
My experiment with clear and direct communication - KentBeck
https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/clear-direct-communications-an-experiment-21b8a151aa7c
======
lukevp
I can't help but feel that even in this "clear and direct communication" the
author is continuing to look for ways to manipulate situations and people.
What seems to be lacking is empathy. The communication is based upon the value
add, the reaction or positioning that the author gets at the end of the
interaction, rather than on collaborating with another human and trying to get
both parties to a better place.

A similar strategy to this "clear and direct communication" that can devolve
into the same place is the concept of Radical Candor[0]. It can begin as a
"helping" to awaken others to things they may have missed, and can end up
being an avenue for tearing people down instead of growing them. The only
difference is the intent of the speaker.

Assuming the best in people and striving to have positive outcomes tends to
work better. This puts you at risk of other people much like the author was
previously, who seek to undercut and deceive and manipulate, but those people
show their true colors pretty quick and they end up on a different tier of
communication that no longer gets the privilege everyone else is afforded.

A pivotal change within my own life and communication was reading about
Adler's work [0]. Separation of Tasks as a concept is very applicable to
interpersonal relationships at the office. I no longer struggle with trying to
explain why people are rude and pushing agendas that don't make empirical
sense. None of us are infallible and we all are seeking to shape our world in
different ways and it's helpful to delineate what we really care about and
not. Which hills to die on.

[0]: [https://www.radicalcandor.com/](https://www.radicalcandor.com/) [1]:
[https://www.mentalhealthtoday.co.uk/blog/lessons-from-
alfred...](https://www.mentalhealthtoday.co.uk/blog/lessons-from-alfred-adler-
the-influential-figure-in-cognitive-behavioural-therapy-youve-never-heard-of)

~~~
tonystubblebine
Right. It's like all of these strategies are about how he communicates but not
about how he listens.

Most people think they are good listeners, but I come at this from the world
of training coaches. Coaching starts with being a professionally good listener
which is much different than being an amateur good listener.

And when you try to reach this level of listening at a professional level you
start to realize the millions of ways in which you block yourself from
listening.

An obvious one that the author did touch on was that he recognized his prior
communication as manipulative. Right! We all bring our own agenda and this is
one of the ways in which we can filter what we are hearing. What has the
person said that supports my agenda? What threatens it and how can I disprove
that? Thinking that way doesn't allow you to realize that your judgement might
be wrong.

The other big ones are anxiety and need for esteem. It's like when you can't
help but give advice because you are deeply desperate for validation. You're
not broken, that's a very human way to be.

Listening is hard and so a good starting place is to separate listening from
judgement. The word I use most is curiosity. Just focus on being curious as a
way to crowd out all these other feelings. Then later you can make a
judgement.

If you are a clear communicator and a bad listener then the result is just
that you go around being clearly wrong a lot of the time.

~~~
woodandsteel
Former listening trainer here. I discovered though training a great many
people that a key listening problem is that people's attention wanders away
and then back, and as a consequence they miss a lot of what has been said but
are not aware this has happened. I found this was common even among
professional psychotherapists.

Also the easiest way to improve your listening skills is reflective listening.
That is where you simply say back to the person the key ideas they expressed
to you.

------
MauranKilom
This is an interesting article to me because I feel that I have been
approaching this from the exact opposite direction.

It took me many years to learn that speaking in honest, innocent truths is not
all there is to communication. Even if what you say is topical and meaningful,
the way it is _perceived_ by recipients has little correlation with how
truthful your message is. This is what is meant when "factual information" is
only one of four aspects of communication:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-
sides_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-sides_model) (see in
particular the example at the bottom of the page).

Essentially, the best way to communicate something always depends on the
receiver.

My approach has thus been to try and run everything I want to say through a
"if I were the other party and heard this, what would my reaction be? Is that
reaction what I'm trying to achieve?" filter. I understood the article as this
being the "manipulative" element that the author wanted to eliminate. But for
me personally it's been life-saving to have some way of making sure that I'm
not _completely misunderstood_. And that will happen if you present the right
information at the wrong time, in the wrong context, to the wrong people or
with the wrong presentation. Yes, I deliberate a lot over how I word my
emails...

This take on "communication is not just truths yelled into the void" is also
reflected in several XKCDs: [https://xkcd.com/1028/](https://xkcd.com/1028/)
[https://xkcd.com/1984/](https://xkcd.com/1984/)
[https://xkcd.com/1860/](https://xkcd.com/1860/)

And this one in particular is very poignant:
[https://xkcd.com/1576/](https://xkcd.com/1576/)

~~~
christiansakai
"Is that reaction what I'm trying to achieve", interesting perspective.

~~~
MauranKilom
It seems apparent to me that this is something most people do more or less
intuitively (and for those that are especially proficient at it, I can see how
it would become manipulative very quickly). I'm getting better at it, but it's
still largely a manual/conscious effort.

Tangentially, I also found the way Alan Turing was portrayed in The Imitation
Game to hit extremely close to home in this regard. E.g. this key scene:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOjMfUCgyyw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOjMfUCgyyw).
Regardless of how historically accurate it is, the movie contrasts these
differences between interacting with computers/math and other humans (in that
the former is solely about "factual content" alone) very well in my eyes.

~~~
christiansakai
Wow interesting video. Thank you.

------
alexandercrohde
What a loaded article.

Obviously "clear" and "direct" are both positive-spin words, indicating that
the author thinks there's some value to this.

As somebody who used to be incredibly blunt, and still is much blunter than
average, I'll tell you that social graces, white lies, and indirectness
usually serve purposes. The only time you need to be more direct is when
people don't understand what you're saying (which actually happens a fair
amount in business).

Take for example the PIP (performance improvement plan). On the one hand, the
name of it is so whitewashed you could worry the meaning might be lost.
However, renaming it to the blunt title "were-probably-about-to-fire-you-
documentation", though refreshingly direct, would probably be a tough pill to
swallow for a lot of people.

Does changing the words around it lessen the pain (in the long term)? Unclear,
maybe it just spreads it out, maybe it makes it more shameful, because it
indicates it's too severe to be addressed directly.

~~~
brnt
I'm Dutch. I used to believe, like Dutch people tell themselves, that we are
direct and honest. Then I met some foreigners, who said we are just blunt,
which of course I could only take as evidence for the fact that not everywhere
honesty is valued. Then I moved abroad, learned a lot, among which that indeed
the Dutch are mostly just blunt. I try my best to me direct and also the most
friendly self I can be, these are not at all at odds and when they seem that
way you're probably just ones of those people who mixes up direct and
bluntness. Being dirdctthe friednly way works better (positive attitude is
infectious), feels better, is better.

Most people proud of their directness are simply blunt ogres and proud of
that, in my experience. Took me a while to discover that I can do better.

~~~
woodandsteel
Could you explain what is the difference between being direct and being blunt?

~~~
brnt
Blunt is somewhere between direct and bullish. When you're a bit too eager to
be direct, a bit too happy to give someone your unsalted opinion, like to step
on or over peoples comfort zones perhaps a bit too much, a bit too proud of
yourself for not being sensitive at all.

It can be subtle, it can be clear as day, but the pattern is 'I'm telling it
like it is' attitude without considering anything else. Turns our you very
often _can_ consider something else while being direct.

~~~
woodandsteel
Thank you for the reply.

------
iandanforth
There's an assumption here that I find fascinating. That it is _possible_ to
speak clearly and directly.

The process of producing speech is the result of the direct or slightly
indirect activity of billions of neurons. That activity, in turn, is the
result of inputs that take into account the strength of trillions of dendritic
connections which encode (in a lossy fashion) the history of a persons
experience.

Speech is compressive and lossy. You do not communicate the full state of your
system or even a small portion thereof when you use speech. You have a limited
vocabulary whose meanings do not map one-to-one in the mind of any other
person who hears you speak. So not only are there multiple limitations on the
output side of the channel, there are limitations on the receiving side as
well.

This is why effective communication is so hard! As the sender you don't have
full introspective access to the contents of your brain, so you can't even
know what the full message is you're trying to send. As the receiver you're
operating on a highly compressed message without a fully shared codec.

So whatever the feeling of "I'm being direct" or "I'm being clear" _is_ , it
is almost certainly itself faulty. We're not built for that and language isn't
either.

~~~
9q9
7

3+4

2nd-smallest double Mersenne prime

Number of continents

~~~
dataduck
What's the point you're trying to make?

~~~
frutiger
The irony is delicious.

------
mlthoughts2018
This is miserable. Communication needs to be informative and actionable first
of all. For example, the opener “I am not impressed by that projection.” Who
cares? There is 1 bit of info on that statement (impressed OR not impressed).
It achieves nothing.

Second to being informative and actionable, communication should be useful (to
you, to them). If being blunt or overly straightforward renders it useless,
for any reason (even just sensitivity of the listener), then _you_ need to
take that into account and consider how it affects the outcome you want.

It reminds me of this Yudkowsky quote from [0]:

> “what you _say_ is another issue, especially when speaking to
> nonrationalists, and then it is well to bear in mind that words don't have
> fixed meanings; the meaning of the sounds that issue from your lips is
> whatever occurs in the mind of the listener. If they're going to
> misinterpret something then you shouldn't say it to them no matter what the
> words mean inside your own head”

This article from Beck is little more than pretense to feel entitled to treat
people rudely and act as if that is pragmatic. Very disappointing.

[0]: [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Pm83rA8MTYYeR4Ci4/i-don-t-
kn...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Pm83rA8MTYYeR4Ci4/i-don-t-know)

------
supernova87a
What's clear and direct about this guy is that he's using the excuse "clear
and direct" to simply be able to say all the negative things he's previously
been afraid of saying.

The problem with that is if you offer no solutions, positive encouragement, or
proposals on what is better, people quickly tire of hearing the negative
honesty part of your mind. And they start to learn that it's because your
speech reflects a negative person underneath.

I think he has another couple of years "experiments" needed on his
personality.

~~~
watwut
Three out of four examples were positive?

> I told an ex-girlfriend that I loved her and I was offering her a long-term
> relationship. I told my daughter who is getting shot with rubber bullets
> that I am terrified and that I am proud of her. I told a project at work
> that I wasn’t impressed by their goals.

> Last night I told someone I could be interested in a variety of
> relationships with them. They told me they weren’t interested in romance but
> they were interested in friendship. We had a nice talk and teed up another
> talk.

~~~
supernova87a
It wasn't clear to me from the writing which were his before/after phases,
which mostly sounded like what I commented on. But I read between the lines
that his "negative-only" traits have probably bled through to his experiment.

------
stagas
The approach has a name, it's called "radical honesty". The idea is this: we
are often surprised as to how things turn up, yet at the same time, we are not
fully engaged with the world around us, we hold back. The inner world is not
expressed fully out in the environment so the environment responds to the
_projection_ of you, instead of the real you. No wonder why things don't turn
up as you'd expect, they favor the projection. What if you'd be completely
honest and direct with everyone and always act as you feel, holding nothing
back. Then the world would respond to that instead, everything would have
direct causality to your actions. You wouldn't look back to think how you
should have acted, since there is only one way to act, truthfully and
honestly, and any outcome would be the result of that and then you'd have
complete responsibility for your actions and the character you have built. It
is probably a spectrum, the far other extreme can be considered psychopathy.
When all of your actions are pre-examined thoroughly, you're never trully out
in the world. In any case, it's a good experiment for everyone to try, you'd
be surprised. Congrats to the OP for figuring it out.

~~~
gls2ro
While I like the idea of representing the inner world as clear as possible I
dont think this is possible in human communication.

Here is why I think this:

\- saying things in a way is different than understanding them

\- communication is happening on all channels: verbal, non-verbal including
context, rhythm, tone, time, moods ... So only being honest verbal does not
assure that the other will understand the same way the non-verbal or the
context

\- I understand that maybe mathematics is a honest way of communication. But
takes a lot of practice (building concepts one from another and all from a
starting point) from everybody to understand from a book the same things. And
this is not usually possible between two people. Maybe can be done between
long term partners

\- I think focusing on the I without putting effort into making sure how the
other understands be a trap of deluding ourselves that we are honest. We are
honest when the others also understood what we said and only after that they
can truly respond to who we are. At least this is my believe.

------
christiansakai
This is something that I struggle balancing back and forth. I used to be
direct, and then less direct, and then direct again, then less direct again.
Moving to different country, or to different communities, and my attempts were
resets because people have no expectations and all things are blank state.

For every attempts to swing either way, there's pros and cons. I am now on my
"direct" phase. I guess that's just the nature of communication, it is all
contextual.

------
woodandsteel
I have a lot of experience training people in interpersonal communication
skills. I have come to the conclusion that good communication is based on a
set of attitudes. You start by assuming that the other person is reasonably
intelligent and well-motivated, and that they will see the point of what you
are trying to say if you just explain it to them in a clear manner.

But is it also possible that they have things on their own side that you need
to hear and understand. And so on the basis of all that you come up with what
you need to say, and also how to listen and ask questions.

All the specific rules, like reflective listening and Rosenberg's Nonviolent
Communication, are just putting these attitudes into practice.

However, it is also the case that sometimes the person on the other side is
not well-motivated, either because they are a bad person or they are in a
situation where in order to get along in life they have to screw you over. In
that case clear direct communication can fail or even be dangerous. So you
have to make a judgement as to whether or not it is smart to go ahead and be
direct.

~~~
7532yahoogmail
>However, it is also the case that sometimes the person on the other side is
not well-motivated

Correct! There are some people fortunately < 5% from what I can tell who are
mal-adaptive and sometimes mal-adaptive and intelligent. That's a different
ball game indeed.

------
nkingsy
I recently got feedback that I speak at too low level and with too much
emotion/passion.

Still digesting it. I think it is a variant of what I’ve heard before, which
is that I leap from A to C assuming everyone understands that A and C both
connect to B.

It’s frustrating because that’s the style I enjoy for receiving information.
When someone makes a jump like that, it intrigues me especially when I don’t
see the connection. It triggers easy questions when needed.

Another one I run into is assumed consensus. I make a statement without saying
that it is a team consensus, and people outside the team assume the opposite,
that I’m going rogue or something.

Then there is dismissive agreement, something I both do and dislike when done
to me. Basically “yeah but that’s not what I want to focus on”.

I’m intrigued by the Amazon style of memo writing and reading in advance of
meetings, as I think a lot of communication issues can be solved by making
clear why we are sitting in a room talking right now, and ensuring everyone
has the same background information.

~~~
BeetleB
> I recently got feedback that I speak at too low level and with too much
> emotion/passion.

How often do you get this feedback? Was it from just the one person? If so,
have you asked others if they perceived you similarly? Of all the people you
asked, how many agreed/disagreed?

Unless there is consensus, don't assume it is true. The _majority_ of times
someone gives you feedback like this, it is about them. They usually have a
need, are expecting you to provide it. Instead, focus on what that need is.
Heck, even if there is consensus in the feedback you get, you should still try
to figure out what their real problem is: Yes, you speak at a low level. OK -
so what? What problem is that causing for them? The trick is to learn to ask
these questions nonconfrontationally (definitely do not respond with "So
what?")

General steps would be to indicate you've heard them, express some concern,
and then ask. Something like:

"It would concern me if my voice level is creating problems for our
communication/work. It would help me if you could give me an example so I
understand better."

(This is not the best phrasing, but is probably adequate). You can take it
from there based on the response. Ask how they would have preferred you said
it. In the end, though, try to find out _why_ it was a problem. Are they
intimidated by you when you speak passionately? Are they mishearing you
because of the low volume?

The other issue is the use of "too" in their statement. How low is too low?
How much is too much? Best to get examples so you get an idea.

BTW, it's not unusual to find out that it really wasn't a problem when you
probe them. People use "too much" even when it isn't.

I once took a communications workshop where the instructor drilled two
messages:

1\. Everything anyone says or does is in service of his/her needs.

2\. Never believe what people say about you.

The first one is your example. They're giving you that feedback because of
some need they have that's not being met. The second one is not a license to
behave however you want, but is tied to the first. People can get frustrated
by something, and are not good at expressing it, and often take it out on
people.

I would get all kinds of negative feedback about me, and it was very
confusing. When I probed others if they felt similarly, I would often get
sharp divides - a lot of people felt there was nothing wrong about my behavior
(or even advocated for it) - others hated it. Only when I got more into
effective communications did I start realizing that most of the people who
were complaining about me merely had different preferences, and it wasn't that
I was loud/stubborn/impatient/dull - it was that they had unspoken
expectations from me that I wasn't meeting. Often having a mere conversation
about the issue would resolve the problems without my having to change my
behavior.

All this is not easy to do, BTW. I'm still poor at it.

------
justjonathan
This brings to mind my favorite affinity on of (small p) political speech.
Political speech is about saying something based on the reaction you want
rather than what is true. When I first heard things framed this way political,
speech struck me as dishonest and manipulative. It certainly can be that, but
with the distance of perspective I see that it can provide listeners with the
truth in a way that they can react in positively. How’s my new haircut?
Honest, clear, direct: pretty bad, among the bottom 5% of haircuts you’ve had.
Political (deceptive, manipulative):Great! Political (honest but motivating
positive action): I don’t think it is as good as your last one.

------
Arete314159
The right to direct communication without punishment is a hallmark of
privilege.

Women in tech -- and I know a lot of them -- talk about how the only
"acceptable" way to call out a guy's Glaring Error without him getting mad at
you is like this:

"Gosh, I don't know, I maybe don't really understand the requirements that
well, but it seems like {huge mistake} isn't right, what do you think? Of
course I could be wrong."

We don't _like_ doing this but we are told we're "not team players" if we dont
do this.

------
dondawest
He’s using the language of self help (“clear and direct communication!”) but
interpreting it in a manner reminiscent of the “truth telling sessions”
enacted by Synanon:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon)

> > Last night I told someone I could be interested in a variety of
> relationships with them. They told me they weren’t interested in romance but
> they were interested in friendship. We had a nice talk and teed up another
> talk.

He considers himself to be a “direct” communicator, when this is an example of
_very indirect_ communication. The guy wants to date and/or be intimate with
someone — telling them “I could be interested in a variety of relationships
with you” is _so much more indirect_ than asking “wanna get dinner?” it’s not
even funny. His barometer of “clear and direct” is totally off in this case.

This guy’s take on “clear and direct communication” is sophomoric and there’s
a reason adults don’t communicate in the most direct manner at all times.
Sometimes you need to give the other person plausible deniability: asking
“wanna see my etchings?” is a cultural shorthand that is just a more
respectful way of asking “wanna sleep together?”, but this guys interpretation
of clear and direct communication doesn’t seem to have room for a question
like that.

Sometimes speaking vaguely rather than directly is a way of respect to your
conversational partner. This guy doesn’t get it

~~~
BeetleB
> telling them “I could be interested in a variety of relationships with you”
> is so much more indirect than asking “wanna get dinner?”

While you may be correct that his statement wasn't direct, I would say your
alternative would be the very definition of "indirect".

Being direct in such situations may not be the best approach, and I suspect
that is what you're trying to get at. However, "wanna get dinner?" when you
want something more than just dinner is almost a textbook definition of
indirect.

~~~
7532yahoogmail
In human relations a kind of Kolmogorov complexity measure in which we
communicate the most information in the least symbols or words --- well
illustrated with your 'wanna get dinner' \--- I think is adjacent to
directness and openness. That is, why was it a guy can't spit it out? I like
you and wanna get dinner with you? Fear, feeling, and self-esteem issues more
likely. Now, it's probably not street smart to have that out with the
potential invitee, however, being open about those feelings with a good friend
in a hear-to-heart so that it enables one to move forward more directly to me
seems like a win.

------
fblp
I want to congratulate and thank the author for experimenting with how he
communicates and sharing what he observed.

------
codegladiator
It's a mistake to think that "speaking" is communication. And it's worse when
one thinks 'but what I am speaking is true'.

------
solidist
Thank you for sharing.

