In my latest blog post, I highlight the value of kindness over intelligence in the workplace. I talk about how being kind—through listening, respecting others, showing empathy, and focusing on solutions—can significantly enhance team dynamics and productivity. While being smart is important, I believe that kindness leaves a lasting impact and creates a more positive and effective work environment.
Listening and focusing on solutions is being smart though. If you’re only looking for people who are ‘respecting you’ and ‘show empathy’ you might not find competent people with whom you’re gonna produce useful things to trade with the rest of society
Wouldn't say You have to choose one over another. Smartness without kindness makes you a dick.
Kindness without some smartness makes you 'fake', or at least 'valueless'.
That is the ideal but the results depend on the work place or the OSS project. I have started out like that twice and was walked over by other people.
Kindness with true reciprocity is very hard to find (I do not mean CoC compliant fake kindness that just keeps the actual power structures in place while everyone is backstabbing.)
Work is hard and stressful. If we're sweet and kind to one-another, we get through it more easily, no matter how smart each of us is individually. Being kind is an investment, and its dividends pay out enormously as your organization grows. Like the article says, it's infectious. I believe that. I believe that if I show kindness, especially to people who are new to the organization, they'll mirror it right back, and try to show it to everyone else, too.
I don't understand why they got down voted because this question has a rather obvious answer. Do you motivate a person to behave a specific way because it's instrumentally good for a higher purpose, or because the behavior itself is inherently valuable? That's a perfectly coherent, it makes a real distinction, and it's a legitimate question in this context.
Good that does not sustain itself is quite sad - you can see the efforts going down the drain. Aligning good and sustainable (utilitarian) is worthwhile imho.
fun experiment: let's try to have the most charitable interpretation of this comment ^
My best is: they are saying it is worth taking a step back and making a prioritized list of our values. If we do this, we may place "being kind" over "being productive"
I think their warning here is about: what happens in a situation where being kind is NOT productive? Will you just drop it?
I think I agree with the broad strokes of this. My rebuttal is: the comment above this was just pointing out, for people who do not value kindness over productivity, that they are not in opposition. That you don't have to pick one or the other. You can have both.
We can get mad and turn away from people who do not share our values/priorities. Or we can show them ways that our value systems do not clash and it can be win win
It sounds like you're saying it's far better to be kind for altruistic reasons. Is that right?
Some persons (me included) suspect that humans rarely if ever act with true altruism; that it's actually a nicely dressed up form of self-serving hedonism.
And so for us, the challenge becomes how to get ourselves to act good / kind despite that. One way is to find ways to intentionally tie kind behavior to our own self-interest.
gp is refering to a morality that is deontologically grounded, not just one based on altruism. Here it is not necessarily for one "reason" or the other, but rather acting the way some ideal person would in a perfect world (famously for Kant within the "kingdom of ends" where every person is an "end to themselves").
It's a rather huge theoretical distinction that at least in the West goes all the way back!
In general, one shouldn't confuse ethics itself with the whatever one might think is the most viable ethical system! It isnt a product to market. Utilitarianism is no less silly the anything else, and has its own ridiculous edge cases and all that.
That's not a very kind interpretation of the parent comment - a bit reductionist, don't you think?
I personally don't believe it's possible to "give out" kindness, compassion, friendship solely from an utilitarian position. It would either be fake, and people feel the difference and the desired effect does not follow, or your utilitarian position is a front, in order to justify being kind to unkind people around you judging you.
Sweetness and kindness are not necessarily the same thing. Just like how “nice” can be a toxic trait.
His list of points is fine. It’s mostly the servant leadership mentality, which I’m all for. But sometimes to be an effective leader you have to make hard decisions. You’ve got to know your personal boundaries and know when to yield and when to hold them, or other less sweet people are going to steamrolling you, or you’re going to get overloaded by taking on too much, etc. And sometimes you have to be direct and blunt and not so sweet to show true kindness. Confrontation is hard and it’s not something most people really want, but I believe it’s sometimes necessary to embody kindness. For yourself, your teammates, the customer, the organization. Because at the end of the day if you are not effective, that’s going to hurt everyone.
It's not about being unkind, it's about not being kind; these are not the same.
Being kind to a person that behaves as described in the grandparent comment could communicate that you find this kind of behavior helpful. Fine if that's really the case; problematic for everyone if not.
Kindness and enabling are also not the same thing.
This entire discussion needs to come to a screeching halt while people get together and hammer out some definitions. It's clear we're all working from different and contradictory assumptions about what these words mean.
I think people are conflating “kind” with a range of other behaviors. You can be kind while addressing poor performance, etc. You address the behavior, you might even have to fire someone, but those are not incompatible with kindness - if you’ve given someone ample opportunity, and clarity, then you’ve been kind. It’s unkind to let someone get to the point of firing without being clear that their job is at risk. It’s not unkind to take action when their performance threatens the organization, team, etc.
I think most people would agree Fred Rogers was kind - but I have to imagine he had to fire people from the show over the course of its run.
Yes. They’re still human and they deserve to be treated with respect. But part of being kind is being direct and honest, and holding people to account. If you ignore it, or let it fester you’re being unkind to other people
There's a lot of kindness in clarity, even when it comes to bad news. Imagine a doctor has to deliver a terminal diagnosis; it would be very unkind to avoid or sugarcoat the news, just as it would be to trivialize the issue by joking "don't bother buying green bananas."
There's a great deal of nuance to how kindness is defined. It's very easy for one set of actions to be either very kind or very unkind, depending on definitions.
Listening, being respectful, and being empathetic may drive one person to bite their tongue and silence feedback that someone is performing poorly out of fear of hurting them or the morale of the team. Another may be driven by the very same things into giving candid feedback.
This article does not do a good job of exploring the difference. It just asserts "Being nice is the new punk".
Yep. You have to be. You can provide feedback to them or their manager if possible but the reality is that the employment status of your incompetent coworker is not under your control.
Well yes but you certainly can’t become a lead if you’re getting mad at people. At least in many situations you can’t. And yes you could quit, but the job market isn’t the best right now. And sometimes the jobs that pay more require dealing with less competent people so sometimes there are tradeoffs.
Yes. Not being kind leads to defensiveness and not owning up to their errors.
I've worked in very competent teams and very incompetent teams. There were two types of incompetent teams. The type that always denied making mistakes, and the kind that owned up to their own incompetence. Being kind leads to the latter.
It still sucked being in an incompetent team, but when they admit their weakness, they get out of your way and defer to you. When they don't admit it, you'll face barriers all the way.
Yes. I will. And I upvoted you because I think it is HN duty to help you out, and not bury you.
If someone is fucking up, they are in the wrong position. People need to work for a living, and shouldn't be under duress constantly. It is up to them and their manager to find a position that is rewarding and engaging for them.
If they don't care, they are also in the wrong position.
It is no reason to not treat them with kindness. You don't have to blow them, but you don't need to be UNkind, as several have said below.
The only people I don't treat with kindness are people who are legitimately trying to hurt me and people I love, or promote hateful ideas with glee. People who are failing at their job need help.
And if they still annoy you, then I think the problem might be in how you view the situation. Compassion helps with anger. Try to think about why you are so angry, and if it really matters or helps to be so angry. Especially if you are not the manager. If you are the manager, consider that maybe the job isn't for you. You shouldn't be pissed at work all day!!
That sounds like a borderline insult, but I'm not familiar with American literature so I can't really feel targeted by it.
If you're a leader with a strategic role, time is your most important and limited resource. You just cannot afford to spend time on something that doesn't further the goals of the business, even if you're a hippie or a communist.
I love reading discussions of people to whom following the social norms comes naturally and they can't fathom the idea that behaving in a way that makes other people feel good is something I need to consciously put effort into.
>I love reading discussions of people to whom following the social norms comes naturally and they can't fathom the idea that behaving in a way that makes other people feel good is something I need to consciously put effort into.
It takes less effort, becomes easier, and in time will come naturally to you as well.
When I’m kind to people, especially in other departments, they don’t mirror it: they’re stressed, they’re pressured by their boss or it’s just not the culture of that department… even after months of cooperation
Exactly! When I look forward to working with people, we get more done and I don't come home burned out and discouraged. Even if the work is hard, at least you are in it together.
You have to be careful, though: there is no shortage of people who will happily take advantage of someone who shows them kindness.
While I believe you should show a baseline level of kindness to people when you first meet them much like you should give people a baseline level of respect, there are actions which can and should lose both.
Another way of putting it might be that there’s very little you can do to will yourself to be smarter, but you don’t have to go far out of your way to be kind.
(Personally I’m not sure “kindness” is necessarily the right word that encompasses the four qualities listed. Resolutive? Seems like that’s something independent.)
And, really, it's self-congratulatory. It says only, "be like me, i'm great". And in refusing to translate "De tó sabe, pero de ná entiende" -- how empathetic is the writer really?
Never judge a man until you've walked two full moons in his moccasins.
bows
Edit: OK well you guys two full moons have definitely not gone by since I've made this comment I'm starting to think y'all ain't as kind as you make yourselves out to be..
I too think that being too x, where x is any adjective, is a bad thing. I much prefer people being just the right amount of y, where y is any adjective.
I see "being kind" as towards others in the context of this discussion.
If I feel I'm doing a disservice to the person by not speaking up, but still stay silent because I don't want to be confrontational or harsh, I don't think I'm being kind to the person. I'm only protecting the relation or myself, as I don't have the tools or a path to convey helpful information while making clear I'm having the person's good in mind.
I see it as a failure in communication (it usually can be blamed on both parties), and clearly not a character quality.
This article readily conflates niceness and kindness. It would be very easy to read this and take away the understanding that critical feedback that leaves a person feeling in any way negative is not kindness.
I wonder if the middle ground is when one needs to be "unkind" in words, they should be "kind" in action. I worked on a team that had been moved to a project, in part because that project was behind schedule, haphazard and under-staffed. In our first months we were often (and to my dismay) unkind in words without kind actions to follow through. All of our critiques were correct. All of them were important and needed to be addressed. All of them were real problems. And often the critiques were blunt for the sake of being clear to management. But being right didn't stop that unkindness from stinging the other teams that were there before us. We were resisted and drew quite a bit of (understandable) animosity from those other teams. When we changed tack (partially in response to realizing we were being unkind, partially because we'd finally built up the knowledge we needed to do so) and started accompanying critique with solutions or at a minimum viable demonstrations of the solution, things were received much better. We still said hard things, we still brought in half bakes thoughts. But because we were being kind in bringing more than criticism to the table, it was much more effective.
I honestly it's just a "people skill" that's on the individual level. I just think it's in the devilery and it takes practice. I'm not really sure structural organizational changes can fix it - though maybe they can help a bit
In my own experience it's possible to tell people anything as long as you're friendly and strike the right tone. The key is to not get worked up or emotional. Even something extreme like telling someone you don't like working with them - there is a friendly way to tell someone that with a smile on your face
Every unkind "truth" can be wrapped in the right packaging. The usual crux is to not get emotional and not get worked up and to lay out the facts, no matter how painful, in a way that shows you're not boiling over
On a team level I'm not sure what you can do. Especially with a group of low EQ nerds :). Maybe if one or two people set the examples then it's easier for others to catch on?
I agree it's a "people skill", but I think phrasing it that way has two road blocks. The first is that the self-help industry of "people skill" books and their "phone tag" translations through the media and general population has turned "people skill" into a word that I think to a lot of people sounds like manipulation or dishonesty. There's a friendly way to tell people anything, the key is getting people to understand that "friendly bad news" isn't manipulative in and of itself. In my opinion, it's being more realistic than any "just telling it like it is" approach can be.
The second is that "people skill" covers a lot of things, where "be kind when communicating" is still broad, but a more actionable instruction. For "low EQ" (and I include myself in that category) people, it's those actionable things that really matter.
just a few people are going to miss the smartest in the room, but everyone is going to miss someone kind
How is the goal of having people miss you related to achieving business goals ? On the contrary if the smartest is able to produce a lot, people are going to miss him
On that topic, I’d rather have people trying to not become offended for little things, seems easier than faking kindness for personal benefits
Maybe, maybe not. We're talking about hypothetical examples here.
As the jerk, you might not think it is your fault, but it is your problem if you are the common thread between other people not wanting to engage with you to meet "business objectives".
Generally, I think it's useful to reflect on how your behaviour impacts the work of yourself and others around you. Even if you want to be as utilitarian as possible, work happens better around people who get on better with each other.
While I think the points the author makes are sage advice, I think the blog post would have been a lot stronger against criticism if they had added a paragraph similar to the following:
"That is not to say you shouldn't come prepared and knowledgeable to meetings you attend. You should provide clear value to each and every meeting you attend from a knowledge perspective. However, the human value of kindness is far more important in the eyes of attendees."
I would say helping others is incredibly punk. Such as responding to chat messages requesting help in some particular coding problem. So many people will direct them to a support queue, but I love taking time to understand their issue and help them out.
What is interesting about that is the an aspect of original punkers was a desire for respect as individuals. The come as you are was very welcoming. The repulsionist look I saw as an attempt to see only inner beauty in humans.
Punk was the reaction of the individual vs. the global machine. The global machine’s surface is nice but the machine is not kind.
I direct my coworkers to the documentation that I wrote and that they clearly never read, despite my providing it to them repeatedly in the past and despite my anticipating their exact questions/issues in it.
Whenever I hear the term insecurity used in a derogatory manner the caller often feels that it mitigates understanding more deeply in this area.
There are personality types that thrive on competition, they get renewed passion and commitment by having others also better themselves, this is not an ego or alpha complex, instead of the mental models they work in.
Or we can just call them insecure and be done with it.
Depends on how you define competitiveness. The one I’m referring to, the truly bad kind, is not just about trying to stand out, it also involves trying to put others down, as that helps their goal. Those also tend to be overly sensitive whilst also being insensitive to others. That, to me, screams insecurity (hence the over the top sensitivity). Also they couldn’t care less about others becoming better, actually they’d prefer if they don’t.
Seems like good common sense. Listen, be respectful, keep an open mind.
To be fair does it not depend on the audience. There's a balance between the audience and an idea you want to push.
Here in YC you can probably go full on with your tech/science knowledge/ideas/theories/whatever and people will judge you purely on your points made, and the people listening are in the same boat.
In another context you may be the smartest person in the room by a long way on a topic and have something constructive to say, but no one else in the room is as competent so you cannot go full on with your YC-like comment and have to balance the knowledge/empathy available of the audience.
I guess in the end it's about ignorance busting and offering some new insights into a thing that other people can appreciate.
>Here in YC you can probably go full on with your tech/science knowledge/ideas/theories/whatever and people will judge you purely on your points made, and the people listening are in the same boat.
I would disagree with this, even here it is important to be kind. Too often I find the comments on a given thread are full of self importance or worse disdain for the "shortcomings" of the topic in question. Whether or not that disdain might be due to a wealth of knowledge and experience, it brings the general experience of being here down, and in my opinion lowers the quality of the site and the person doing the disdaining.
I'm not asking for fawning over every submission like it is a new revelation, but the adage that "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" springs to mind. HN is going to be full of people from differing experiences and walks of life. Tech is too big now for us to all be on the same page, or even within the same general age range. When someone drops a "Show HN" link to some hobby or passion project of theirs, and the comments are full of "experienced" people critiquing the project as if it were supposed to be a google scale web service or even as if it needed to be a viable commercial product – no matter how correct those assessments may be – that's damaging to our shared sense of community.
My own philosophy over time has been to only offer critique if it is also accompanied by my own efforts at providing what solutions I can directly (code, documentation whatever). If it bothers me enough to think I should say something, then it should bother me enough to also put in the effort to be/submit the change I want to see. Anything less is at best a piling on of cheap criticism ("cheap" in this case in the sense of "a dime a dozen"), and at worst unkindness for the sake of showing off knowledge. Absent something to contribute beyond criticism / critique, the goal I set for myself is either to engage with the subject and the creator on the assumption of earnest passion for the project, or if I'm disinterested for whatever reason, to not engage at all.
I definitely don't always succeed in this endeavor, but over the decades I've grown increasingly tired of the airs of cynicism that permeates the "smart" spaces I've been in. Be kind in all audiences, whether peers, betters or lay people and you will usually avoid being pretentious, confidently incorrect or condescending respectively. And those are 3 things I think we could do with less of in most communities.
I can't disagree with your philosophy and think you have a well considered approach to it.
When it comes to social etiquette, empathy, agreeableness, there are definitely a lot of people 'on the scale' around here and that's absolutely fine. There are smart well-balanced people and there's uber-smart people who know more than most about a thing but perhaps lack that social etiquette- and that's fine to me. If they can communicate their point, I don't mind so much their lack of grace on it.
The point isn't that we should be anyone other than ourselves. We can only be ourselves and we are out best version when comfortable with that. It's simply that learning to express ourselves with kindness and understand the importance of it will make us even more effective.
At least being formerly graceless and continuing to develop grace, that has been my experience.
4 day work work, 6 hour days, better pay, the freedom to spend as much time with the people you want, doing the things you want, without fear of financial ruin or bodily injury. Thats what workers want... not for the work place to replace their family. We do not need to be friends, I do not need to be nice to you. This whining comes from people who place work over all else and need work to be something other than it is. A means to an end.
Now, I do not mean passion projects... I mean wage slavery work hell holes... My passion projects and companies are made up of people I trust, have verified their experience. We are nice to each 60% of the time- we understand the other 40% is necessary. We don't take it personally, we brush it off. We are mature professionals, not whiney day care adults.
I’m guessing you work at a startup where you are nice 60% of the time? And I’m also guessing your coworkers actually give a shit about the job vs just trying to game the FAANG compensation algorithm?
Basically, we all have specifics, I focus on RF/Wireless Security projects for government... so you can imagine the sales cycle... sometimes there is overlap and we work together.
In full transparency, we are not formally structured as a coop, the US makes that annoying... We are structured for maximum protection, but operate under a coop operating agreement.
If you're looking for an intro to mindfulness and meditation, the practice of mettā [0] is a truly a great way to start, and frankly, end with as well.
Commonly translated as "loving-kindness", applicable to the post, but even more simply as "friendliness" to yourself and others. It's crazy the feelings that can come when you sit, say, and feel the effect of phrases like "may I/you be happy", "may I/you be at ease". This isn't a game where we try to get points for being nice for an afterlife, but somewhat of a compounding way of looking at life and interactions with others.
There are many quick start posts, but this is a good one [1] to follow along. Rob Burbea has many talks about mettā, and these [2] are a good intro series.
Learning not to take everything personally, and not being easily offended are two valuable life skills. I've come to value intent much more than when I was younger. "Did they ignore me because they're mean, or were they simply too distracted to say hello?"
I struggle with being "kind" when under pressure. I don't mean to be unkind, but it can seem that way. People who don't know me well sometimes get offended by that. People who know me a little better don't get offended, they know I'll be more approachable when the deed is done (whatever the deed may be). It's ok to be a hedgehog sometimes. Not being kind sometimes is ok. Just don't be mean, that's much more important.
Agree with this wholeheartedly. I think where kindness really plays a key role is not passing snap judgements on people and their motivations. It's easy to interpret people's actions or intentions in a negative light, thinking they don't care or are incompetent. I would also like to add that kindness is not just being kind to other people, but to yourself as well. It's easy to beat ourselves up about the mistakes we make, or blaming ourselves for outcomes that sometimes are beyond our control. We can't be perfect.
For the most part, I like to live in a world where the default position is that we're mostly well-intentioned, rising apes rather than fallen angels (RIP, Sir Terry Pratchett). This is clearly not always the case, and it's important to accept that, but it shouldn't stop me from still aspiring to be as kind as possible in my own life.
100%. I'd also add that it doesn't mean you don't have to make tough decisions that some people won't like. But there's a way to do that that leaves those people knowing that your decision-making process was fair and not capricious. That it's in the best interests of the team, project, organization, company.
I was so kind at all YC meetings and in other places. That's how got one of the biggest funding and investor attention. That's how it works, right? Did you know that Steve Jobs was so kind so Apple fired him. Also Elon is kind and all founders just kind. etc. Great content
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 267 ms ] threadDemonstrating that you’re the smartest guy in the room is an ape-like expression of dominance. The IQ is a distant second.
The author never implies that one should be kind to the exclusion of being smart.
Not sure why it makes you fake, there's lots of nice, simple people that are authentic
Kindness with true reciprocity is very hard to find (I do not mean CoC compliant fake kindness that just keeps the actual power structures in place while everyone is backstabbing.)
I'd suggest the solution is coming and it will decentralize culture decisions the same way capitalism decentralized spending decisions.
My best is: they are saying it is worth taking a step back and making a prioritized list of our values. If we do this, we may place "being kind" over "being productive"
I think their warning here is about: what happens in a situation where being kind is NOT productive? Will you just drop it?
I think I agree with the broad strokes of this. My rebuttal is: the comment above this was just pointing out, for people who do not value kindness over productivity, that they are not in opposition. That you don't have to pick one or the other. You can have both.
We can get mad and turn away from people who do not share our values/priorities. Or we can show them ways that our value systems do not clash and it can be win win
Some persons (me included) suspect that humans rarely if ever act with true altruism; that it's actually a nicely dressed up form of self-serving hedonism.
And so for us, the challenge becomes how to get ourselves to act good / kind despite that. One way is to find ways to intentionally tie kind behavior to our own self-interest.
It's a rather huge theoretical distinction that at least in the West goes all the way back!
In general, one shouldn't confuse ethics itself with the whatever one might think is the most viable ethical system! It isnt a product to market. Utilitarianism is no less silly the anything else, and has its own ridiculous edge cases and all that.
It's been fascinating to read up on something about which my thoughts were only half-formed.
I personally don't believe it's possible to "give out" kindness, compassion, friendship solely from an utilitarian position. It would either be fake, and people feel the difference and the desired effect does not follow, or your utilitarian position is a front, in order to justify being kind to unkind people around you judging you.
His list of points is fine. It’s mostly the servant leadership mentality, which I’m all for. But sometimes to be an effective leader you have to make hard decisions. You’ve got to know your personal boundaries and know when to yield and when to hold them, or other less sweet people are going to steamrolling you, or you’re going to get overloaded by taking on too much, etc. And sometimes you have to be direct and blunt and not so sweet to show true kindness. Confrontation is hard and it’s not something most people really want, but I believe it’s sometimes necessary to embody kindness. For yourself, your teammates, the customer, the organization. Because at the end of the day if you are not effective, that’s going to hurt everyone.
Being kind to a person that behaves as described in the grandparent comment could communicate that you find this kind of behavior helpful. Fine if that's really the case; problematic for everyone if not.
This entire discussion needs to come to a screeching halt while people get together and hammer out some definitions. It's clear we're all working from different and contradictory assumptions about what these words mean.
I think most people would agree Fred Rogers was kind - but I have to imagine he had to fire people from the show over the course of its run.
Listening, being respectful, and being empathetic may drive one person to bite their tongue and silence feedback that someone is performing poorly out of fear of hurting them or the morale of the team. Another may be driven by the very same things into giving candid feedback.
This article does not do a good job of exploring the difference. It just asserts "Being nice is the new punk".
Moreover as an IC there is a lot you can do; most importantly you can quit if you feel the team you're in is being mismanaged.
I've worked in very competent teams and very incompetent teams. There were two types of incompetent teams. The type that always denied making mistakes, and the kind that owned up to their own incompetence. Being kind leads to the latter.
It still sucked being in an incompetent team, but when they admit their weakness, they get out of your way and defer to you. When they don't admit it, you'll face barriers all the way.
If someone is fucking up, they are in the wrong position. People need to work for a living, and shouldn't be under duress constantly. It is up to them and their manager to find a position that is rewarding and engaging for them.
If they don't care, they are also in the wrong position.
It is no reason to not treat them with kindness. You don't have to blow them, but you don't need to be UNkind, as several have said below.
The only people I don't treat with kindness are people who are legitimately trying to hurt me and people I love, or promote hateful ideas with glee. People who are failing at their job need help.
And if they still annoy you, then I think the problem might be in how you view the situation. Compassion helps with anger. Try to think about why you are so angry, and if it really matters or helps to be so angry. Especially if you are not the manager. If you are the manager, consider that maybe the job isn't for you. You shouldn't be pissed at work all day!!
A business is not a charity.
(I don’t know you but you sound like every white male teenager who discovers Ayn Rand.)
If you're a leader with a strategic role, time is your most important and limited resource. You just cannot afford to spend time on something that doesn't further the goals of the business, even if you're a hippie or a communist.
It takes less effort, becomes easier, and in time will come naturally to you as well.
When I’m kind to people, especially in other departments, they don’t mirror it: they’re stressed, they’re pressured by their boss or it’s just not the culture of that department… even after months of cooperation
While I believe you should show a baseline level of kindness to people when you first meet them much like you should give people a baseline level of respect, there are actions which can and should lose both.
(Personally I’m not sure “kindness” is necessarily the right word that encompasses the four qualities listed. Resolutive? Seems like that’s something independent.)
All together, it comes across a little smug.
bows
Edit: OK well you guys two full moons have definitely not gone by since I've made this comment I'm starting to think y'all ain't as kind as you make yourselves out to be..
Don't get angry at a man till you've walked a mile in his shoes. By then, you will have had time to calm down. And you will be a mile away. :)
Ie. you could also say that egoism is being kind to yourself etc.
If I feel I'm doing a disservice to the person by not speaking up, but still stay silent because I don't want to be confrontational or harsh, I don't think I'm being kind to the person. I'm only protecting the relation or myself, as I don't have the tools or a path to convey helpful information while making clear I'm having the person's good in mind.
I see it as a failure in communication (it usually can be blamed on both parties), and clearly not a character quality.
Kindness reduces barriers to accepting the honest truth and is thus part of maximizing honesty and realism.
No single article on the internet has irritated me as much as this. Being a 'hacker' does not mean someone gets special privileges to be a scumbag.
As someone who works in a "kind" culture (Taiwan) - there is an infuriating flip side
If everyone is constantly worried about being kind, it becomes very difficult for people to say "unkind" things.
- It's hard for people to give you important critical feedback
- People will not give their half baked thoughts (which are the start of good discussions), and only bring stuff up when it's already a problem
- People have a complete inability to tell you "Hey when you do that thing A and B, I really don't like that"
The end result is that people end up masking a bunch of stuff in an effort to be kind which results in
- People having huge blow ups when things boil over
- Insane amounts of office gossip and people saying shit behind each other's back (bc they can't say it to your face and resolve it)
In my own experience it's possible to tell people anything as long as you're friendly and strike the right tone. The key is to not get worked up or emotional. Even something extreme like telling someone you don't like working with them - there is a friendly way to tell someone that with a smile on your face
Every unkind "truth" can be wrapped in the right packaging. The usual crux is to not get emotional and not get worked up and to lay out the facts, no matter how painful, in a way that shows you're not boiling over
On a team level I'm not sure what you can do. Especially with a group of low EQ nerds :). Maybe if one or two people set the examples then it's easier for others to catch on?
The second is that "people skill" covers a lot of things, where "be kind when communicating" is still broad, but a more actionable instruction. For "low EQ" (and I include myself in that category) people, it's those actionable things that really matter.
On that topic, I’d rather have people trying to not become offended for little things, seems easier than faking kindness for personal benefits
It's hard to achieve business goals if no one wants to work with each other.
As the jerk, you might not think it is your fault, but it is your problem if you are the common thread between other people not wanting to engage with you to meet "business objectives".
Generally, I think it's useful to reflect on how your behaviour impacts the work of yourself and others around you. Even if you want to be as utilitarian as possible, work happens better around people who get on better with each other.
"That is not to say you shouldn't come prepared and knowledgeable to meetings you attend. You should provide clear value to each and every meeting you attend from a knowledge perspective. However, the human value of kindness is far more important in the eyes of attendees."
There's not being a dick, and then there's being a doormat. You don't want to be close to either of those extremes.
I would say helping others is incredibly punk. Such as responding to chat messages requesting help in some particular coding problem. So many people will direct them to a support queue, but I love taking time to understand their issue and help them out.
Punk was the reaction of the individual vs. the global machine. The global machine’s surface is nice but the machine is not kind.
Which, by the way, screams insecurity.
There are personality types that thrive on competition, they get renewed passion and commitment by having others also better themselves, this is not an ego or alpha complex, instead of the mental models they work in.
Or we can just call them insecure and be done with it.
And yeah, nobody likes those guys.
To be fair does it not depend on the audience. There's a balance between the audience and an idea you want to push.
Here in YC you can probably go full on with your tech/science knowledge/ideas/theories/whatever and people will judge you purely on your points made, and the people listening are in the same boat.
In another context you may be the smartest person in the room by a long way on a topic and have something constructive to say, but no one else in the room is as competent so you cannot go full on with your YC-like comment and have to balance the knowledge/empathy available of the audience.
I guess in the end it's about ignorance busting and offering some new insights into a thing that other people can appreciate.
I would disagree with this, even here it is important to be kind. Too often I find the comments on a given thread are full of self importance or worse disdain for the "shortcomings" of the topic in question. Whether or not that disdain might be due to a wealth of knowledge and experience, it brings the general experience of being here down, and in my opinion lowers the quality of the site and the person doing the disdaining.
I'm not asking for fawning over every submission like it is a new revelation, but the adage that "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" springs to mind. HN is going to be full of people from differing experiences and walks of life. Tech is too big now for us to all be on the same page, or even within the same general age range. When someone drops a "Show HN" link to some hobby or passion project of theirs, and the comments are full of "experienced" people critiquing the project as if it were supposed to be a google scale web service or even as if it needed to be a viable commercial product – no matter how correct those assessments may be – that's damaging to our shared sense of community.
My own philosophy over time has been to only offer critique if it is also accompanied by my own efforts at providing what solutions I can directly (code, documentation whatever). If it bothers me enough to think I should say something, then it should bother me enough to also put in the effort to be/submit the change I want to see. Anything less is at best a piling on of cheap criticism ("cheap" in this case in the sense of "a dime a dozen"), and at worst unkindness for the sake of showing off knowledge. Absent something to contribute beyond criticism / critique, the goal I set for myself is either to engage with the subject and the creator on the assumption of earnest passion for the project, or if I'm disinterested for whatever reason, to not engage at all.
I definitely don't always succeed in this endeavor, but over the decades I've grown increasingly tired of the airs of cynicism that permeates the "smart" spaces I've been in. Be kind in all audiences, whether peers, betters or lay people and you will usually avoid being pretentious, confidently incorrect or condescending respectively. And those are 3 things I think we could do with less of in most communities.
When it comes to social etiquette, empathy, agreeableness, there are definitely a lot of people 'on the scale' around here and that's absolutely fine. There are smart well-balanced people and there's uber-smart people who know more than most about a thing but perhaps lack that social etiquette- and that's fine to me. If they can communicate their point, I don't mind so much their lack of grace on it.
At least being formerly graceless and continuing to develop grace, that has been my experience.
Now, I do not mean passion projects... I mean wage slavery work hell holes... My passion projects and companies are made up of people I trust, have verified their experience. We are nice to each 60% of the time- we understand the other 40% is necessary. We don't take it personally, we brush it off. We are mature professionals, not whiney day care adults.
Commonly translated as "loving-kindness", applicable to the post, but even more simply as "friendliness" to yourself and others. It's crazy the feelings that can come when you sit, say, and feel the effect of phrases like "may I/you be happy", "may I/you be at ease". This isn't a game where we try to get points for being nice for an afterlife, but somewhat of a compounding way of looking at life and interactions with others.
There are many quick start posts, but this is a good one [1] to follow along. Rob Burbea has many talks about mettā, and these [2] are a good intro series.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitr%C4%AB
[1] https://www.mettainstitute.org/mettameditation.html
[2] https://dharmaseed.org/retreats/1084/
I struggle with being "kind" when under pressure. I don't mean to be unkind, but it can seem that way. People who don't know me well sometimes get offended by that. People who know me a little better don't get offended, they know I'll be more approachable when the deed is done (whatever the deed may be). It's ok to be a hedgehog sometimes. Not being kind sometimes is ok. Just don't be mean, that's much more important.
For the most part, I like to live in a world where the default position is that we're mostly well-intentioned, rising apes rather than fallen angels (RIP, Sir Terry Pratchett). This is clearly not always the case, and it's important to accept that, but it shouldn't stop me from still aspiring to be as kind as possible in my own life.
(Oh shit)