And yet, your examples are when words did not bridge the gap. You think "You should do X" is more clear, but to the Californian in question, that framing would sound very harsh. If they gave you "feedback", the manager would think they expressed dissatisfaction, while you'd come out of the same meeting thinking things are great. Human language is not computer code and an employee that takes years to understand that while they are not meeting expectations is not worth it.

Also, your examples are still fairly isolated - ultimately it was almost like using an outdated dictionary where words map to different things. Once you had the right "translation", the issue was fixed. That's not typical for employer feedback scenarios. Often the manager just wants the employee to be more diligent, attentive, have better Pareto 80/20 judgment, etc. You can't teach that to someone who doesn't get it.

Yes and the quickest way to solve that problem was to have a conversation about it. Not by ignoring the issue and hoping things magically work out.

“Hey it looks like we’re miscommunicating, what do you hear when I say X?” is a great way to start. Much much better than thinking quietly to yourself something like “Gosh that engineer is so dumb why don’t they ever do what I ask???” and never telling the employee that there’s a problem.

Ultimately people can’t fix a problem they don’t know exists. And despite their best efforts, they can’t read your mind.

"never telling the employee that there’s a problem" is almost never the case. Your comment mentioned years of miscommunication. If they never expect an update or ever ask you about that thing you were supposed to do, I guess that's one thing, but it's highly unusual. Usually the manager will check in several times "so where's project X at?" and your response would easily clear up the confusion. 'I don't think that's on my plate, I thought you said X' would lead to a quick conversation where the problem is solved, and mappings are updated. This doesn't take more than 2-3 weeks of coworking to figure out, not years.

If the manager asks you repeatedly about project X, and you repeatedly say "I haven't looked at that yet" or some other thing that accepts responsibility but clings to the original phrasing as an excuse to get yourself off the hook, the manager is correct about thinking "why don't they do what I ask". This indicates a judgment problem.

> would lead to a quick conversation where the problem is solved, and mappings are updated

That sounds a lot like feedback to me. Your earlier comment said you don’t believe in that

Perhaps we have different definitions of “feedback”

I cannot see how, if the issue was a simple mapping update like this, it would have taken years to come up.

No this isn't right. "You should do X" is clear to everyone. You're right that it will sound more or less harsh to different people, but the meaning is not unclear as it is when using obtuse language.

Harshness is absolutely a metadata of language, at least as important as the dry content. If I say "pass me the salt", but do so with a loud and angry voice, far more is being communicated than the simple request to pass a salt. Phrasiology is part of communicating harshness. Failure to read language metadata is a judgment problem. With good employees, no matter the background, it almost never takes more than a few weeks to accurately interpret metadata. If they don't and they constantly fall back to "well, actually, a robot might not have understood it" and constantly expect disambiguation, this is an insurmountable issue.

You're overthinking it. You're being too clever by half, or maybe too clever by more like 9/10. A good manager really does just give clear feedback, and it's helpful. It doesn't solve all problems for all people, but it's the place to start, not all this mumbo jumbo about metadata or whatever.

Depends on the culture, cf. The Culture Map from Erin Meyer

One of the worst books I have ever had the "pleasure" to read.