
Be Nice Or Leave - dmarinoc
http://avc.com/2014/06/be-nice-or-leave/
======
wallflower
Neil Gaiman

“You get work however you get work, but keep people keep working in a
freelance world (and more and more of todays world is freelance), because
their work is good, because they are easy to get along with and because they
deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three! Two out of three
is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and
you deliver it on time. People will forgive the lateness of your work if it is
good and they like you. And you don’t have to be as good as everyone else if
you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.”

[http://vimeo.com/42372767](http://vimeo.com/42372767)

A commencement speech so good it is now a slim book
[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062266764/](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062266764/)

~~~
greghinch
To be honest, often I found delivering work on time and being easy to get
along with trump doing good work to a large degree (particularly being on
time). That is to say, if you are easy to get along with and deliver on time,
but your work output is nothing special, you can still get by pretty well. But
if you are unpredictable or a jerk, your work quality needs to be better than
99% of your peers to get by similarly.

------
palebluedot
A saying that I heard a long time ago, that really stuck with me (both as a
business owner, and from the flipside as a customer):

    
    
      You can shear a sheep many times, but you can skin it only once.
    

If you go in for the kill, and really take advantage of someone in a
transaction (i.e, skin the sheep), that will likely signal the end of any
(positive) transactions with that person, unless you have a monopoly or other
such power. Even if they don't realize what you did at the time, eventually
they will, and they will resent it.

But by just shearing the sheep, you are creating a sustainable profit /
relationship with someone, that will have the potential to be repeat business.

This works on the customer side, as well - are you the sort of person that
grinds away at every contract and transaction, so that the other side makes
(almost) nothing? Well, you are walking the line of skinning that sheep...

~~~
jacquesm
That's pretty calculating though. Essentially you're saying 'be nice' because
there is money in it. But actually people should just be nice even (or maybe
_especially_ ) if there is no money in it.

~~~
palebluedot
That is not my intent at all, and I certainly don't think of it as
calculating. I think you are conflating a quote highlighting a benefit of
being nice (or really, the dangerous of being ruthless), with describing the
moral _reason_ to be nice.

Naturally character is better highlighted by what you do that has no tangible
reward, and done in the dark, where you think no one will see it. And being
nice, and compassionate, and charitable are things that should be done because
it is the _right thing to do_ , regardless of reward.

The quote is in the same vein as the original article; the general thrust of
the article is that being nice pays dividends, which could be interpreted as
being calculating as well, I suppose.

But I don't think that is the intent. I think the intent is the same as my
comment - to just highlight the benefits and renewable nature inherent in
being nice, not saying that is the _reason_ to be nice.

~~~
jacquesm
I think it revolves around 'acting nice' vs 'being nice' but the words escape
me to articulate the difference any clearer than that.

~~~
palebluedot
I think I understand what you are saying, and you are right, it is difficult
to find the exact words to express it. But I think you articulated it well. I
just wanted to highlight that my intent was not to promote the idea of being
artificially nice :)

------
jgrahamc
Some time ago I was involved in founding a company and two VCs were working
together to fund us. They'd come up with a term sheet and we needed to alter
some of the parts of it.

So, we sat down with them and the CEO of our company laid things out by
running through all the parts that everyone agreed on and framing the
discussion as "and there are these two provisions that we don't, so we're
really close".

The rest of the discussion was super-smooth because of the way it begun.

~~~
jczhang
This seems more like an example of framing/presentation. Not to say they
werent nice people :)

------
upthedale
This was one of my key take-aways from Dale Carnegie's classic, 'How to Win
Friends and Influence People'. I've seen it mentioned on various reading lists
for those wanting to go into the business world too.

Funny thing is, when recommending it to a friend, they mistakenly assumed from
the title that it was a book of underhand tactics, which couldn't really be
further from the truth. There's a lot to be said for being genuinely nice to
others.

~~~
thisone
I think How to Win Friends is one of those books that you (you being someone
in the supermajority of people who isn't naturally gifted at interpersonal
relationships) know you should read but you avoid it.

Then one day, you are desperate and you read it and wonder "my God why didn't
I read this sooner!"

~~~
corobo
I've avoided it for so long as it does look like it's either a manipulation
guidebook or a social skills for dummies book. Your comment has convinced me
to give it a go :)

~~~
jonnathanson
I think a lot of folks today never get around to reading it because they
assume it's old or outdated. (It isn't. Human psychology hasn't changed much
since Dale Carnegie's day.) Alternatively, they read something sinister, or
else hucksterish into the title. To be fair, the idea of "winning" friends
implies a sort of gamesmanship. And the idea of "influencing people" can make
one think of manipulation or politics.

The interesting thing about the book is that it can be read in either light:
as a Machiavellian guidebook, or as an earnest how-to about the principles of
mutual friendship. Carnegie probably intended the book to be the latter,
however, and that's the spirit in which I read it. It is very much worth
reading. People can do what they will with the information in the book, but I
hope they do good with it.

------
rayiner
Here's the thing about being not nice: you can usually get away with it if
you're really exceptional, but if you ever misstep, nobody will want to help
you out, and some may gleefully put the screws to you. Just in the last couple
of years, a couple of acquaintances that had a reputation for being not nice
have stumbled career-wise, and unsurprisingly no one was there to lend a hand.
Honestly, I was shocked how little time it took to catch up to them.

~~~
song
That's what I really hope when I think of an employee who screwed me
completely over after I gave him a chance and spent a lot of time training
him...

But from the last news I've heard being a snake has been very successful for
him and he's landed a high position in the new company where he works (taking
over the guy who hired him).

I hope one day it all catches to him but I'm not hopeful.. I just wish the
world worked like this.

~~~
y4mi
i know i shouldn't judge with this small amount of info, but still...

you normally aren't paying an employee in training even close to the normal
rate in the profession. which is obviously correct, but makes the argument
that the employee screwed the employer by leaving after the the training kinda
strange.

~~~
song
In that case, he left with some of my customers contracts so that was the
screwing over part... The training thing is the fact that I spent a lot of
time training him hoping to do great things together and eventually making him
a partner of my company.

Anyway, it's a long story....

------
protonfish
Everyone is throwing around "nice" like it is a well-defined term and not a
fluff word. Let's try to define it a little better.

In my experience, there are 3 types of "nice". One is where somebody is
subservient to you. Another is when a person is polite and tells you what you
want to hear. The other is where somebody is honest and can be counted on to
do what they promise.

I propose that you cannot be either #1 or #2 and #3.

A subservient doormat may seem great, but don't forget that you are not the
only person they will grovel to. They will follow the most dominant person,
and you can't count on it being you forever. They are cowards that cannot be
trusted.

#2, pulling no punches, is a two-faced liar. They are the primary suspects for
back-stabbing. Being "nice" is used as a tool to gain your trust.

#3 can be rude and abrasive. If they are angry with you, they will act angry
with you. They will tell you the truth, even if it hurts your feelings.

Being rude and being duplicitous are almost always opposites, but both can be
described as being "not nice." If I had a beach house, I'd like people to be
the #2 type of nice. My goal there would be to relax, so please don't burst my
obliviousness bubble. But when I get back to work I'd rather have my allys be
#3.

~~~
dhimes
I believe the conversation is about being like #3, but without being rude and
abrasive. It's possible. Being honest and reliable does _not_ excuse rudeness
and abrasiveness. In my experience, rudeness and abrasiveness are indicative
that the person has not had to/been able to grow up. Perhaps they have extreme
talent. Perhaps they have lived a life of extreme focus. Perhaps their moms
still look after them. The reason doesn't much matter.

#s 1 and 2 are bullshit.

~~~
protonfish
I would argue that the qualities of "rude" and "abrasive" are similar to
"offensive" \- They are judgements by the observer, not objective qualities of
the observed. What is abrasive to one person might be fine for another. If you
are the type of person that gets his panties in a bunch when somebody says
something you don't like, maybe you are the one who still needs his mommy?

~~~
dhimes
Indeed, society's norms are something like GAAP, but for interactions. There
will certainly be deviations, a population of observers party to those
behaviors would agree.

But then there are those behaviors that a majority of observers would classify
as 'douche-y' or something synonymous. In that sense they are qualities of the
observed. Sometimes it's accidental- we've all done that. Most of us feel a
little bad when we realize that we've unintentionally hurt someone's feelings,
even if we think we've done it for their own good. Sometimes the person has no
idea- missing the social cues that they've said or done something painful to
another. These people can't be blamed any more than an albino can be blamed
for the color of her skin.

Then there are the assholes, the ones who are smug about their 'directness,'
who take some pride in keeping others off balance. Kind of like the big
loudmouth at the bar that nobody messes with because they are simply
intimidated, these people seem to get some social ego benefit from their
behavior. They have no class.

------
usingathrowaway
I work with a legitimately talented and hard-working Lead Architect who is not
nice.

He's constantly petty, degrading, and passive-aggressive. He'll interpret
whatever you say in whichever way allows him to insult you. His "arch reviews"
are provided in a way that makes people feel shitty instead of making them
smarter. He doesn't create sharable documents or written guidance. He is, in
essence, a borderless micro-manager, who shits on the whole damned engineering
team.

He's tolerated by the CEO because he shipped the first version of the product
quickly, so the CEO thinks he's brilliant.

He's tolerated by the CTO because the CTO doesn't realize that his ego and
passive-aggressiveness have both swelled as the company has grown.

He is the reason that many of our best engineers have left. Every single one
of his direct reports has transferred or quit in less than 12 months.

He is undermining a great company.

At this point, he better hope that we have a great outcome despite his
bullshit, because if he doesn't make enough money to retire, he's fucked.
_Zero_ of the engineers (and engineering management) would ever work with him,
ever again. It's too lousy of an experience.

And the really sad thing is that if he was just _nice_ about stuff, he'd be
one of our best employees. But he has to be a dick about every single little
thing. He has to be snarky. He has to be the smartest guy in the room. On all
topics.

------
pjmorris
I spent a long time in the South Florida IT job market. In an area with
millions of people and thousands of companies, it never ceased to amaze me how
many people in the field knew each other. One of the key factors in job-
hunting, then, was your reputation. If you did good work _and_ people liked
working with you, there was usually something available. If either of those
things wasn't true, life was more difficult. A consulting firm founder down
there used to say 'People like working with people they like to work with'. It
pays to invest in your friendships and your decency as well as in your
technical chops.

~~~
oinksoft
I'm not going to lie, this sounds like hell. Places like that make outcasts of
anybody who makes the rest "look bad" by "working too hard." It's nice to be
valued for your technical skills when you consider the alternative.

~~~
pjmorris
I never saw someone become an outcast in the community for working harder or
smarter. A given organization might operate like that, but the whole point of
a community is that there's more to the world than one organization and one
job. I've seen plenty of good people pulled out of bad situations by the
community.

------
dsirijus
_" We know that some of the most successful entrepreneurs in tech have been
difficult individuals who did what they had to do to get ahead."_,

 _" We know that a lot of investors, VCs included, will do what is required to
make a buck."_,

 _" It's conventional wisdom that being nice is a bad idea"_,

followed by a singular anecdotal data point arguing otherwise. I'd posit that
it depends on the actual business domain. Some are cutthroat and being nice is
gonna be a world of pain for you. I'm not doing dry flower arrangements
myself, so I wouldn't know. But in my domain (games) being nice bit me on my
ass as much as being mean (if that's even an antonym to _nice_ ) did.

So, in conclusion, it's a perpetual dilemma, not one-size-fit-all.

EDIT:

The whole article is a bit disingenuous imho. Title might as well be
paraphrased as "Be nice or I'm gonna be mean".

Another food for thought - etymology of _nice_ is from Latin _nescius_ ,
meaning _ignorant_.

~~~
jczhang
I like to think the article means to say: be nice and fair, including to
yourself.

------
digitalengineer
I have noticed certain people seem to think 'being nice' equals 'dumb' and
'unexperienced'. Most people are so used to others claiming everything; their
time, their concepts, designs,… they think just because you're not an asshole,
you're a push-over.

------
peteretep
My boss is a former M&A guy, and very very financially focussed but: I have a
lot of trust in him, because I know that he will always delegate to "doing the
right thing" over a quick buck. That's saved him a lot of money in working
with me when it's come to bonus, salary, or work-related negotiations.

------
rthomas6
This reminds me of the book "Getting to Yes".

If you take a principled stand in negotiations and truly want what is fair,
you can separate the issue at hand from the people. In doing so, you can be
polite and nice, while not getting steamrolled in negotiation. You can look at
negotiations like working together to get to agreement on what is fair and
best for both parties, instead of fighting against one another to get as much
as you can. It also allows you to say "no" in a non-personal way, because
you're only doing what makes sense for your side.

------
phatboyslim
There appear to be a number of anecdotes in the book Hatching Twitter where
Fred Wilson is painted as the bad guy. I wonder how much of this was for the
book, or how possibly I am misinterpreting it.

~~~
GuiA
I have not read the book myself. I do have a former coworker who was fairly
involved in the early days Twitter, who told me the book definitely was a
biased account of events. I would not blindly trust it.

------
jacquesm
"nice guys finish last" and other bs is what drives that culture.

The fact that some of the idols in the tech industry are definitely not nice
(and in fact are revered for that) does not help either.

Your reputation is your most hard won capital, spend it wisely.

------
candybar
Being nice is easy. Being good is hard.

What's missing here is that powerful people are almost always transacting on
behalf of many others who are not present at the bargaining table. By being
nice, they may be trading other people's money for personal goodwill that they
get to keep for themselves. This is "being nice" in some ways, but this isn't
good for society and may be highly unethical. Would you want government
regulators to be nice to the industry people they are regulating because in
the long run they benefit from having good relationship with industry leaders?
Would you want hedge fund managers who's managing your money to be nice to
banks, that is, overpay for services, because fees come out of your pocket
while they can monetize the relationship in the future? Would you want college
admissions officers to be nice to their friends with college-bound kids? When
you're applying for internships, would you want the hiring managers to be nice
to all their church friends who may need something to do during the summer?

People in powerful positions being nice to personal acquaintances at the
expense of strangers is a huge problem and the root of all corruption. I'm not
saying that you shouldn't be nice - being ethical and balancing the interests
of all parties involved is an extremely tricky proposition but I'm surprised
at the amount of agreement here, because so much of what people complain about
around here often comes down to other people being nice to one another at your
expense.

Edit: I'm especially surprised that a VC would make such a comment because
it's an industry where being nice for the sake of relationship can be highly
unethical. You're always working with other people's money and whether as an
investor or a board member, you're often responsible for making decisions that
benefit people you represent even if it involves some kind of hit to your
"nice" reputation. At the top level of management, big decisions are rarely
easy and always have winners and losers.

Edit2: As another example, the recent non-poaching deal between SV companies
was probably rationalized as "let's be nice to one another" while those that
didn't participate were seen as not being nice or being too cutthroat.
Niceness between natural competitors can quickly lead to a collusive
agreement.

Edit3: I'm not advising any specific course of action, simply noting that the
advice as given is far too vague and can often lead to rationalization of
highly unethical activities. I'm sure Steve Jobs thought Google trying to
recruit Apple employees was "Google screwing over Apple" and the consequent
no-poach agreement is partners being nice to one another.

Edit4: Dreamweapon, I didn't downvote you (don't have the power anyway) but
regulators work with executives, directors and employees who are people.
Regulators have strong incentives to cultivate relationships with people in
the industry so that they can transition into the private sector. Likewise,
hedge fund managers aren't trying to be nice to the banks - they are being
nice to specific salespeople, brokers and bankers because they can expect
favors in return. Also favoritism to people you know is being nice to people
you know - the gist of what's being advocated here is be nice to people you
know, because relationship.

~~~
dreamweapon
_Would you want government regulators to be nice to the industry people they
are regulating because in the long run they benefit from having good
relationship with industry leaders? Would you want hedge fund managers who 's
managing your money to be nice to banks, that is, overpay for services,
because fees come out of your pocket while they can monetize the relationship
in the future?_

Umm, I think Fred was suggesting that we be nice to _other people_ , not nice
to abstract entities such as banks, or companies subject to government
regulation. Also, the examples you cite would clearly fall under what Fred
means when he says "I am not saying you should be overly generous or nice to a
fault."

 _Would you want college admissions officers to be nice to their friends with
college-bound kids?_

That's not being "nice", that's favoritism.

EDIT: sentence added in first paragraph.

~~~
dreamweapon
Downvoter - explain, please.

~~~
001sky
Abstract corporations are legal persons, but they are fictitious in the sense
of relatinoship building. Relationships are only built with _actual people_ ,
who may or may not have perfectly aligned interests with the legal entities
they work for. This is both true in the instant (a VC might have more than one
fund he invests from) and over a lifetime/career (that same VC migh work for
various wholly distinct legal entities and /or transition between investing
and operational roles. Similarly, governments and banks are run by people
wearing multiple hats -- take alook at how many legal entities were inside of
enron, lehmand, or one of the other TBTF entities just for some perspective.
Other large corporations are likewise composites of various fiefdoms and P&Ls
and are not at all aligned internally at the personal level.

edit: I didn't downvote you, but its just part of the picture that might
expain something.

------
antirez
In the specific case of open source software / IT scene, which I believe is in
part a "business" a this point since a lot of programmers see it as a way of
self promotion (which surely is), and many companies build OSS software even
if the way it is created is mostly closed-source-alike, I believe that there
is a tension between being nice and be successful. It boils down to the fact
popularity among IT folks can be reached in two main ways. 1) Build great
stuff. 2) Criticize stuff and set a new trend (either for self-promotion or to
move people to your product). "2" is a lot simpler than "1", and "2" is
definitely not about being nice, so the result is that the IT community is
full of people that are not nice and I think this is not going to change in
the long run since there are big gains in not being nice.

------
mathattack
Being nice is like the Prisoner's Dilemma. It doesn't pay in the short term,
but people who are consistently nice to each other help out in the long run.
This is why CEOs that are nasty are actually the exception, though some of
their lower level attendants can be jerks. If you aren't trustworthy, you lose
access to a lot of people and opportunities.

------
SyneRyder
Possibly related: last week on This Week In Startups, the interview with Yossi
Vardi discussed his philosophy of only investing in "nice" people:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozcfDoC-
srM#t=14m37s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozcfDoC-srM#t=14m37s)

And later that week, during the interview with Gil Penchina, Jason mentions
the benefits of being nice, after being screwed over by someone who shut him
out of a deal and took advantage of a founder by offering them a term sheet &
telling them not to shop it around.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flX3NEb5bf0#t=30m49s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flX3NEb5bf0#t=30m49s)

(more specific comments here)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flX3NEb5bf0#t=37m57s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flX3NEb5bf0#t=37m57s)

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it's curious to see so much
discussion of "nice" at the moment.

------
lukasm
This is especially true for VCs. Since dozen of winners generate 90% of
returns you should by all means attract the best companies. This is not
apparent in stock market.

Apart from moral side and integrity. Defaulting to not being evil will yield
the best return in the long term. You should do it even if your motives are
purely selfish.

------
mcmatterson
We also have one of those signs, from when a good friend lived next door to
Dr. Bob's workshop (he being the purveyor of those signs). He's an incredible
(and incredibly oddball) guy, and a visit to his workshop / junkyard is a
great example of the part of New Orleans that most visitors never see.

------
baldfat
I think this all is based on a person's comfort level with conflict.

A) I can't sleep at night when I possibly was a jerk.

B)Other's sleep with a smile on their face.

Sometimes the room is full of type A or B and everything is good. 95% of the
time the room is full of A + B and A thinks they are jerks and B thinks that A
is just stupid.

------
bowlofpetunias
I've found that the people that seem the nicest are the worst people to do
business with. Niceness is often mistaken for not telling the whole truth.

Also, many of those nice people often disappear when the shit hits the fan,
because they don't want to be seen bringing bad news. That doesn't fit with
the "nice" image they have of themselves.

All things being equal I would rather do business with an honest asshole than
a nice person I cannot trust.

Niceness is overrated. Not screwing people over and being "nice" are two very
different things.

------
jimmyjohnson12
One of the biggest companies in the world invited us the little guy innovator
to demo our new technology. They were down right NASTY and mean.

I say this not because they didn't buy us out, but because we spent our money
to fly to the valley to demo our tech only to learn they blocked our tech from
working and said things like, you better run the race is on.

They also baited us with money and opportunity if we told them how our tech
worked. We took the bait and they kicked us out!

Not sure why they had to be such jerks!?!

------
demystified
It is all about taking the short-term vs. long term approach. Both would work
-- but I would prefer the latter.

Focus on short-term, work towards maximize profit/value and capture immediate
benefits (without taking into account other's thoughts). If it works that's
great, but most likely it won't.

Or focus on long-term - invest in people (your time and resources). No
immediate benefits but long-term returns are likely higher.

------
anarchitect
This reminds me of a piece of advice I heard somewhere, which I keep coming
back to – "be someone that people want to work with again".

------
seanmcdirmid
Sounds very American; like the server in a resteraunt being overly nice,
making those of us who aren't used to the wallmart greeter style
uncomfortable.

Cut the bull; I would rather people be more honest than be more nice (and if
they are trying too hard, it's easy to tell). It's amazing how a bit of
bluntness automatically influences me and how much niceness projection makes
me sick.

~~~
matwood
So you and I are in a meeting and you throw out an idea. Would you rather me
a) call you a fucking idiot without even thinking through what you said and
move on or b) explain why I don't agree with your idea and let you clarify?

Even if the idea had zero merit, it is still in my long term interest to talk
it through with you if I want you fully engaged on the team. The idea could be
a teaching moment or even lead to an idea that works.

In the end it is not about being overly nice, but being respectful.

~~~
sejje
That's a ridiculous way to make a point.

Being blunt and calling someone a "fucking idiot" are not the same thing.

~~~
matwood
You're right that I was projecting my personal experiences. The people who I
have worked with who called themselves blunt and honest were the same people
who never defended an idea and instead resorted to calling everyone else
idiots.

Saying you are blunt is often a way to sound superior or right when being rude
to someone. Very few problems are as straight forward as 1+1=2, which is easy
to state bluntly. Most problems though are more nuanced than that, and I have
personally found that people who like to think themselves superior to others
like to hide behind words like honest and blunt.

------
robbiep
Pareto Optimal solutions start with this behaviour

------
smegmalife
Funny how often conventional wisdom is wrong, and "not being nice" is no
different. When you look at the great companies, they were always focused on
relationships and generally doing the right thing. Being nice is good not only
from a business standpoint, but a personal standpoint as well.

------
ZenPro
Almost everybody I have ever learned something truly valuable from was a nice
person.

I have yet to meet an example of the single-minded-asshole-genius who is
actually a success.

Most of the truly credible successes I have met are nice people and highly
regarded.

~~~
logfromblammo
While this is mostly based on hearsay, what about Steve Jobs?

From all the anecdotal accounts and unsubstantiated rumors I have heard, Steve
Jobs was a reasonably intelligent, single-minded asshole, and Steve Wozniak
was the super-nice-guy genius.

~~~
ZenPro
Everybody always pulls Steve Jobs out of the bag to try and illustrate the
asshole boss paradigm.

Steve Jobs also used to burst into tears in the Boardroom sobbing about how
unfair the _system_ was.

I don't see many management books advocating that approach...bawling your eyes
out until your business partners acquiesce.

But, if I ever meet a Steve Jobs, a single minded visionary who is seeking to
shape the entire paradigm of personal computing...

...I still wouldn't let him talk to me the way Isaacson reports in his book.
Fuck Steve Jobs.

Plus, when it came down to the wire, Microsoft owned them. Literally.

------
adamzerner
This post makes a claim, and provides minimal/no support for it. Really, the
support is because it's a trustworthy source. But still, there's a lot more
value in truly understanding the reasoning behind it.

------
ChuckMcM
I find this an interesting counter to the Diplomacy post (Alpha Nerd Game)
yesterday. I wonder if the same rules apply in Fred's world.

------
sbhere
> It’s not the fastest way to make a buck. It takes time. But it is way more
> sustainable than screwing people over.

Being nice != not(screwing people over)

Big difference.

------
JVIDEL
Being nice in business is easy, it's the not-being-a-backstabing-jerk part
that most people don't seem to get.

------
lgmspb
I think it is important to either be nice to everyone or to be an asshole to
everyone. As simple as that

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anathebealio
Too often I find that people who are nice in daily life are considered naive
or push-overs. It is a skill to be kind to others and to retain the reputation
of standing your ground. I'm not sure why there is confusion between having an
opinion/looking out for yourself and being a jerk -- and this certainly shines
through the most in business where everyone is looking to make money.

My boss is an extremely kind man, but when it comes down to it, he always
comes out of meetings and negotiations with what he wanted. Everyone in the
company highly respects him for it and everyone is better off because of it.

~~~
vidarh
> I'm not sure why there is confusion between having an opinion/looking out
> for yourself and being a jerk

Often it'd down to delivery, and how you interact with people, rather than
having an opinion.

My "favorite" learning moment personally came when I was once stuck in a
meeting room with a colleague while we were waiting for a document revision or
something, and out of the blue he told me "you know, when I first joined, I
thought you were a jerk". I was really taken aback, because I could not
remember _any_ instance of being rude to him.

He explained that he thought so because I apparently "always" raised
objections when he came up with an idea, while I'd let dumb ideas from [other
employee] slide. But eventually he'd accepted that my input tended to be
right, and had come to understand that I didn't mean anything with it.

It dawned on me what the problem was: I let the dumb ideas from [other
employee] slide, because I knew everyone recognised how unworkable they were.
I wasn't trying to be nice - I was just not wasting my energy on it; let
someone else shoot it down and move on.

But this guy often had quite good ideas, that I _liked_. So with total
blindness to how it came across, I tore into them to weed out potential
problems. To me, these ideas had merit, and needed to be given careful
consideration, either so we had good reason if we rejected them, or to make
sure we refined them into the best we could do.

But what I communicated was a stream of seemingly hostile arguments, because I
did not realise that he needed acknowledgment that the idea was worthwhile and
good; to me that was implicit: It was why I found it worthwhile talking about
it.

So often, the difference between coming across as an opinionated jerk and a
nice guy who stands up for his opinions is down to making people feel like you
appreciate their input and listen carefully, and that you are negotiating a
solution with them rather than just hammering through your own viewpoints,
even if the end point ends up being essentially the same.

> negotiations with what he wanted. Everyone in the company highly respects
> him for it and everyone is better off because of it.

People _love_ a strong negotiator, because a negotiation gives people a
feeling of stake in the outcome. Someone who is recognisably a strong
negotiator is often admired even when you come up against them and know
logically you're getting a worse deal than you could have, because a good
negotiation is about making the other side feel like it's a genuine give and
take, and that you are being listened to (hopefully it is true as well...).

It comes naturally to people. My son often tries to negotiate his bedtime, and
we try to accommodate that as much as possible, because we know from
experience that when we negotiate from a starting point we set, he ends up
going to bed earlier than he otherwise would, and does so happily and without
protest, seemingly triumphant because he put in effort on it and got us to
yield a bit on our starting position. When we negotiate a time, he'll even
remind us when it is time to get him ready for bed, if we don't notice the
time.

~~~
merrua
This is useful information. I can see myself having made this mistake. People
don't love a strong negotiator in every culture and usually dislike women
negotiating. But being able to work by collaborating and negotiating is really
valuable for getting your views across.

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comrade1
There will always be conflict. I'm currently working with two of the nicest
people I've ever met but we still have conflict and we still argue and 'fight'
over big things such as direction of the company, goals for growth, etc.

It's a matter of how you fight - with these guys it's respectful arguing,
sometimes raised voices, even talking over each other, but I know in the end
that they're fair and we respect each other.

In my previous company I worked with one of scummiest people I've ever met and
the fighting was quite different. He avoided it rather than addressed it, and
he also seemed to take my disagreements personal. But from the outside it
probably looked like he's 'nicer' than my current partners.

~~~
swombat
Heated arguments are not a sign of "not being nice", they're just a sign of
differing opinions. If having a different opinion makes it impossible for you
to "be nice", then you're not nice.

------
michaelochurch
I worked at a company once that conflated mean-spirited policies with "just
business". The result was a downfall that was _entirely_ preventable.

Vacation and sick leave were combined ("PTO") which meant that you had to take
a vacation day if you got sick. The result of this was that people came into
work when ill and _everyone_ was less productive. Very little ever got done in
the winter, because it was just one constant office-wide cold. (I had so many
colds, that season, that I saw a doctor to find out if something was wrong
with my immune system.)

Open-plan offices are another penny-wise, pound-foolish institution. They're
not used because they're "collaborative" or "hip" but because they're cheap,
and they're cheap because they're shitty. The result, however, is high
turnover, increased sick load, distraction and antagonism. There's also an
overwhelming amount of evidence that open-plan offices hurt the best employees
the most, which means you're losing off the top. That's not where you want to
lose.

The killer was when it bought ( _cough_ rescued) another company and installed
the acquired company's upper management. The new regime's first move was to
kill the acquiring company's R&D team-- not because it wasn't doing useful
work (it was) but because "their side" (the acquiring company) didn't have an
R&D team. So a high-performing R&D team that had already built some powerful
stuff (and was 6-9 months away from solving an existential-risk fraud problem)
was shut down. Those guys over there have too much freedom! They're in danger
of actually saving the company! Shut them down, now!

Of course, the health benefits were shit, which meant that days of work time
were lost to haggling with insurance companies and hospitals about bills.
Whatever pennies are saved by having a crappy health plan is lost when
employees have to haggle on their own behalf to get health care.

Sometimes, cost cutting is the right way to go, but that's rare and usually in
a well-understood existential crisis. As in, "this company won't be around in
two years unless we're really tight, and here's how we plan to make it up".

I can't respect companies that play against their employees. If you have a
crappy health plan, a bad PTO policy, closed allocation, stack ranking, and a
bad office space, then you're not playing to win. Instead, you're in the
business of competing against your employees, when you should be in the
business of excelling at something, and of winning in the market. You only get
to pick one, in the long term, in this world.

Unfortunately, for the individual executive, the "be a dick" strategy often
works. Most "tech" startups are scams: companies not built to last, but just
to be sold to some "greater fool" before it falls to pieces on account of its
own sloppy constitution. The individuals who build these crap companies
generally get to cash out (or, at least, move on to cushy venture capital
jobs) before that happens and, when it does, they can plausibly (if falsely)
blame their successors.

~~~
rqebmm
Our company uses PTO and open-plan offices, and while they're not ideal
solutions, nothing is, and I think they get a bad rap around here.

As for PTO I appreciate my boss's explanation: "I just don't want any sniping
over sick days. If you don't feel like you can come in and work, it should
cost something. That way nobody will complain when someone calls in sick."

Similarly, I've heard a lot of complaints about open-plan offices, and
frankly, I do think they're collaborative. Initially I didn't love the fact
that I have to hear everyone's discussions around me, but it's certainly
helped problems get solved quicker than they otherwise would. When two devs
across the office are discussing a weird bug they're seeing it can have a lot
of implications. Maybe you happened to see it two days ago it gives you the
opportunity to chime in, or it allows the product manager to say "Guys, that
feature isn't super important, if it's really hard we can just cut it", or it
allows the QA guy to say "Let me know what area that affects so I can make
sure to write some extra test cases". All of those situations seem innocuous
when you're all working together, but if you're in separate offices or working
remotely people will end up wasting time trying to figure these things out by
themselves before reaching out for help.

These aren't ideal solutions, so you just have to be sure to take steps to
mitigate the costs. With PTO you have to be generous with the time granted in
order to account for the fact that it's employee's vacation + sick days, and
with open offices you have to have a space employees can go to get serious
work done without distractions. If you DO take those mitigating steps I think
they're both good systems.

~~~
sheepmullet
"As for PTO I appreciate my boss's explanation: "I just don't want any sniping
over sick days. If you don't feel like you can come in and work, it should
cost something. That way nobody will complain when someone calls in sick."

Time to quit. Your boss thinks your team is full of petty assholes who will
complain when somebody takes a few days off for being sick.

It's not too bad if you get a minimum 6 weeks combined PTO. Still you will
find people are more likely to come in when sick and drag the rest of the team
down with them.

"All of those situations seem innocuous when you're all working together, but
if you're in separate offices or working remotely people will end up wasting
time trying to figure these things out by themselves before reaching out for
help."

Firstly "wasting time trying to figure these things out by themselves" is a
key part in overall learning and development. You want engineers to "waste
time" like this.

Secondly, having worked in an open plan office for the last 5 years I've found
I can help with maybe 2-3% of the conversations people in the office are
having. I'm distracted by all of them and it results in chronic low
productivity.

"and with open offices you have to have a space employees can go to get
serious work done without distractions"

90% of your work should be "serious work". Open office employees are just used
to chronic low productivity. When working from home I get 10x the amount of
work done that I would at work. Quite honestly I could work at home Monday and
then do pretty much no work at all Tuesday-Friday and my output would still be
above average for the office.

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showsover
Can't seem to read the article as the server's not working.

Also, this submission gets 11 votes even though it isn't readable? Strange.

