initiative will enable a lot of agency and self-guided direction within a company). I've partnered with my bosses and managers wherever I went, tried to understand their perspective and goals even when our styles didn't match, and looked to learn something from them all even if I would've done it differently (at least once, that was a formidable challenge:). My sister and her husband on the other hand have changed jobs every 18-24 months, and have complained, moaned and grown frustrated/stressed with every.single.one of them; and have never seen something big to completion. At some point one asks - is it everybody else, or is it you (and your attitude? :). And contrary to common wisdom , my salary has tended to keep ahead of theirs - a person with skills and initiative may be able to grow within a company as much as by skipping.
My 100 Croatian Lipa, as always :). This is not to say that my way is the only way, it empathically is not - but I also think treating your team lead / boss / manager with deep-rooted suspicion and antagonism, with reluctance to find a way to learn from them and ally with them, seek knowledge and mentorship anywhere but the leader closest to you, is also not the universally best / happiest path either. I think we should expect, encourage, and demand more of our team leads and managers.
On the other hand, as an individual contributor, especially if I'm new on the job, I often have imposter syndrome, and keep worrying I'm not doing a good job. (I'm sure I'm not alone in this.) And when my manager doesn't say anything about my performance I start thinking that maybe I'm doing badly. So I feel the need to ask, which is not as nice as them just telling me.
So I guess I'm not disagreeing, as long as if things are fine, the manager does "just go ahead and say that".
That wasn't particularly motivating but I did appreciate the honesty.
You can thank people for minor thigs too. It harms nothing.
> Maybe they work hard under pressure and deliver results as you say, but they are never going to step up in job title because they cant communicate well with the wider office or are poor with estimating deadlines.
Practically, people who work very hard while being under pressure tend to communicate badly, because they are stressed and overworked. This wont change no matter how much you complain about them not communicate properly. Proper communication requires time.
> A good manager will thank them appropriately and also give career guidance appropriately and try to help them move forward.
Good manager will step up and manage their workload. Consistently overworked people under pressure are mostly result of organizational and managerial decision making.
> Most staff will thank you for that.
That is where the issue starts. If we all work hard under pressure, you dont thank people for that and just start complaining they are not nice while being stressed, they wont improve. They will get resentful and feel unappreciated.
Please don't, just don't. At least not as my manager.
There's very little that I find as bad on the job as hearing thank you's for things that come naturally on the job. It's just part and parcel of my job.
I find there is little that devalues genuine thanks for a job well done as quickly as being praised for every proverbial fart.
> because they are stressed and overworked.
That wasn't what I read from OP. I know the difference of being stressed out or just working under pressure. I can feel stressed out while a relatively low workload. And I can have a great bunch of problems to solve and still feel great about it. It isn't black or white.
> They will get resentful and feel unappreciated.
I know the feeling - but at least in my case this had nothing to do with workload when I was in that state of mind/situation on the job. It was a lack of control, a lack of overall recognition and respect. Not the work load per se.
https://www.amazon.com/Human-Element-Productivity-Self-Estee...
to nail the fundamentals. There's too many HN posts on human dynamics that float above the fundamentals leaving the whole issue in a fog. It will make clear there are three interrelated issues in sharing feedback:
- behavior of openness
- self-esteem on TL and mentee's parts, which depends on self-awareness
- both of which run on concurrent with potential conflicts around control, openness, and inclusion.
As the book explains openness in the context of human organizations is one of the last things to be well-resolved. Why that's the case is very important to understand. Seen in the context of the book, the OP's write-up makes some good points, however, without the deep principles advanced in the book the solution space will remain in a fog. And to the extent it's foggy, no real progress can take place.
If they aren't on course to be fired, or worse are doing well, you don't need to find feedback.
Any manager who objects to that should think how they'd feel if they turned around and started nitpicking THEIR management style.
Same applies to code reviews.
I've found it better to have more criticism at the start and then reduce it over time, but that's getting into Machiavellian territory.
Of course I do expect some negative feedback when there's a real problem.
Ultimately it comes down to receptivity of the audience. Some people cannot listen, a cognitive impairment, such as Dunning-Kruger. In this case it doesn’t matter what you say because they hear: I’m awesome. Don’t waste your time.
Be direct and be deliberately honest. Do not soften the blow. If the product is complete shit then start with that. Then find the merits, opportunities for improvements, and provide guidance for the path forward.
For some reason, contrary to all expectations, this is so much easier and effective with children than adults. Children seem more inclined to learning and a willingness to accept productive feedback while adults are more inclined to filter commentary and simply stop listening.
When we start to think of ourselves as someone with a certain status we get much less receptive to criticism from those we perceive as the same or lower social status.
This can be consciously corrected for but takes some effort and practice.
I really think this is a poor phrasing as it has negative connotations. Same with “brutal honesty” which is often used as an excuse to throw out empathy.
Treating people well is not at odds with being honest and clear. If anything, it’s kinder to bring up issues early, no matter how painful it might be.
My observation had been many people who become managers lack the necessary social skills to do a good job. They do not have the context to understand what not “sugarcoating” actually means. Instead they take the easy half the advice and implement it badly.
To an adult, failure is a reason why could be fired, or something that loses them the respect of their peers, or proof that their imposter syndrome was right all along.
An alternative point that perhaps a lot of managers have trouble considering – it's perfectly okay to not have any critical or negative feedback if things are going well. If things are fine, just go ahead and say that. Negative feedback or criticism should be relatively rare.
I have noticed a pattern where managers, especially new managers, tend to take articles like this and others at face value, and nerdily try to maintain some kind of weird ratio in their feedback. They feel like they have to say something critical every time they give feedback to their reports. This leads to situations where there is no actual problem but they are spinning minor things into critical feedback just so they have something to say in that "column", which quickly becomes off-putting. It causes individual contributors to think, "I would rather get off this constant criticism treadmill, and work for someone more peaceful".
Story time: I watched a new manager tear apart an otherwise great team like this once; six months after they took charge, 3 out of their 5 engineers had left for new jobs and higher salaries because the manager kept telling them "Weeeeell, you could have improved upon <inconsequential minor point>" every week, when actually they were doing a stellar job under time pressure and hitting all their targets. The appropriate response should have been "Great job, thank you, and please let me write you this large bonus check for year end".