This metaphor immediately rang true to me but the article is definitely worth the whole read. There are a bunch of linked articles too which also have some very sound advice. I really like a tactic in hard situations which was saying "What I learned..." followed by "What I'll do is...". It makes someone feel heard and that you'll follow through with some action to make someone feel like you have akin in the game with their concern. I really liked a lot of other somewhat generic but still oft-ignored advice like lean in a bit, make eye-contact, and the title which is just that if someone is making you feel off, instead of just reacting like a thermometer and also potentially aggravating the weirdness, do things that help regulate and relieve those human tendencies based on feelings of fear etc. Excellent read.
You'd better follow through and do the thing you said though. If you start saying things when people are riled up and then don't do it... They're going to notice.
I agree, when you say you're going to do something then obviously you should also do what you say and say what you do. But my guess is even just saying I learned you don't feel heard about xyz and I will try to pay more attention to you your concerns when you're talking about xyz shouldn't be hard to commit to if you care at all about whomever you're talking to. Hopefully they are a bit disarmed and realize you're trying. I don't think this is a silver bullet, and I think the article makes that point at least a few times. The point is to try and stabilize and correct the vibe if it isn't really justified. If you are going into a warzone then you probably need different advice, hopefully this isn't the norm though and you aren't a hostage negotiator or something.
There is also a class of people that will always provide reason or task that is the issue. The list of problems will never end and they will never be satisfied.
Some people would rather complain then reflect on their inner workings.
While the article has some good points about the importance of emotional intelligence and awareness, I'm skeptical about the idea that we can simply "choose" to be thermostats. Humans are complex and emotional creatures, and our emotions can be triggered by a multitude of factors beyond our control. The article's suggestions, while well-intentioned, feel like a form of emotional labor that can be exhausting and unsustainable. Can we really expect people to be constantly "on" and aware of their emotional impact on others?
> I'm skeptical about the idea that we can simply "choose" to be thermostats.
Well, it’s like most things, it takes practice and time to be good at it if natural talent isn’t there.
Sure, things out of our control can trigger emotions, but one incredible ability of humans is to rationalize those emotions and act in more constructive ways than to immediate react back.
It can be quite liberating and fun to understand and process these things, much like understanding code and data structures in order to recombine them into things you want to achieve.
> It can be quite liberating and fun to understand and process these things, much like understanding code and data structures in order to recombine them into things you want to achieve.
This thread actually made me realize it's much easier to express this in code vs words since it deals with state and logic:
This is the my process of rationalization and resolution. The flow is the same for all scenarios, but I only coded logic for one scenario I described in another comment:
Let's say someone close to you is unusually quiet and short with you. You irrationally think they are mad at you or ignoring you because they are being short. That makes you feel mad because you didn't do anything to them! Upon receiving the feeling you start rationalizing the response and realize that you have no evidence that they are mad at you and there are many times you don't want to talk. You then simply ask them if anything's wrong and they say they have a headache! Whew, it wasn't about you at all, it was just a headache! You then empathize with them and want to help so you ask if you can get them some advil and know not to be loud or talk too much until they start feeling better (acting normally)
As a topical extension, there are entire therapeutic modalities (like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) that assist people in doing this kind of in-the-moment emotional reflection and recontextualization. If this sort of thing is difficult, seeking out a therapist that specializes in these modalities can be helpful (and seeking the support of a therapist does not require a person to be ‘mentally ill’).
> Can we really expect people to be constantly "on" and aware of their emotional impact on others?
Of course we can and should. Emotional regulation is a sign of maturity and being an adult. Children should be practicing emotional control.
Can you be mentally and emotionally wrung out and grace given for emotional outbursts? Sometimes. I also have punched a wall when I stubbed my toe. We should expect me to not lash out at the door and it can still be understandable why I did. I have also sat stewing in a mood and it affects those around me. I can fix my attitude or I can remove myself for a spell.
totally understand where you're coming from, but I think there's a difference between being aware of your emotions and trying to suppress or fake them. The article isn't suggesting that we should be constantly 'on' and pretending to be someone we're not. Rather, it's about developing self-awareness and learning to manage our emotions in a way that's authentic and sustainable.
Recognizing the stimuli that trigger our emotions is a great first step, but it's not just about rationalizing it away. It's about understanding what's driving our emotions and learning to respond in a way that's healthy and constructive. This takes practice, patience tho
I didn't say suppress or fake your emotions, I said to rationalize them.
If they are irrational you prevent the emotional knee-jerk response in the first place.
If they are rational then you know the root cause to work through so you can fix the issue.
For those rational emotional responses, recognizing the stimuli can still be helpful. It's still stressing, but you know the exact problem and can work to resolve it, the opposite of suppressing it.
you're advocating for a proactive approach to emotions, where we acknowledge and rationalize them to prevent irrational responses, while still allowing ourselves to feel and work through rational emotions. This approach seems to strike a balance between emotional awareness and emotional regulation.
I think this is a great way to approach emotions, and it's refreshing to see a nuanced discussion about emotional intelligence.
Thank you, these are things I developed to manage my emotions and it's the first time to put them in words, I tried my best to serialize it.
The cool thing is, if you do this enough, you can always recognize the stimuli.
There's one exception, hormonal imbalance (bipolar, seasonal depression, etc.), because there is no stimuli.
But once you realize there is no external stimuli, you know it's hormonal. It is then classified as a irrational reaction. The difference of an internal irrational reaction is it takes more investigation and sometimes a few emotional knee-jerk reactions slip through before the hormonal cause is detected.
Also the irrational brain can misattribute the imbalance and attribute it to an external stimuli, but you can immediately correct it with evaluation and communication if the misattributed stimuli is a person. (ask for clarification, if it's not what you assumed, apologize after snapping and solve the conflict immediately).
My wife and I can tell when she's nearing her time of the month because it effects both of us. The hormone change unbalances us a week or so before sometimes causing fatigue or snippiness. It's nice to recognize it as to not contribute it the fatigue to burnout or take the snapping to heart.
We just overcompensate in communication and directly ask what the other person meant to not take something the wrong way once we recognize we're in this temporary state.
I don't see how recognizing an emotion as irrational gives you certainty of calming it. Generally speaking, emotions don't arise from a conveniently rational level of consciousness. If they did they would be referred to with terms ofther than "emotion".
> I don't see how recognizing an emotion as irrational gives you certainty of calming it
When you realize it's an irrational reaction you automatically reprocess the stimuli and get a rational reaction.
Let's say someone close to you is unusually quiet and short with you. You irrationally think they are mad at you or ignoring you because they are being short. That makes you feel mad because you didn't do anything to them! Upon receiving the feeling you start rationalizing the response and realize that you have no evidence that they are mad at you and there are many times you don't want to talk. You then simply ask them if anything's wrong and they say they have a headache! Whew, it wasn't about you at all, it was just a headache! You then empathize with them and want to help so you ask if you can get them some advil and know not to be loud or talk too much until they start feeling better (acting normally)
> Generally speaking, emotions don't arise from a conveniently rational level of consciousness.
What makes you say that? Emotions commonly arise from rational thought. There are rational reasons to be mad/happy/sad/etc.
But what I'm suggesting though is the opposite, to make it a habit upon receiving every powerful emotional to verify it with rational thought.
I don’t believe in this theory and my experience with therapy suggests it just makes little sense. Emotional outbursts (like being startled/angered/in pain) may be temporarily irrational your own logic-wise, but your regular emotional background absolutely reflects what you actually believe is happening and the way you think. So unless you’re doing emotional logging and are really managing your beliefs, deep settings, etc afterwards, this is simply impossible. I mean you can learn therapy, but it’s not a knowledge you’re born with as a regular guy and it’s a whole “learn C++ in 21 days” thing.
There is a level of being still not broken enough, but then emotions aren’t a problem in the first place. You usually end up trying to manage them when you’re already lost and what people do is simple suppressing, thinking that’s how “adults” do.
To be clear, I provide no answer to this thread, only a comment.
> Emotional outbursts (like being startled/angered/in pain) may be temporarily irrational your own logic-wise, but your regular emotional background absolutely reflects what you actually believe is happening and the way you think.
Yes your emotional background reflects what you believe is happening, but you can correct your belief if you analyze and rationalize the emotional response when you feel it, which then updates your emotional background.
> So unless you’re doing emotional logging and are really managing your beliefs, deep settings, etc afterwards, this is simply impossible.
That's exactly what I'm suggesting you do.
Upon receiving every major emotional reaction you make it a habit to analyze it immediately afterwards.
I find it very hard to impossible to do immediately afterwards. I can detect it, which is somewhat obvious, and write down the situation, but finding the source of it immediately I find unrealistic.
Either we talk about different things here, or I lack some Sherlock Holmes level skills that you have.
Anyway, if something bothers me that hard, making it unbother me is an improvement to work in a stupid situation, not self-normalization.
For example, recently I got frustrated when an inexperienced relative wrongly measured airport hand baggage (pure geometric cluelessness) and insisted airport will do it that way too. I find this frustration absolutely normal and don’t really want to get rid of it, cause it’s immediately actionable and the response is correct-ish.
Otoh, I successfully defeated my non-actionable fear of being late, but it took me a couple of advanced techniques I didn’t even know existed, some movie-level talk to your childhood stuff.
So there’s so much to it that I just don’t see how to “just do afterwards” (at least it sounds like that).
Again, feels we are talking different things here, not sure. And sorry for the stream of consciousness.
> Otoh, I successfully defeated my non-actionable fear of being late, but it took me a couple of advanced techniques I didn’t even know existed, some movie-level talk to your childhood stuff.
The downward arrow (cbt) with elements of self-hypnosis.
You basically log-trace your mind at emotional points, including pulling up automatic thoughts (somewhat difficult, they tend to escape). Datetime, situation, emotion, thoughts, levels. Then intersect it all through time, because different situations disturb different sets of facets of your problem, but only one facet is primary. This discovers intermediate beliefs and coping strategies, makes them explicit. And then you logically realize your core belief. It may happen quickly or slowly (weeks), depends on how conscious you are about it and how often it happens.
In my case it was: unable to do anything 4-5 hours before an appointment or even a friends meeting. Set up a few timers, got ready step by step, doing mostly nothing in time buffers. Check for clean clothes, etc. Afraid of forgetting time and being late. Coping: long preparation, timing processes, checking time in the car. Intermediate belief: if I prepare I’ll be on time. Core belief: being late is atrocious and intolerable.
Realizing is only half the job. To destroy a core belief you have to remember how [irrationally] it formed, that’s where hypnosis kicks in. I couldn’t sleep/relax in a session, but took homework. Basically before you go to sleep you ask yourself “when it was”, as if there was some entity inside you who could answer. Few minutes later it just flashed in pre-sleep in every detail. It’s akin to thinking “I will wake up at 6:30” and doing so, a similar process and feeling.
I was few hours late from school when my grandma waited for me and couldn‘t get to work (strict schedule). She was afraid of giving me the keys. I was tired that everyone plays after classes and I cannot, so decided to just not care. She was very angry and terrified, hit me and went away like I was an enemy.
Next week after therapy, for the first time in 25 years I was being intentionally late to a doctor, said hi, sorry for being late. She said it’s fine, smiled and asked what I came with.
I realize I have serious issues here (like many others probably). But I believe either there’s no easy way to “just reflect afterwards”, or these issues aren’t really that hard to make this process explicit. I, for one, don’t understand how you get an emotion if a logical counter is readily available in your mind. It won’t happen for me in the first place then. Maybe on the contrary, I’m… healthier?
> Can we really expect people to be constantly "on" and aware of their emotional impact on others?
We can expect that of ourselves. It's a skill that can be learned and practiced.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
-- Viktor Frankl
I've found that a meditation practice allows me to find that space more easily in real life situations. At the very least, you'll know when you're being "amygdala hijacked" (per the article).
I have never heard that quote before. Gonna tuck that away for future use because it serves as a great reminder that we are not powerless to our emotional response. Its the difference between a reaction and a reflex.
I think you can consciously learn a skill by practicing it enough. You can choose to project positivity and like most things in life, fake it until you make it.
>feel like a form of emotional labor that can be exhausting and unsustainable
There definitely some wisdom in knowing when to draw back for your own sanity.
On one hand, I completely agree that deliberate practice and intentional positivity can be powerful tools for growth and skill-building. The 'fake it till you make it' approach can be especially helpful for building confidence and momentum.
I think the key is finding that balance between pushing ourselves to grow and being kind to ourselves when we need to rest. It's okay to take a step back, recharge, and prioritize our own well-being. In fact, that's often where the real growth happens - in the moments of quiet reflection and self-care.
I don’t know why and I might be wrong, but (parts of) some of your comments read exactly like an LLM response, while other parts feel like you typing additional stuff “around” the response.
I read this article as intended for an HR or management audience whose job is to always be the professional in the room since your voice is interpreted as the company's voice.
"I'm skeptical about the idea that we can simply "choose" to be thermostats."
I agree. Try being thermostat to someone who is on meth or someone who is drunk.There are many reasons someone is raising he temperature in a room.
Not to mention the fact that there might be a good reason some one is angry, like low wages, discrimination, or wage theft. And you coming in being a thermostat is just prolonging everyone's nightmare.
I will tell you, when I saw people doing that BS to me I knew right away they were trying to manipulate me. We all have the right to be angry and you do not have the right to use neurological tricks to manipulate people because you are uncomfortable with "weird vibes".
Yes! And sometimes it benefits you both to _lean in to that_! Perhaps you feel the same way! So "choosing to be a thermostat" does not need to be a choice you make in every situation or no situation. It's very dependent on context. Sometimes I WANT people to match my energy, it's affirming or comforting. Sometimes I will benefit from either being the thermostat or the... thermostatted...
I absolutely disagree that this is "manipulation tactics". I can see how the sausage is made and still appreciate how they're approaching the situation. It indicates to me that this person is interested in exploring and working on their own emotional intelligence, and are using things they've learned to help problem-solve.
Regarding "weird vibe in room" - my take on the article is not that "being thermostat" is NOT a means to "remove vibe I don't like". "Weird vibe" is indicative that something is wrong and there could be a problem there worth challenging or solving. It doesn't have to come from a place of "toxic positivity" or self-centered "I only want good vibes" thinking. "Weird vibe" can still be there and I think part of growing emotional intelligence is learning you can only do so much and sometimes allowing "weird vibe" is healthy -- and learning to not let it affect you if it's not something you rationally are affected by (ie. someone else's mood due personal reasons).
> Try being thermostat to someone who is on meth or someone who is drunk.There are many reasons someone is raising he temperature in a room.
As a volunteer first aider who's done "night time economy" shifts alongside paramedics - this is absolutely something that is done and is quite helpful. There is a certain degree of patience and customer-service-voice that generally many intoxicated people are receptive to. Doing what you can to de-escalate and calm them down has better (generally, quicker) outcomes for their treatment. If you can calmly convince someone who has hoofed a dangerous amount of cocaine along with their 10 shots of vodka that night and has presented to you aggressive and frightened due to chest pains to sit down in the back of the ambulance, you don't have to deal with them aggressively flailing about the place whilst you hook them up to an ECG. Matching their energy and yelling at them is probably the last thing you wanna do there (even though they ARE fuckin' annoying... never let them know that, if you want to go home ~on time~ only an hour after your shift ends ;))
The effort someone chooses to put in to manage and help the emotions of others.
It ranges from listening to someone talk about their day to driving over at night to a friend who's upset, to organizing an entire intervention.
It is often considered to fall more heavily on women. Notably, as work that often doesn't fully get redistributed when women enter the workforce, much like housekeeping often doesn't.
Some emotions are tiring - anger, frustration, depression, anguish, to name a few.
I can't think of any that involve supporting a colleague at work. I could certainly get tired of shenanigans at work, but that would be from frustration et al, but support?
Like the other comment that's responded, I just don't see the link between the description for the term and the situations in either the blog or a workplace.
I've certainly not noticed a difference in the level of emotional support given in the workplace by women either. Whose emotions are they managing? Men's?
> Hochschild (1983) suggested that jobs requiring more emotional labor are performed primarily by women. These jobs typically involve creating feelings of well-being or affirmation in others – responsibilities usually assigned to women.
Hochschild, A. (1983). 1983 The managed heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Think of it like the difference between idly leafing through a book, versus studying a textbook as if your life depended on it - one is an inconsequential pastime, the other is an exhausting task made all the more stressful by its importance.
Emotional labor is dealing with other people’s emotions, not in the first sense described in the paragraph above, but in the second - paying close attention, thinking critically, interpreting what you see and hear and feel in an effort to help someone in some way. It’s shouldering their emotional burden, to some degree, to support them, as best you can - same as physical labor might be.
I read the blog, and the situations given - which are common in most workplaces - wouldn't lead me to compare them to a life or death situation in any way.
I also can't imagine thinking that concentrating on someone's speech while in conversation with them as taxing, beyond the normal difficulties that attempting concentration can bring.
Perhaps I'm missing something. The only time I could think of such things as laborious would be when faced with intransigence or my own frustration, and that's really about not getting my own way.
Isn't it normal to try to have good, productive conversations, pay attention to others, and give support where needed?
> You’re being a thermometer. When they’re subtly giving off weird vibes—they’re frowning, answering your questions with fewer words than normal, etc.—you’ve noticed that their temperature is different.
And if you are doing this as a coping mechanism from having an unstable parent and you are like me (also maybe a bit of adhd): you internalize the person's chilled behavior and often assume it is your fault.
In case you need to hear it: You are not responsible for other's emotions (though you are responsible for your actions)
I know this and I have learned more than enough about it to internalize it, but it just doesn't work. I can't find a way to stop the automatic jumping to conclusion and self blame.
It takes hours to get over it and that's exhausting. I am trying for years to find a way out, but it just hasn't internalized yet
I have the same problem and I made a lot of progress this year and the last. A few things that help in no particular order:
- Write things down. Over time you start noticing patterns that help you diagnose and fix the issue. I particularly love the post-mortem when returning from a house party, and how batshit itsane it reads 5 days later. I also have a play-by-play diary of me thinking I was misreading a person's intentions and agonising over every interaction. We've been together for a few years. It's fun to rewind the tape and laugh at your own irrationality.
- Treat your overreaction to social cues as irrational, and deal with it accordingly. Every Spring, my body tells me that grass pollen will kill me (hay fever), but I just ignore that signal as irrational. I now handle my hasty conclusions the same way.
- Indifference is the default. Most people won't be excited about you, but they're a very long way from disliking you. A lack of enthusiasm does not mean anything about you.
- Talk to others about it. When I started talking about my insecurities to close friends, they told me just how wrong I was, with lots of backing evidence. They were genuinely surprised that I thought any of those things. It's a bit like how a friend of mine was super self-conscious about something on his face, and a year in, I had never even noticed it.
> Treat your overreaction to social cues as irrational, and deal with it accordingly.
This is so smart.
Even broader, take your overreactions to most things as irrational. I am using this recently to rewire myself on all sorts of things and it's quite transformative.
Journaling helps a lot with that because you catch yourself writing about the same emotions in the same contexts. The predictability of it makes it easier to process rationally.
I have given up on people that can not process criticism. Its a vital aspect of working together, or even just living together. If everything I say is put on a scale, I simply dont interact with such people anymore. If you can't take criticism without the blame-game, you're not worth my time and effort.
I had to Google as well. Quantenfeldtheorie is what came up for me, because Google insists it needs to show me german pages first... But I think what was actually ment is "Quoted For Truth"?
I don't think there is much you can do. Everyone has different trigger points and a different past. Personally I often feel misunderstood or not taken seriously. So from my point of view just be genuine, maybe paraphrase what you heard (just a tiny bit) and the usual "start with something positive first". The latter can be hard for me too though because then I might think "no they can't have such a positive view of me" - it's complicated and I even have a hard time explaining it.
So no real tips, sorry. "we" just have to learn how to live with it ourselves
If this is a consistent person in your life or a partner. The communication has to improve. Improving communication maybe impossible but I think it’s the only way.
What one has to figure out is where this pattern developed (most likely childhood). Once I can internalize why my emotions develop I experience a distance from the current situation. The distance removes the emotional reaction leaving me with an intellectual understanding.
> You are not responsible for other's emotions (though you are responsible for your actions)
I know you do not mean it this way, but I really dislike this saying. It is not even true, actually.
The most frequent use of this is people who are being, well, jerks, trying to argue that when people feel bad after being put down, insulted or treated with passive aggression, it is their own fault.
If people feel bad after your actions, yes in many circumstances you are responsible.
If you are acting like a jerk, that is an action, and I expressly put that you are responsible for your actions.
You punch someone and they are angry: your action is related. You arrive at work and say hi to your boss as they barely acknowledge you and are in a mood: you should not default to "what did I do wrong and how do I fix it oh god I am gonna get fired" - while it may also still be appropriate to try to cheer them up.
I think different senses of responsibility are under discussion
The parent comment I believe was saying that we do not orchestrate other people's emotions and you are saying that we do impact other people's emotions and both can be true
What I learned is that that last email didn’t do a good job explaining the changes, so what I plan to do is start a forum for folks to post their questions and our CEO will answer them every Tuesday.
I know it’s only an example, but hahahahahahahaha, ha. Start with something realistic if you do that. The worst thing you can do is to teach them you’re a bag of funny promises.
At a former company we once had an away day workshop where they allowed anonymous questions for the company director which would show up on a screen for everyone (it was a ~40-50 person company).
We were a management consultancy and trialling what they thought was cool new tech to use with other companies. ( This was a while ago, smart phones were newer and apps were still "cool" )
Well, they very quickly learned to never do that again. Even in a small company there were a lot of tensions unresolved between the lowest and highest rungs. It was a fairly formal hierarchical structure where the common worker didn't tend to ever interact with the big boss.
"Where's the pay rise we were promised last year?" was perhaps the mildest of the embarrassment, and it quickly devolved from there.
Ooh, some lifetimes ago at a company we had a CEO that did a company wide presentation where he kept mentioning that the shareholders are the most important thing of the entire company and we all should do everything to please the shareholders. The instant hate towards him could almost be touched and tasted.
"I don't think you understand what the product is. The product isn't the platform, and the product isn't your algorithm, either. And it's not even the software. Do you know what Pied Piper's product is, Richard?"
"Is... Is it me?"
"Oh God! No! No. How could it possibly be you? You got fired. Pied Piper's product is its stock."
If this resonated with you, consider reading Nonviolent Communication by Rosenberg, the ultimate guide in thermostat-speak. You focus on stating unmet needs. Good stuff.
I haven't read NVC, but "stating unmet needs" is a strong aspect of "No more Mr. Nice Guy" and "Models". Being up front about who you are and what you want is a lot more likely to work than being nice and hoping your needs are met in the way that you expect. It's also a way to cut your losses early if the other person is not interested in providing whatever you're after.
What makes you believe that nonviolent communication is manipulation? It focuses on ways to hear unmet needs in others and to express unmet needs in a way that can be heard by others.
Yes, read the book and my nephew teaches a form of it. It balmes the victim for the most part. It reminds of of"you are acting hysterical" and gaslighting.
The first link, that is a big stretch and misses half the response. They almost capture it and then flub to spread wrong information.
They got this far:
"I notice that when your partner talks to other men, you express feeling hurt and ask her not to. It sounds like you feel hurt and maybe even betrayed when she has those conversations. I hear that respect is really important to you, and you want to feel valued in the relationship."
What they totally missed: Suggesting alternative strategies that meet both parties' needs without harm.
"Can we explore ways for both of you to feel respected, while also honoring her autonomy and connections with others?"
This is NOT emotionally abusive to the woman or lower-powered individual in the exchange. This is acknowledging the emotions of the abuser and still coming back to honoring the woman's unmet needs. These techniques have been used between waring tribes with family that has been murdered. The book has a particularly harrowing passage about NVC saving a near-rape-and-murder victim.
The second link is marginally better but I disagree on nearly every point. Instead of writing a counter post for each, but to say that overall I think they missed the message of the book. They seem set on the word choice and power dynamics. Word choice is mostly unrelated: it is conveying unmet needs and acknowledging the unmet needs of others. Simple as that. And then to go on about body language as a point against NVC is strange as the NVC is about spoken communication. They are digging for reasons to talk against the book. I assume there is some agenda.
>They are digging for reasons to talk against the book. I assume there is some agenda.
You have an agenda as well.
The problem is that you need BOTH parties to engage in NVC for it to work. and what happens is the person who does not want to use NVC is blamed. This is denying the person their agency.
I feel that you desire agency on both parties. I believe that agency already exists. Like: "Let's play a game"; "I don't want to"; .... "ok?"
NVC, yes, is a cooperative framework. The agency is to accept that, propose something different, or withdraw from communication. This has nothing to do with denying agency. It is tooling for communicating needs. I don't find the criticism to make sense.
Perhaps you can help me understand by proposing an alternative or let me know where I am not understanding
That is such an artificial way of talking and it is making me not want to talk to you. You are actively cutting of communicating with me if you keep talking to me this way.
Now you will blame me, and not yourself.
I have lived all my life, cooperated with people of all kinds. Never used NVC.
>That is such an artificial way of talking and it is making me not want to talk to you. You are actively cutting of communicating with me if you keep talking to me this way
cool, communication for the win and I can modulate to hopefully better understand you. how would you like to be acknowledged or how would you like me to check understanding? NVC is a framework to do that and you don't want artificial sounding exchanges. Cool. Is this still artificial? I don't really know. I am attempting to communicate with you and that takes checking understanding. I haven't blamed you for anything. And, yeah, as a throw back to the previous comment, I have an agenda: I am trying to understand and evaluate criticisms against NVC and I am not convinced by what those posts said. I want to know these because if I am giving bad advice by recommending NVC I want to stop.
You may have cooperated with people of all kinds, but in this exchange, I feel I am working extra hard to understand your position and finding cooperation difficult.
> Perhaps you can help me understand by proposing an alternative or let me know where I am not understanding
>> I have lived all my life, cooperated with people of all kinds. Never used NVC.
I think you are attempting help me understand your position, but I am having to stretch. You've cooperated and self-report to never have used NVC. OK, and what am I supposed to take away from that? I never said that NVC is the only way cooperation can be achieved. The claim is that by stating unmet needs and communicating those in a way that both parties can acknowledge and understand, that conflicts can be resolved. Conflicts can be resolved lots of ways, including walking away. Cooperation can happen even when you don't intend it. NVC is but a tool and one that I am still not sure what you object too.
Are you against the suggested words and sentence structure proposed by NVC? If so, again, I think that is missing the point.
in my quest to better understand your position, I once again believe you missed the point. I think you are suggesting that NVC is artificial and smooths over chaos that needs to be experienced else things go worse later. NVC is expressly about not repressing your feelings and letting them be known via your unmet needs. Again, if I got this wrong, you are invited to correct me.
Mostly I'm just bored between meetings and not enough time to push anything productive forward and having a back and forth is pleasantly distracting. Might not reply again since work is nearly beckoning.
Definitely gonna borrow this language, it’s a really important aspect of social life. I’ve always been very, very thermometer-like, with a strong tendency to mirror which allows me to connect with people 1 on 1 easy, but on the flip side I absorb vibes I don’t want. My coping mechanism is to avoid bad vibes, confrontational situations, etc. Even being in a social group for long can affect me negatively if the people there have values I don’t agree with, even if I have no desire to change them. Any tips for how to manage that better?
Therapy helps. Building a stronger sense of self and with it, more internal boundaries between your thoughts and beliefs and those of others.
I'm this way as well, and it's like your emotions are totally porous, absorbing everything from those around you. It's a blessing and a curse. Generally stems from a childhood where you had to be very in tune with the emotions of your caregiver in order to stay safe.
Thank you. This lines up with my experiences, which I never knew were connected. Prefer 1:1, alcoholic mum growing up who had good days and bad days. I could tell which it would be from the "vibe" when I walked through the door after school before seeing anyone.
Oof. Being in tune with your caregiver hits hard. My mom was a manic, bi-polar, depressive person also suffering from schizophrenia. I learned to read some situations like you mention but toss in some randomness so it gets real dicey.
Wow I’ve always felt much more comfortable in 1:1 situations than group situations, but I never framed it the way you have here. Your comment really resonates, thank you!
There's an unspoken premise here and I'm going to question it. Avoiding tension, conflict, hard words and other things of the sort is not always the right choice. Sometimes letting conflicts play out gets you the best outcome with the least amount of suffering. Just like ripping off a band-aid.
There's plenty of times when wining a conflict is far better than avoiding it. And I see articles like this, books like Nonviolent Communication, ideas like "emotional intelligence" (check it out, no such thing exists) - as misguided as it always puts you in the defensive/de-escalating role even when you might be better served by letting things play out or even attacking, baiting your opponent into attacking, etc.
Violence is sometimes the right answer. When to apply it and when to avoid it is the hard question. But we didn't evolve an amygdala for nothing, and especially not for a "coach for leaders" (what the hell is that?) to tell us to always ignore it as an unquestioned premise for a promotional blog post. Because leaders should not always shy away from conflict, that much should be pretty crystal clear.
Yes, agree. This is all a continuation of the Positivity Cult. Anger is a method of communication that is greater than words, and it puts the explanation point at the end of some of the most important statements.
Awww shit that's gonna be hard for my inner Minnesotan. All that deep listening stuff needs to be done at a 135-165 degree angle, so you're both vaguely looking in the same-ish direction but can make occasional side glance eye contact
I loved the article, but something about it felt off.
The content (good) didn't match what I would expect from the style. The writing style reminde me of a mix off business advice and aggrandizing self-help. My expectation with that is sweeping generalizations, just-so annecdotes, and not saying very much, whilst not backing up what you are saying with sound reasoning either.
Somehow this article had that writing style, without those problems. It made it a rather dissonant experience, because I was looking for the catch, what I was being sold, the anecdote that is almost certainly a lie, and the overly strong conclusion. But that never came, and instead I find myself believing.
And yet, the dissonance remains. I have a little worry that the swindle was just better this time. It's a weird feeling, and not one I had before.
If the author reads this, I'd like to suggest a change in font. At certain scales, the website's font puts emphasis on the cross-bar in the letter 'e', and the letter 'g'. It's incredibly distracting, and only seems to happen at certain scales, as I could 'fix' it by increasing/decreasing the font size.
I'd message this directly, but she doesn't provide a method of contact on the site (reasonable).
Find a warm sunny spot or cozy nook and go there. If the location gets uncomfortable, leave. Not terrible advice, all considered. Of course you can't always do that in say, a work setting.
I just hate this kind of stuff. Good for you if you can create a consulting business out of stating the obvious I suppose. It is a drain on the economy however.
What is obvious is wildly different among people. For instance, it was obvious to me that the article was sharing some ideas freely, and those ideas are ones which are not obvious to everyone in the workplace.
“It’s obvious” is a rhetoric which puts the person who’s not getting it on defense. Usually it’s pretty counterproductive too.
> Good for you if you can create a consulting business out of stating the obvious I suppose.
In my experience, tech problems are a lot easier to solve than people problems, and a lot of things that don't go well in a project turn out to be people problems. E.g. here are a few issues I encountered in my current project at work in the last month: "their framework makes assumptions that don't apply to our code, so we reimplemented the metrics instead of trying to integrate their version" or "the data was labelled wrongly, so we had to work around that", or "this coding convention is slowing us down". Once I tried digging down, it turns out they were all people problems in disguise, and they could all be solved by "stating the obvious". Do you never encounter issues on team / across teams, where in the end it turns out a lot of issues are just people not talking to each other or misunderstanding each other? If things are too hairy, I can definitely see the value in an external consultant helping disentangle these sort of problems.
In my experience, these dont help to solve people problems. They are motivational feel good advice. In practice, they will exhaust you and dont work in the long term.
And what they actually make is to create situation in which your needs and things you want to achieve are less and less met. Or just make you look unauthentic to others - they will cease to believe your projected emotions.
It is not just difficult to apply. If you actually try to apply it and do, it setups you for fail. Because it is feel good instead of real and omits real world constraints.
Take this article - sometimes, fairly often, the "bad vibes" are a correct observation of the other persons attitude, opinions and intentions. Sometimes people are in fact hostile or cold, whether for personal, professional, fair or unfair reasons.
This part of the advice, if you apply it, is making you helpless and powerless. And conversely, it over time make you come across as manipulative person, because that is what you do majority of the time.
> where in the end it turns out a lot of issues are just people not talking to each other or misunderstanding each other?
What makes a huge difference is how you frame your interactions. If you extrinsic your interactions you're all-ways going to come away with a lack of agency, stress and/or frustration. if you intrinsic your interactions, you're going to be more in control, accountable, and over-all indifferent to other people.
For example well at work, I'm being compensated to participate in the organization to work towards its goals, wants, needs and/or desires. Those have nothing to do with me, nor do i really care about it. I will engage with people at work, colleagues and managers, how-ever if later they don't volunteer engage back - such as being cordial, I don't re-engage because I consider it to be intrusive.
Now let say you have co-workers who have a glaring communication problem. It it pretty obviously that you can do anything about it. So you engage their manager of lack of communication, and lack of professionalism. If their manager doesn't want to rectify the problem then you communicate it with your manager but at the same time be professional about it that you do not have the capacity to deliver on the deliverables within your current roles. This opens the door to opening a dialog to reviewing your remuneration or compensation package that includes the new responsibilities.
They are usually obvious, except for psychopaths and people struggling with autism. The latter is rather prominent in tech, so we see more of these issues then outside of tech.
I am going to be downvoted to hell for this, but... After reading halfway through the article, I had to check the gender of the author. Because, I feel, this is a rather female POV. A lot of what she says feels touchy-feely to me and doesnt resonate with me at all. Maybe because I am way more inerested in the topic of the meeting then the personal feelings and emotions of the participants. To the point where I might noticed them, but I they mostly dont concern me at all.
I too noticed pretty quickly that this must be female POV.
You can generally tell even just by the word choices ("spidey senses" American women seem to love that phrase for some reason, "super <adjective>", "awry", "weird vibes", ...)
Another instant give-away was "now we've got a compounding situation" - quite a feminine phrasing. Not judging, I mean it sounds almost cute even.
Finally, her idea of "facing each other squarely": a total no-no for men (way too much potenial energy, like two massive electron beams opposing each other), but OK for women.
Your comment makes me question my masculinity. I would say the desire to communicate and the feelings expressed were feminine. Noee of the phrases you mentioned did I see as clues to gender.
To be clear I didn't say men never use any of these words individually (except for "spidey senses" I suppose).
Just that their frequent and combined usage in this particular article made me almost hear her voice in my head, including the female cadence and intonation...
It's a reference to a popular property of The Walt Disney Company, wherein a bite from a radioactive spider confers upon the titular character a supernatural ability to sense impending danger.
Back in the days of slatestarcodex, the comment policy [1] was you can comment if your post is at least two of these three things: true, necessary, or kind.
This post is all three: what they're describing is true (these dynamics in meetings do exist, very often), it is kind (in the sense they're giving you a skill to help both yourself and others), and I'll give it necessary in the sense it's used in the original definition (if you want to get ahead in an organization with a nontrivial amount of internal politics - which is most places - you need to have at least some of this skill).
And yet, something about this post gives me "weird vibes".
Basically, with a bit of sarcasm you could sum it up as "DON'T BE AUTISTIC", and if you are then at least get therapy until you can act normal.
When the author says "We [humans] are wired to spidey sense this [vibes] stuff", it turns out some humans are above and some below the mean in this skill distribution. [2]
And sometimes, in a meeting to decide about how you're going to set up your database sharding, it helps the business' bottom line if you pay more attention to the database specialist than the soft-eye-contact specialist.
(Don't you want to hire people who are good at both? Yes, but unless you're really, really lucky, you're going to hit Berkson's paradox [3]. And then if you want your databases to run smoothly, you're going to have to compromise.)
I support the goals of the article and I understand that social interaction doesn't come natural to all people, but if someone would lean in an nod to me like described in the second part I would freak out because that feels like sociopathic behavior.
When I read the article, I assumed that it was written by a guy first - when I saved it to my favorites I noticed that Lara is a woman.
I do work most of my time in my home office, yet I do spend also some time in virtual meetings. The things Lara describes are even more important if you are not present in person, from my point of view. Harder to sense some of those feelings and emotions if you are not in the same room, but possible.
Wow, I read your comment, and the response, then read it again, and I still thought you were intending to be offensive that the author was so bad they couldn't possibly collaborate with people.
Somehow I missed the simpler idea of "Hah, in 2024 I have no face to face with colleagues in anymore!"
Generally speaking terrible advice for anyone in such a situation in a professional group setting.
If you can sense that someone is tense or "off vibe" in a group meeting, you should be able to reasonably determine why. If it's not immediately evident and they are not alluding to it in the meeting - then you should table the discussion until you are able to chat 1:1 with the person.
Not downplaying any of the strategies for being chipper and staying positive and being a good vibe... which seems obvious... but to push it back on the "bad viber" and dice roll on whether you'll be charismatic enough to do it without causing even more bad/awkward vibes, I think is unnecessarily risky.
I've been in many meetings where someone seemed "off" but after conferring with others more familiar with the situation found it it's quite usual and not a sign of anything wrong. Had someone intervened there and tried to "discover" the case of the bad vibes, it would have amounted to "why are you like this" which is not the kind of thermometer input required.
Likewise if someone is being openly confrontational in the meeting because they feel strongly about something, the right course is for someone else to step up and discuss it without any ambiguity or levity - ruling out irrelevant emotions not related to the discussion - if the stakes were high enough to merit losing face in a meeting, they should generally be high enough to discuss and resolve.
My experience has been, in many board meetings and conference rooms with C-levels, that the norm for these discussions is someone "off vibe" and it's rarely koombayah when there is something at stake being discussed. Bringing unnecessary levity to a serious and often uncomfortable meeting is taken as a bit of an insult to the topic or the opinions being tabled. You can read accounts of an Jeff Besoz or Steve Jobs executive meeting and glare into this first hand.
This metaphor immediately rang true to me but the article is definitely worth the whole read. There are a bunch of linked articles too which also have some very sound advice. I really like a tactic in hard situations which was saying "What I learned..." followed by "What I'll do is...". It makes someone feel heard and that you'll follow through with some action to make someone feel like you have akin in the game with their concern. I really liked a lot of other somewhat generic but still oft-ignored advice like lean in a bit, make eye-contact, and the title which is just that if someone is making you feel off, instead of just reacting like a thermometer and also potentially aggravating the weirdness, do things that help regulate and relieve those human tendencies based on feelings of fear etc. Excellent read.
You'd better follow through and do the thing you said though. If you start saying things when people are riled up and then don't do it... They're going to notice.
I agree, when you say you're going to do something then obviously you should also do what you say and say what you do. But my guess is even just saying I learned you don't feel heard about xyz and I will try to pay more attention to you your concerns when you're talking about xyz shouldn't be hard to commit to if you care at all about whomever you're talking to. Hopefully they are a bit disarmed and realize you're trying. I don't think this is a silver bullet, and I think the article makes that point at least a few times. The point is to try and stabilize and correct the vibe if it isn't really justified. If you are going into a warzone then you probably need different advice, hopefully this isn't the norm though and you aren't a hostage negotiator or something.
There is also a class of people that will always provide reason or task that is the issue. The list of problems will never end and they will never be satisfied.
Some people would rather complain then reflect on their inner workings.
While the article has some good points about the importance of emotional intelligence and awareness, I'm skeptical about the idea that we can simply "choose" to be thermostats. Humans are complex and emotional creatures, and our emotions can be triggered by a multitude of factors beyond our control. The article's suggestions, while well-intentioned, feel like a form of emotional labor that can be exhausting and unsustainable. Can we really expect people to be constantly "on" and aware of their emotional impact on others?
> I'm skeptical about the idea that we can simply "choose" to be thermostats.
Well, it’s like most things, it takes practice and time to be good at it if natural talent isn’t there.
Sure, things out of our control can trigger emotions, but one incredible ability of humans is to rationalize those emotions and act in more constructive ways than to immediate react back.
It can be quite liberating and fun to understand and process these things, much like understanding code and data structures in order to recombine them into things you want to achieve.
> It can be quite liberating and fun to understand and process these things, much like understanding code and data structures in order to recombine them into things you want to achieve.
This thread actually made me realize it's much easier to express this in code vs words since it deals with state and logic:
https://gist.github.com/TheUltDev/fc8386e42205504c55d1cf2127...
This is the my process of rationalization and resolution. The flow is the same for all scenarios, but I only coded logic for one scenario I described in another comment:
Let's say someone close to you is unusually quiet and short with you. You irrationally think they are mad at you or ignoring you because they are being short. That makes you feel mad because you didn't do anything to them! Upon receiving the feeling you start rationalizing the response and realize that you have no evidence that they are mad at you and there are many times you don't want to talk. You then simply ask them if anything's wrong and they say they have a headache! Whew, it wasn't about you at all, it was just a headache! You then empathize with them and want to help so you ask if you can get them some advil and know not to be loud or talk too much until they start feeling better (acting normally)
As a topical extension, there are entire therapeutic modalities (like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) that assist people in doing this kind of in-the-moment emotional reflection and recontextualization. If this sort of thing is difficult, seeking out a therapist that specializes in these modalities can be helpful (and seeking the support of a therapist does not require a person to be ‘mentally ill’).
What's the best book on CBT technique that you would recommend?
Completely agree with you. I think (like you) it is about VERY deliberate action. My phrase: a conscious turn in the other direction.
The more I practice changing or revamping my reactions/approaches to situations, the more those things improve.
Not everyone will agree but IMO - the skeptic is simply not that willing to try. That's ok. But it's the reality.
> Can we really expect people to be constantly "on" and aware of their emotional impact on others?
Of course we can and should. Emotional regulation is a sign of maturity and being an adult. Children should be practicing emotional control.
Can you be mentally and emotionally wrung out and grace given for emotional outbursts? Sometimes. I also have punched a wall when I stubbed my toe. We should expect me to not lash out at the door and it can still be understandable why I did. I have also sat stewing in a mood and it affects those around me. I can fix my attitude or I can remove myself for a spell.
It's less emotional labor and less exhausting the more you are aware of your emotions.
You can recognize the stimuli and rationalize it before becoming upset.
The more you do it, the easier it becomes and the less stressed you become.
totally understand where you're coming from, but I think there's a difference between being aware of your emotions and trying to suppress or fake them. The article isn't suggesting that we should be constantly 'on' and pretending to be someone we're not. Rather, it's about developing self-awareness and learning to manage our emotions in a way that's authentic and sustainable.
Recognizing the stimuli that trigger our emotions is a great first step, but it's not just about rationalizing it away. It's about understanding what's driving our emotions and learning to respond in a way that's healthy and constructive. This takes practice, patience tho
I didn't say suppress or fake your emotions, I said to rationalize them.
If they are irrational you prevent the emotional knee-jerk response in the first place.
If they are rational then you know the root cause to work through so you can fix the issue.
For those rational emotional responses, recognizing the stimuli can still be helpful. It's still stressing, but you know the exact problem and can work to resolve it, the opposite of suppressing it.
you're advocating for a proactive approach to emotions, where we acknowledge and rationalize them to prevent irrational responses, while still allowing ourselves to feel and work through rational emotions. This approach seems to strike a balance between emotional awareness and emotional regulation.
I think this is a great way to approach emotions, and it's refreshing to see a nuanced discussion about emotional intelligence.
Thank you, these are things I developed to manage my emotions and it's the first time to put them in words, I tried my best to serialize it.
The cool thing is, if you do this enough, you can always recognize the stimuli.
There's one exception, hormonal imbalance (bipolar, seasonal depression, etc.), because there is no stimuli.
But once you realize there is no external stimuli, you know it's hormonal. It is then classified as a irrational reaction. The difference of an internal irrational reaction is it takes more investigation and sometimes a few emotional knee-jerk reactions slip through before the hormonal cause is detected.
Also the irrational brain can misattribute the imbalance and attribute it to an external stimuli, but you can immediately correct it with evaluation and communication if the misattributed stimuli is a person. (ask for clarification, if it's not what you assumed, apologize after snapping and solve the conflict immediately).
My wife and I can tell when she's nearing her time of the month because it effects both of us. The hormone change unbalances us a week or so before sometimes causing fatigue or snippiness. It's nice to recognize it as to not contribute it the fatigue to burnout or take the snapping to heart.
We just overcompensate in communication and directly ask what the other person meant to not take something the wrong way once we recognize we're in this temporary state.
I don't see how recognizing an emotion as irrational gives you certainty of calming it. Generally speaking, emotions don't arise from a conveniently rational level of consciousness. If they did they would be referred to with terms ofther than "emotion".
> I don't see how recognizing an emotion as irrational gives you certainty of calming it
When you realize it's an irrational reaction you automatically reprocess the stimuli and get a rational reaction.
Let's say someone close to you is unusually quiet and short with you. You irrationally think they are mad at you or ignoring you because they are being short. That makes you feel mad because you didn't do anything to them! Upon receiving the feeling you start rationalizing the response and realize that you have no evidence that they are mad at you and there are many times you don't want to talk. You then simply ask them if anything's wrong and they say they have a headache! Whew, it wasn't about you at all, it was just a headache! You then empathize with them and want to help so you ask if you can get them some advil and know not to be loud or talk too much until they start feeling better (acting normally)
> Generally speaking, emotions don't arise from a conveniently rational level of consciousness.
What makes you say that? Emotions commonly arise from rational thought. There are rational reasons to be mad/happy/sad/etc.
But what I'm suggesting though is the opposite, to make it a habit upon receiving every powerful emotional to verify it with rational thought.
I don’t believe in this theory and my experience with therapy suggests it just makes little sense. Emotional outbursts (like being startled/angered/in pain) may be temporarily irrational your own logic-wise, but your regular emotional background absolutely reflects what you actually believe is happening and the way you think. So unless you’re doing emotional logging and are really managing your beliefs, deep settings, etc afterwards, this is simply impossible. I mean you can learn therapy, but it’s not a knowledge you’re born with as a regular guy and it’s a whole “learn C++ in 21 days” thing.
There is a level of being still not broken enough, but then emotions aren’t a problem in the first place. You usually end up trying to manage them when you’re already lost and what people do is simple suppressing, thinking that’s how “adults” do.
To be clear, I provide no answer to this thread, only a comment.
> Emotional outbursts (like being startled/angered/in pain) may be temporarily irrational your own logic-wise, but your regular emotional background absolutely reflects what you actually believe is happening and the way you think.
Yes your emotional background reflects what you believe is happening, but you can correct your belief if you analyze and rationalize the emotional response when you feel it, which then updates your emotional background.
> So unless you’re doing emotional logging and are really managing your beliefs, deep settings, etc afterwards, this is simply impossible.
That's exactly what I'm suggesting you do.
Upon receiving every major emotional reaction you make it a habit to analyze it immediately afterwards.
I find it very hard to impossible to do immediately afterwards. I can detect it, which is somewhat obvious, and write down the situation, but finding the source of it immediately I find unrealistic.
Either we talk about different things here, or I lack some Sherlock Holmes level skills that you have.
Anyway, if something bothers me that hard, making it unbother me is an improvement to work in a stupid situation, not self-normalization.
For example, recently I got frustrated when an inexperienced relative wrongly measured airport hand baggage (pure geometric cluelessness) and insisted airport will do it that way too. I find this frustration absolutely normal and don’t really want to get rid of it, cause it’s immediately actionable and the response is correct-ish.
Otoh, I successfully defeated my non-actionable fear of being late, but it took me a couple of advanced techniques I didn’t even know existed, some movie-level talk to your childhood stuff.
So there’s so much to it that I just don’t see how to “just do afterwards” (at least it sounds like that).
Again, feels we are talking different things here, not sure. And sorry for the stream of consciousness.
I coded my thought process of a specific example if it helps clarify what I'm talking about:
https://gist.github.com/TheUltDev/fc8386e42205504c55d1cf2127...
(as this is a state of mind and logic thing, a program of state and logic is a better way to describe it vs words)
> Otoh, I successfully defeated my non-actionable fear of being late, but it took me a couple of advanced techniques I didn’t even know existed, some movie-level talk to your childhood stuff.
Can you elaborate on these techniques?
The downward arrow (cbt) with elements of self-hypnosis.
You basically log-trace your mind at emotional points, including pulling up automatic thoughts (somewhat difficult, they tend to escape). Datetime, situation, emotion, thoughts, levels. Then intersect it all through time, because different situations disturb different sets of facets of your problem, but only one facet is primary. This discovers intermediate beliefs and coping strategies, makes them explicit. And then you logically realize your core belief. It may happen quickly or slowly (weeks), depends on how conscious you are about it and how often it happens.
In my case it was: unable to do anything 4-5 hours before an appointment or even a friends meeting. Set up a few timers, got ready step by step, doing mostly nothing in time buffers. Check for clean clothes, etc. Afraid of forgetting time and being late. Coping: long preparation, timing processes, checking time in the car. Intermediate belief: if I prepare I’ll be on time. Core belief: being late is atrocious and intolerable.
Realizing is only half the job. To destroy a core belief you have to remember how [irrationally] it formed, that’s where hypnosis kicks in. I couldn’t sleep/relax in a session, but took homework. Basically before you go to sleep you ask yourself “when it was”, as if there was some entity inside you who could answer. Few minutes later it just flashed in pre-sleep in every detail. It’s akin to thinking “I will wake up at 6:30” and doing so, a similar process and feeling.
I was few hours late from school when my grandma waited for me and couldn‘t get to work (strict schedule). She was afraid of giving me the keys. I was tired that everyone plays after classes and I cannot, so decided to just not care. She was very angry and terrified, hit me and went away like I was an enemy.
Next week after therapy, for the first time in 25 years I was being intentionally late to a doctor, said hi, sorry for being late. She said it’s fine, smiled and asked what I came with.
I realize I have serious issues here (like many others probably). But I believe either there’s no easy way to “just reflect afterwards”, or these issues aren’t really that hard to make this process explicit. I, for one, don’t understand how you get an emotion if a logical counter is readily available in your mind. It won’t happen for me in the first place then. Maybe on the contrary, I’m… healthier?
> Can we really expect people to be constantly "on" and aware of their emotional impact on others?
We can expect that of ourselves. It's a skill that can be learned and practiced.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” -- Viktor Frankl
I've found that a meditation practice allows me to find that space more easily in real life situations. At the very least, you'll know when you're being "amygdala hijacked" (per the article).
I have never heard that quote before. Gonna tuck that away for future use because it serves as a great reminder that we are not powerless to our emotional response. Its the difference between a reaction and a reflex.
I think you can consciously learn a skill by practicing it enough. You can choose to project positivity and like most things in life, fake it until you make it.
>feel like a form of emotional labor that can be exhausting and unsustainable
There definitely some wisdom in knowing when to draw back for your own sanity.
On one hand, I completely agree that deliberate practice and intentional positivity can be powerful tools for growth and skill-building. The 'fake it till you make it' approach can be especially helpful for building confidence and momentum.
I think the key is finding that balance between pushing ourselves to grow and being kind to ourselves when we need to rest. It's okay to take a step back, recharge, and prioritize our own well-being. In fact, that's often where the real growth happens - in the moments of quiet reflection and self-care.
I don’t know why and I might be wrong, but (parts of) some of your comments read exactly like an LLM response, while other parts feel like you typing additional stuff “around” the response.
I got the same vibes, fwiw.
[dead]
I read this article as intended for an HR or management audience whose job is to always be the professional in the room since your voice is interpreted as the company's voice.
"I'm skeptical about the idea that we can simply "choose" to be thermostats."
I agree. Try being thermostat to someone who is on meth or someone who is drunk.There are many reasons someone is raising he temperature in a room.
Not to mention the fact that there might be a good reason some one is angry, like low wages, discrimination, or wage theft. And you coming in being a thermostat is just prolonging everyone's nightmare.
I will tell you, when I saw people doing that BS to me I knew right away they were trying to manipulate me. We all have the right to be angry and you do not have the right to use neurological tricks to manipulate people because you are uncomfortable with "weird vibes".
> there might be a good reason some one is angry
Yes! And sometimes it benefits you both to _lean in to that_! Perhaps you feel the same way! So "choosing to be a thermostat" does not need to be a choice you make in every situation or no situation. It's very dependent on context. Sometimes I WANT people to match my energy, it's affirming or comforting. Sometimes I will benefit from either being the thermostat or the... thermostatted...
I absolutely disagree that this is "manipulation tactics". I can see how the sausage is made and still appreciate how they're approaching the situation. It indicates to me that this person is interested in exploring and working on their own emotional intelligence, and are using things they've learned to help problem-solve.
Regarding "weird vibe in room" - my take on the article is not that "being thermostat" is NOT a means to "remove vibe I don't like". "Weird vibe" is indicative that something is wrong and there could be a problem there worth challenging or solving. It doesn't have to come from a place of "toxic positivity" or self-centered "I only want good vibes" thinking. "Weird vibe" can still be there and I think part of growing emotional intelligence is learning you can only do so much and sometimes allowing "weird vibe" is healthy -- and learning to not let it affect you if it's not something you rationally are affected by (ie. someone else's mood due personal reasons).
> Try being thermostat to someone who is on meth or someone who is drunk.There are many reasons someone is raising he temperature in a room.
As a volunteer first aider who's done "night time economy" shifts alongside paramedics - this is absolutely something that is done and is quite helpful. There is a certain degree of patience and customer-service-voice that generally many intoxicated people are receptive to. Doing what you can to de-escalate and calm them down has better (generally, quicker) outcomes for their treatment. If you can calmly convince someone who has hoofed a dangerous amount of cocaine along with their 10 shots of vodka that night and has presented to you aggressive and frightened due to chest pains to sit down in the back of the ambulance, you don't have to deal with them aggressively flailing about the place whilst you hook them up to an ECG. Matching their energy and yelling at them is probably the last thing you wanna do there (even though they ARE fuckin' annoying... never let them know that, if you want to go home ~on time~ only an hour after your shift ends ;))
What is emotional labour?
The effort someone chooses to put in to manage and help the emotions of others.
It ranges from listening to someone talk about their day to driving over at night to a friend who's upset, to organizing an entire intervention.
It is often considered to fall more heavily on women. Notably, as work that often doesn't fully get redistributed when women enter the workforce, much like housekeeping often doesn't.
Some emotions are tiring - anger, frustration, depression, anguish, to name a few.
I can't think of any that involve supporting a colleague at work. I could certainly get tired of shenanigans at work, but that would be from frustration et al, but support?
Like the other comment that's responded, I just don't see the link between the description for the term and the situations in either the blog or a workplace.
I've certainly not noticed a difference in the level of emotional support given in the workplace by women either. Whose emotions are they managing? Men's?
> It is often considered to fall more heavily on women.
Citation needed.
Here you go: https://www.simplypsychology.org/emotional-labor.html
> Hochschild (1983) suggested that jobs requiring more emotional labor are performed primarily by women. These jobs typically involve creating feelings of well-being or affirmation in others – responsibilities usually assigned to women.
Hochschild, A. (1983). 1983 The managed heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Think of it like the difference between idly leafing through a book, versus studying a textbook as if your life depended on it - one is an inconsequential pastime, the other is an exhausting task made all the more stressful by its importance.
Emotional labor is dealing with other people’s emotions, not in the first sense described in the paragraph above, but in the second - paying close attention, thinking critically, interpreting what you see and hear and feel in an effort to help someone in some way. It’s shouldering their emotional burden, to some degree, to support them, as best you can - same as physical labor might be.
I read the blog, and the situations given - which are common in most workplaces - wouldn't lead me to compare them to a life or death situation in any way.
I also can't imagine thinking that concentrating on someone's speech while in conversation with them as taxing, beyond the normal difficulties that attempting concentration can bring.
Perhaps I'm missing something. The only time I could think of such things as laborious would be when faced with intransigence or my own frustration, and that's really about not getting my own way.
Isn't it normal to try to have good, productive conversations, pay attention to others, and give support where needed?
> You’re being a thermometer. When they’re subtly giving off weird vibes—they’re frowning, answering your questions with fewer words than normal, etc.—you’ve noticed that their temperature is different.
And if you are doing this as a coping mechanism from having an unstable parent and you are like me (also maybe a bit of adhd): you internalize the person's chilled behavior and often assume it is your fault.
In case you need to hear it: You are not responsible for other's emotions (though you are responsible for your actions)
I know this and I have learned more than enough about it to internalize it, but it just doesn't work. I can't find a way to stop the automatic jumping to conclusion and self blame.
It takes hours to get over it and that's exhausting. I am trying for years to find a way out, but it just hasn't internalized yet
I have the same problem and I made a lot of progress this year and the last. A few things that help in no particular order:
- Write things down. Over time you start noticing patterns that help you diagnose and fix the issue. I particularly love the post-mortem when returning from a house party, and how batshit itsane it reads 5 days later. I also have a play-by-play diary of me thinking I was misreading a person's intentions and agonising over every interaction. We've been together for a few years. It's fun to rewind the tape and laugh at your own irrationality.
- Treat your overreaction to social cues as irrational, and deal with it accordingly. Every Spring, my body tells me that grass pollen will kill me (hay fever), but I just ignore that signal as irrational. I now handle my hasty conclusions the same way.
- Indifference is the default. Most people won't be excited about you, but they're a very long way from disliking you. A lack of enthusiasm does not mean anything about you.
- Talk to others about it. When I started talking about my insecurities to close friends, they told me just how wrong I was, with lots of backing evidence. They were genuinely surprised that I thought any of those things. It's a bit like how a friend of mine was super self-conscious about something on his face, and a year in, I had never even noticed it.
> Treat your overreaction to social cues as irrational, and deal with it accordingly.
This is so smart.
Even broader, take your overreactions to most things as irrational. I am using this recently to rewire myself on all sorts of things and it's quite transformative.
Journaling helps a lot with that because you catch yourself writing about the same emotions in the same contexts. The predictability of it makes it easier to process rationally.
Any tips for the person on the other side?
I often mention something without implying blame (or even assuming blame), but it’s still processed that way.
I’m trying to be conscious of this though.
I have given up on people that can not process criticism. Its a vital aspect of working together, or even just living together. If everything I say is put on a scale, I simply dont interact with such people anymore. If you can't take criticism without the blame-game, you're not worth my time and effort.
> If you can't take criticism without the blame-game, you're not worth my time and effort.
QFT
Quantum Fourier Transform?
I had to Google as well. Quantenfeldtheorie is what came up for me, because Google insists it needs to show me german pages first... But I think what was actually ment is "Quoted For Truth"?
quoted for truth
Hard to say exactly what you're dealing with, but you could take a look at Nonviolent Communication.
I don't think there is much you can do. Everyone has different trigger points and a different past. Personally I often feel misunderstood or not taken seriously. So from my point of view just be genuine, maybe paraphrase what you heard (just a tiny bit) and the usual "start with something positive first". The latter can be hard for me too though because then I might think "no they can't have such a positive view of me" - it's complicated and I even have a hard time explaining it.
So no real tips, sorry. "we" just have to learn how to live with it ourselves
If this is a consistent person in your life or a partner. The communication has to improve. Improving communication maybe impossible but I think it’s the only way.
What one has to figure out is where this pattern developed (most likely childhood). Once I can internalize why my emotions develop I experience a distance from the current situation. The distance removes the emotional reaction leaving me with an intellectual understanding.
> You are not responsible for other's emotions (though you are responsible for your actions)
I know you do not mean it this way, but I really dislike this saying. It is not even true, actually.
The most frequent use of this is people who are being, well, jerks, trying to argue that when people feel bad after being put down, insulted or treated with passive aggression, it is their own fault.
If people feel bad after your actions, yes in many circumstances you are responsible.
If you are acting like a jerk, that is an action, and I expressly put that you are responsible for your actions.
You punch someone and they are angry: your action is related. You arrive at work and say hi to your boss as they barely acknowledge you and are in a mood: you should not default to "what did I do wrong and how do I fix it oh god I am gonna get fired" - while it may also still be appropriate to try to cheer them up.
I think different senses of responsibility are under discussion
The parent comment I believe was saying that we do not orchestrate other people's emotions and you are saying that we do impact other people's emotions and both can be true
The whole article this discussion is under is all about intentionally orchestrating other peoples emotions.
So much of today's self-help (and a lot of therapy styles) seems to be focused on selfish, self-centered behavior.
A pithy little saying I learned when just starting out in my career:
"What you say, and what you do, says nothing about me, and everything about you."
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is so hard to combat at times - even if medication helps.
What I learned is that that last email didn’t do a good job explaining the changes, so what I plan to do is start a forum for folks to post their questions and our CEO will answer them every Tuesday.
I know it’s only an example, but hahahahahahahaha, ha. Start with something realistic if you do that. The worst thing you can do is to teach them you’re a bag of funny promises.
At a former company we once had an away day workshop where they allowed anonymous questions for the company director which would show up on a screen for everyone (it was a ~40-50 person company).
We were a management consultancy and trialling what they thought was cool new tech to use with other companies. ( This was a while ago, smart phones were newer and apps were still "cool" )
Well, they very quickly learned to never do that again. Even in a small company there were a lot of tensions unresolved between the lowest and highest rungs. It was a fairly formal hierarchical structure where the common worker didn't tend to ever interact with the big boss.
"Where's the pay rise we were promised last year?" was perhaps the mildest of the embarrassment, and it quickly devolved from there.
>Where's the pay rise we were promised last year
Sounds like an extremely valid complain if such promiss was made last year.
Uncomfortable truths are no less a truth when spoken.
Ooh, some lifetimes ago at a company we had a CEO that did a company wide presentation where he kept mentioning that the shareholders are the most important thing of the entire company and we all should do everything to please the shareholders. The instant hate towards him could almost be touched and tasted.
It is both inspiring and depressing that intelligence is not a prerequisite for high up roles.
Yup
https://www.savagechickens.com/2024/09/decisive.html
"I don't think you understand what the product is. The product isn't the platform, and the product isn't your algorithm, either. And it's not even the software. Do you know what Pied Piper's product is, Richard?"
"Is... Is it me?"
"Oh God! No! No. How could it possibly be you? You got fired. Pied Piper's product is its stock."
If this resonated with you, consider reading Nonviolent Communication by Rosenberg, the ultimate guide in thermostat-speak. You focus on stating unmet needs. Good stuff.
I haven't read NVC, but "stating unmet needs" is a strong aspect of "No more Mr. Nice Guy" and "Models". Being up front about who you are and what you want is a lot more likely to work than being nice and hoping your needs are met in the way that you expect. It's also a way to cut your losses early if the other person is not interested in providing whatever you're after.
When I hear people trying to use "Nonviolent Communication" it only makes me more angry. It is manipulation and so transparent and condescending.
Sometimes communication needs to be violent.
I'm reminded of this supposedly ancient proverb I was taught in school:
He who raises his voice first, loses.
What makes you believe that nonviolent communication is manipulation? It focuses on ways to hear unmet needs in others and to express unmet needs in a way that can be heard by others.
Have you read the book by chance?
Yes, read the book and my nephew teaches a form of it. It balmes the victim for the most part. It reminds of of"you are acting hysterical" and gaslighting.
Maybe read some critiques about it.
https://realsocialskills.org/2014/07/17/nonviolent-communica...
https://www.collectivelyfree.org/nonviolent-communication-pr...
The first link, that is a big stretch and misses half the response. They almost capture it and then flub to spread wrong information.
They got this far:
"I notice that when your partner talks to other men, you express feeling hurt and ask her not to. It sounds like you feel hurt and maybe even betrayed when she has those conversations. I hear that respect is really important to you, and you want to feel valued in the relationship."
What they totally missed: Suggesting alternative strategies that meet both parties' needs without harm.
"Can we explore ways for both of you to feel respected, while also honoring her autonomy and connections with others?"
This is NOT emotionally abusive to the woman or lower-powered individual in the exchange. This is acknowledging the emotions of the abuser and still coming back to honoring the woman's unmet needs. These techniques have been used between waring tribes with family that has been murdered. The book has a particularly harrowing passage about NVC saving a near-rape-and-murder victim.
The second link is marginally better but I disagree on nearly every point. Instead of writing a counter post for each, but to say that overall I think they missed the message of the book. They seem set on the word choice and power dynamics. Word choice is mostly unrelated: it is conveying unmet needs and acknowledging the unmet needs of others. Simple as that. And then to go on about body language as a point against NVC is strange as the NVC is about spoken communication. They are digging for reasons to talk against the book. I assume there is some agenda.
>They are digging for reasons to talk against the book. I assume there is some agenda.
You have an agenda as well.
The problem is that you need BOTH parties to engage in NVC for it to work. and what happens is the person who does not want to use NVC is blamed. This is denying the person their agency.
I feel that you desire agency on both parties. I believe that agency already exists. Like: "Let's play a game"; "I don't want to"; .... "ok?"
NVC, yes, is a cooperative framework. The agency is to accept that, propose something different, or withdraw from communication. This has nothing to do with denying agency. It is tooling for communicating needs. I don't find the criticism to make sense.
Perhaps you can help me understand by proposing an alternative or let me know where I am not understanding
>I feel that you desire agency on both parties.
That is such an artificial way of talking and it is making me not want to talk to you. You are actively cutting of communicating with me if you keep talking to me this way.
Now you will blame me, and not yourself.
I have lived all my life, cooperated with people of all kinds. Never used NVC.
>That is such an artificial way of talking and it is making me not want to talk to you. You are actively cutting of communicating with me if you keep talking to me this way
cool, communication for the win and I can modulate to hopefully better understand you. how would you like to be acknowledged or how would you like me to check understanding? NVC is a framework to do that and you don't want artificial sounding exchanges. Cool. Is this still artificial? I don't really know. I am attempting to communicate with you and that takes checking understanding. I haven't blamed you for anything. And, yeah, as a throw back to the previous comment, I have an agenda: I am trying to understand and evaluate criticisms against NVC and I am not convinced by what those posts said. I want to know these because if I am giving bad advice by recommending NVC I want to stop.
You may have cooperated with people of all kinds, but in this exchange, I feel I am working extra hard to understand your position and finding cooperation difficult.
> Perhaps you can help me understand by proposing an alternative or let me know where I am not understanding
>> I have lived all my life, cooperated with people of all kinds. Never used NVC.
I think you are attempting help me understand your position, but I am having to stretch. You've cooperated and self-report to never have used NVC. OK, and what am I supposed to take away from that? I never said that NVC is the only way cooperation can be achieved. The claim is that by stating unmet needs and communicating those in a way that both parties can acknowledge and understand, that conflicts can be resolved. Conflicts can be resolved lots of ways, including walking away. Cooperation can happen even when you don't intend it. NVC is but a tool and one that I am still not sure what you object too.
Are you against the suggested words and sentence structure proposed by NVC? If so, again, I think that is missing the point.
I won't repeat what the sibling commenter has stated except to say that I agree that these authors seem to have missed the point.
Anecdotally, my partner and I have found a ton of value in it within our relationship.
"Serenity now, insanity later."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJVIX-4OyT0
in my quest to better understand your position, I once again believe you missed the point. I think you are suggesting that NVC is artificial and smooths over chaos that needs to be experienced else things go worse later. NVC is expressly about not repressing your feelings and letting them be known via your unmet needs. Again, if I got this wrong, you are invited to correct me.
Mostly I'm just bored between meetings and not enough time to push anything productive forward and having a back and forth is pleasantly distracting. Might not reply again since work is nearly beckoning.
Definitely gonna borrow this language, it’s a really important aspect of social life. I’ve always been very, very thermometer-like, with a strong tendency to mirror which allows me to connect with people 1 on 1 easy, but on the flip side I absorb vibes I don’t want. My coping mechanism is to avoid bad vibes, confrontational situations, etc. Even being in a social group for long can affect me negatively if the people there have values I don’t agree with, even if I have no desire to change them. Any tips for how to manage that better?
Therapy helps. Building a stronger sense of self and with it, more internal boundaries between your thoughts and beliefs and those of others.
I'm this way as well, and it's like your emotions are totally porous, absorbing everything from those around you. It's a blessing and a curse. Generally stems from a childhood where you had to be very in tune with the emotions of your caregiver in order to stay safe.
Thank you. This lines up with my experiences, which I never knew were connected. Prefer 1:1, alcoholic mum growing up who had good days and bad days. I could tell which it would be from the "vibe" when I walked through the door after school before seeing anyone.
Oof. Being in tune with your caregiver hits hard. My mom was a manic, bi-polar, depressive person also suffering from schizophrenia. I learned to read some situations like you mention but toss in some randomness so it gets real dicey.
Wow I’ve always felt much more comfortable in 1:1 situations than group situations, but I never framed it the way you have here. Your comment really resonates, thank you!
There's an unspoken premise here and I'm going to question it. Avoiding tension, conflict, hard words and other things of the sort is not always the right choice. Sometimes letting conflicts play out gets you the best outcome with the least amount of suffering. Just like ripping off a band-aid.
There's plenty of times when wining a conflict is far better than avoiding it. And I see articles like this, books like Nonviolent Communication, ideas like "emotional intelligence" (check it out, no such thing exists) - as misguided as it always puts you in the defensive/de-escalating role even when you might be better served by letting things play out or even attacking, baiting your opponent into attacking, etc.
Violence is sometimes the right answer. When to apply it and when to avoid it is the hard question. But we didn't evolve an amygdala for nothing, and especially not for a "coach for leaders" (what the hell is that?) to tell us to always ignore it as an unquestioned premise for a promotional blog post. Because leaders should not always shy away from conflict, that much should be pretty crystal clear.
Yes, agree. This is all a continuation of the Positivity Cult. Anger is a method of communication that is greater than words, and it puts the explanation point at the end of some of the most important statements.
Just read this:
I need help.
I need help!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vivEzQUGHOQ
> Make sure you’re squarely facing the person
Awww shit that's gonna be hard for my inner Minnesotan. All that deep listening stuff needs to be done at a 135-165 degree angle, so you're both vaguely looking in the same-ish direction but can make occasional side glance eye contact
This is giving me strong How to Talk Minnesotan vibes[1] (in a good way :D).
[edit] 10:50! https://www.tptoriginals.org/how-to-talk-minnesotan/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Talk_Minnesotan
Right? The only way some of us can discuss emotion is if we're pretending we're manning the Wall against ice zombies
I loved the article, but something about it felt off.
The content (good) didn't match what I would expect from the style. The writing style reminde me of a mix off business advice and aggrandizing self-help. My expectation with that is sweeping generalizations, just-so annecdotes, and not saying very much, whilst not backing up what you are saying with sound reasoning either.
Somehow this article had that writing style, without those problems. It made it a rather dissonant experience, because I was looking for the catch, what I was being sold, the anecdote that is almost certainly a lie, and the overly strong conclusion. But that never came, and instead I find myself believing.
And yet, the dissonance remains. I have a little worry that the swindle was just better this time. It's a weird feeling, and not one I had before.
If the author reads this, I'd like to suggest a change in font. At certain scales, the website's font puts emphasis on the cross-bar in the letter 'e', and the letter 'g'. It's incredibly distracting, and only seems to happen at certain scales, as I could 'fix' it by increasing/decreasing the font size.
I'd message this directly, but she doesn't provide a method of contact on the site (reasonable).
i prefer to be a cat. if that makes sense.
Find a warm sunny spot or cozy nook and go there. If the location gets uncomfortable, leave. Not terrible advice, all considered. Of course you can't always do that in say, a work setting.
warm cat, happy cat
HA! Makes sense to me!
Actually the article tells be an air conditioner/heater. Because being a thermostat means just leave the awkward meeting.
I just hate this kind of stuff. Good for you if you can create a consulting business out of stating the obvious I suppose. It is a drain on the economy however.
> stating the obvious
What is obvious is wildly different among people. For instance, it was obvious to me that the article was sharing some ideas freely, and those ideas are ones which are not obvious to everyone in the workplace.
“It’s obvious” is a rhetoric which puts the person who’s not getting it on defense. Usually it’s pretty counterproductive too.
> Good for you if you can create a consulting business out of stating the obvious I suppose.
In my experience, tech problems are a lot easier to solve than people problems, and a lot of things that don't go well in a project turn out to be people problems. E.g. here are a few issues I encountered in my current project at work in the last month: "their framework makes assumptions that don't apply to our code, so we reimplemented the metrics instead of trying to integrate their version" or "the data was labelled wrongly, so we had to work around that", or "this coding convention is slowing us down". Once I tried digging down, it turns out they were all people problems in disguise, and they could all be solved by "stating the obvious". Do you never encounter issues on team / across teams, where in the end it turns out a lot of issues are just people not talking to each other or misunderstanding each other? If things are too hairy, I can definitely see the value in an external consultant helping disentangle these sort of problems.
In my experience, these dont help to solve people problems. They are motivational feel good advice. In practice, they will exhaust you and dont work in the long term.
And what they actually make is to create situation in which your needs and things you want to achieve are less and less met. Or just make you look unauthentic to others - they will cease to believe your projected emotions.
Most self-help is easy to write and difficult to apply, specially if it's written in a generic matter like in a book or in a blog post.
This doesn't mean it can't be helpful. I know because some self help knowledge in the past has helped me.
It is not just difficult to apply. If you actually try to apply it and do, it setups you for fail. Because it is feel good instead of real and omits real world constraints.
Take this article - sometimes, fairly often, the "bad vibes" are a correct observation of the other persons attitude, opinions and intentions. Sometimes people are in fact hostile or cold, whether for personal, professional, fair or unfair reasons.
This part of the advice, if you apply it, is making you helpless and powerless. And conversely, it over time make you come across as manipulative person, because that is what you do majority of the time.
> where in the end it turns out a lot of issues are just people not talking to each other or misunderstanding each other?
What makes a huge difference is how you frame your interactions. If you extrinsic your interactions you're all-ways going to come away with a lack of agency, stress and/or frustration. if you intrinsic your interactions, you're going to be more in control, accountable, and over-all indifferent to other people.
For example well at work, I'm being compensated to participate in the organization to work towards its goals, wants, needs and/or desires. Those have nothing to do with me, nor do i really care about it. I will engage with people at work, colleagues and managers, how-ever if later they don't volunteer engage back - such as being cordial, I don't re-engage because I consider it to be intrusive.
Now let say you have co-workers who have a glaring communication problem. It it pretty obviously that you can do anything about it. So you engage their manager of lack of communication, and lack of professionalism. If their manager doesn't want to rectify the problem then you communicate it with your manager but at the same time be professional about it that you do not have the capacity to deliver on the deliverables within your current roles. This opens the door to opening a dialog to reviewing your remuneration or compensation package that includes the new responsibilities.
I bet these things would have worked themselves out on their own. The main thing is to have an ultra crisp vision.
> stating the obvious
If interpersonal relationships were obvious we would not need abuse laws nor CPS.
They are usually obvious, except for psychopaths and people struggling with autism. The latter is rather prominent in tech, so we see more of these issues then outside of tech.
I had selfsteem problems growing up derived from my narcissistic mother.
What am I then? Autistic or psycopath?
things you can't really do on zoom meetings...
I am going to be downvoted to hell for this, but... After reading halfway through the article, I had to check the gender of the author. Because, I feel, this is a rather female POV. A lot of what she says feels touchy-feely to me and doesnt resonate with me at all. Maybe because I am way more inerested in the topic of the meeting then the personal feelings and emotions of the participants. To the point where I might noticed them, but I they mostly dont concern me at all.
Nope, you are spot on.
I too noticed pretty quickly that this must be female POV.
You can generally tell even just by the word choices ("spidey senses" American women seem to love that phrase for some reason, "super <adjective>", "awry", "weird vibes", ...)
Another instant give-away was "now we've got a compounding situation" - quite a feminine phrasing. Not judging, I mean it sounds almost cute even.
Finally, her idea of "facing each other squarely": a total no-no for men (way too much potenial energy, like two massive electron beams opposing each other), but OK for women.
Your comment makes me question my masculinity. I would say the desire to communicate and the feelings expressed were feminine. Noee of the phrases you mentioned did I see as clues to gender.
To be clear I didn't say men never use any of these words individually (except for "spidey senses" I suppose).
Just that their frequent and combined usage in this particular article made me almost hear her voice in my head, including the female cadence and intonation...
"Weird vibes" is what finally made me check the author name ... I don't even know what "spidey sense" should mean.
It's a reference to a popular property of The Walt Disney Company, wherein a bite from a radioactive spider confers upon the titular character a supernatural ability to sense impending danger.
Back in the days of slatestarcodex, the comment policy [1] was you can comment if your post is at least two of these three things: true, necessary, or kind.
This post is all three: what they're describing is true (these dynamics in meetings do exist, very often), it is kind (in the sense they're giving you a skill to help both yourself and others), and I'll give it necessary in the sense it's used in the original definition (if you want to get ahead in an organization with a nontrivial amount of internal politics - which is most places - you need to have at least some of this skill).
And yet, something about this post gives me "weird vibes".
Basically, with a bit of sarcasm you could sum it up as "DON'T BE AUTISTIC", and if you are then at least get therapy until you can act normal.
When the author says "We [humans] are wired to spidey sense this [vibes] stuff", it turns out some humans are above and some below the mean in this skill distribution. [2]
And sometimes, in a meeting to decide about how you're going to set up your database sharding, it helps the business' bottom line if you pay more attention to the database specialist than the soft-eye-contact specialist.
(Don't you want to hire people who are good at both? Yes, but unless you're really, really lucky, you're going to hit Berkson's paradox [3]. And then if you want your databases to run smoothly, you're going to have to compromise.)
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/02/the-comment-policy-is-... [2] However, the latest research suggest that autistic people are perfectly wired to read the room and sense vibes if the room is full of other autistic people. It's just one autist in a room of neurotypicals, or vice versa, that doesn't go too well. [3] https://www.allendowney.com/blog/2021/04/07/berkson-goes-to-...
I support the goals of the article and I understand that social interaction doesn't come natural to all people, but if someone would lean in an nod to me like described in the second part I would freak out because that feels like sociopathic behavior.
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When I read the article, I assumed that it was written by a guy first - when I saved it to my favorites I noticed that Lara is a woman.
I do work most of my time in my home office, yet I do spend also some time in virtual meetings. The things Lara describes are even more important if you are not present in person, from my point of view. Harder to sense some of those feelings and emotions if you are not in the same room, but possible.
Wow, I read your comment, and the response, then read it again, and I still thought you were intending to be offensive that the author was so bad they couldn't possibly collaborate with people.
Somehow I missed the simpler idea of "Hah, in 2024 I have no face to face with colleagues in anymore!"
> Noticing a change in someone’s behavior
Well I guess I'll just excuse my ADHD having self outa this one.
Interesting. I have the exact opposite issue. Hypervigilance and all that.
Generally speaking terrible advice for anyone in such a situation in a professional group setting.
If you can sense that someone is tense or "off vibe" in a group meeting, you should be able to reasonably determine why. If it's not immediately evident and they are not alluding to it in the meeting - then you should table the discussion until you are able to chat 1:1 with the person.
Not downplaying any of the strategies for being chipper and staying positive and being a good vibe... which seems obvious... but to push it back on the "bad viber" and dice roll on whether you'll be charismatic enough to do it without causing even more bad/awkward vibes, I think is unnecessarily risky.
I've been in many meetings where someone seemed "off" but after conferring with others more familiar with the situation found it it's quite usual and not a sign of anything wrong. Had someone intervened there and tried to "discover" the case of the bad vibes, it would have amounted to "why are you like this" which is not the kind of thermometer input required.
Likewise if someone is being openly confrontational in the meeting because they feel strongly about something, the right course is for someone else to step up and discuss it without any ambiguity or levity - ruling out irrelevant emotions not related to the discussion - if the stakes were high enough to merit losing face in a meeting, they should generally be high enough to discuss and resolve.
My experience has been, in many board meetings and conference rooms with C-levels, that the norm for these discussions is someone "off vibe" and it's rarely koombayah when there is something at stake being discussed. Bringing unnecessary levity to a serious and often uncomfortable meeting is taken as a bit of an insult to the topic or the opinions being tabled. You can read accounts of an Jeff Besoz or Steve Jobs executive meeting and glare into this first hand.