“That’s Not What They Are Hearing”
Whenever I’ve said “I’m worried about X” to a manager what I’ve meant is “I think your decisions about X are misguided and borderline disastrous” but that’s never what they hear https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-352-thats-not-what-they-are-hearing
IME it’s almost impossible to tell an Anglophone manager that they’re making a mistake. If you’re too plain-spoken you’re a troublemaker. If you’re diplomatic they just won’t hear it or will assume you’re making a statement about your own competence, never theirs.
“I don’t think your plan will have the outcomes you expect”
Manager: “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m sure it’s well within your capabilities, but I’ll see what I can do to get you some help”
@baldur What works for me is to use the engineer's integrity cloak. It looks like this:
1. you are going to do X
1. as a professional engineer, I feel a pressing need to advise you that X is not good because A, B, C
1. you are the decision maker, so you are free to decide whether to proceed with X, or not
1. but as far as I am concerned, it's part of my professional code to give you my opinion and advise you against X
Whatever happens afterwards is a decision of the manager, but at the same time you fulfilled your professional duty. Sometimes it's important to put that on paper. Because if that bridge fails eventually, you want to have evidence that you did your job well and the decision maker did not listen to you.
@FailForward Definitely good advice. It usually doesn't do your reputation in the organisation any good (odds are that the manager will badmouth you regardless) but it does occasionally work. Esp. if the manager doesn't have the "developers are interchangeable resources" mentality.
@baldur Well, I am lucky(?) that I always worked in environments where I felt solid emotional safety to be direct and open about my professional opinions/assessments.
Maybe that question mark there is actually not a luck: when we select a job position, it's a two way interview, so I always chose to work for and with people with whom I can do this. The thing is, sometimes the only obstacle stopping people to behave with a healthy dose assertiveness is actually themselves.
@baldur Nothing wrong with startups, you just need to carefully look whether the guy operating it is somebody you'd trust your life with. For some strange reason many people don't.
@FailForward No I've done the whole look carefully thing including working for people who I've known for 10+ years and would have trusted with my life. Then have them completely change their behaviours as soon as they saw me as an underling.
@FailForward Yeah, I have had the unfortunate tendency to take jobs at startups 😑