Apr 17 2006
over hedging?
wendy: Maybe you should consider the benefits of trying out ‘blah’collegaue: Wendy means do ‘blah’
wendy: (…um, ….yes, …based on what I know already that is my best guess. But I don’t know about the implications of doing ‘blah’ for ’stuff-I’m-not-a-specialist-in’ and… ….more disclaimers…..)
I’m not used to using unhedged assertive directives. They are quick and convey specialist opinions concisely. This is valued in my workplace. It’s difficult to break the habit of constructing sentences with hedging words ‘maybe’, ‘perhaps’, ‘possibly’, ‘consider’, ‘it seems’, “I suspect”…
I use them because I believe they enable direct respect for the knowldge of other specialists and convey there are potential caveats without necessarily ennumerating them. Assertive directives can convey arrogance and ignorance.
over hedging?
True, but I think in the US, we’re told over and over again that no one’s going to take our advice unless we’re taking our own (meaning, unless we manage to convey our own sureness about the recommendation).
Also, I took one class in college on Communication in the Workplace (commence with the eye rolling) that took a couple weeks to solely focus on why women sometimes are marginalized…it’s not always that the men don’t respect us, but that we can come off as wishy-washy. One of the more interesting experiements is to note how often women say “sorry” in workplace conversations, and then note how often men do it. We apologize a WHOLE lot more. Men do not. Men say, “do this, it’ll work.” Women say, “You know, sorry if this is butting in, but you may want to try doing it this way.”
It’s no wonder the men don’t always take us seriously…we aren’t speaking the same language
I’ve had to practice a lot to stop apologizing and just tell people what to do.
It depends how you say things. Sometimes it’s better to be less direct - you don’t want to hurt their manly pride. I know I am very stubborn if somebody starts ordering me about.
PM recently commented, as he was looking over my shoulder, that I’m very good at writing emails which, although they strongly suggest actions the other side should take and raise highly probable issues that all should be aware of, are presented in such a way as to not be insulting, not be “misinterpretable”, leave no wiggle room for the other side, have many avenus for us to backtrack, etc.
I’m pretty sure he meant it in an upbeat, positive way.
Personnaly, I think it’s sad that I have to review each sentence 5 times to “dot each i” to get somewhere. I shouldn’t have to feel like a lawyer to work…
All of that to say: there’s a middle ground between having a pinky in the water and jumping with both feets in. One of the best coworker I ever had, who’d been around the industry for > 20 years, was incredibly good at getting the other side to think they came up with ideas he, in reality, had suggested. As a result, he got them to do what needed to be done without often appearing to step out of bounds. I still haven’t quite figured out how he did it.