[teampractices] No questions allowed!

[Kevin Smith]

Oh, also:

"What did you mean by X?" could become "I don't understand X". Which again
is better in some ways but worse in others.



Kevin Smith
Engineering Program Manager, Wikimedia Foundation


On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 1:34 PM, Kevin Smith <ksmith at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 5:30 PM, Jeroen De Dauw <jeroendedauw at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> It seems like for such a policy to not result in disaster, everyone needs
>> a good amount of empathy and willingness to cooperate.
>>
>
> ​Agreed! It would probably also require everyone to have strong
> communication skills, generally.
> ​
>
>
>> At least assuming you can't say something like "I wonder why you think
>> that" or "Tell me why", which while strictly are not questions, result in
>> the "same" interaction (different tone though).
>>
>
> ​Right. I didn't work at Dreamcorp long enough to find out whether it was
> ok to exploit the loopholes. :)
>
> There is an interesting difference between "What do you think we should
> do?" and "I would appreciate if you could tell me what you think we should
> do." Although the latter is more verbose, it actually ends up using an "I
> statement"[1], as well as expressing appreciation at the same time. "It
> would help me if you could..." would also work, as it empowers the other
> person to provide you with help. ​On the other hand, "Tell me what you
> think we should do" is a command, and I'm not fond of it.
>
> "Why do you think that's best?" could become "I'm concerned about X", or
> "I really thought we should do Y". Both of which would be more helpful in
> some cases, but less helpful in others. Often, an open-ended question can
> inspire people to address things you weren't thinking of, and can avoid you
> biasing their response. But sometimes giving a framework can be helpful.
>
> Thanks for helping me thing these things through even deeper.
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-message
>
>
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