Author has a point that some people take it too far but he's losing forest for trees.
People are responsible for their emotional responses. But you also will be impacted by their reaction. It's unrealistic to assume that people will always act unemotional - they are not Spocks. It makes sense to do some padding / emotional prework. If you don't you will end up actually spending MORE time getting what you want.
Example: you are giving feedback to a peer
Direct: this is a poor user experience. Our customers tell us they want xyz, but this experience is doing the opposite. Can you change it?
Padded: hey can I share some feedback on this experience? (Yes) ok our customers tell us they want xyz, but the experience seems to be doing the opposite. Can you help me understand?
Most people would feel more defensive and closed with the first approach than the second, which will make it less likely they will want to help, listen to you, or take you seriously. They'll just be focused on defending themselves. Whereas with the second, you can start to have an actual discussion.
And it's not just the opener, it's throughout.
Words have power. Two sentences can mean the same thing but can lead to different reactions from people.
Or you might not mention something that significantly influences how something is interpreted.
I just gave this feedback yesterday to a team member. The problem was in a presentation she presented a strong conclusion based on a shaky methodology and people tore into it. She basically was attributing an effect to a change pre/post, not with a holdout.
Her underlying data was sound, she had diligently collected the timing of events and such, but she didn't realize how pre/post methodology could be perceived as shaky.
The whole thing could have been avoided had she said something like "we didn't have a hold out, and all of this effect likely isn't from the cause, but directionally there's smoke - our campaigns performed x before, and y after. So this is worth testing to help validate this hypothesis"
Now their message goes from
"This big bad thing happened so I'm going to fix it" to "I don't know exactly what happened, but there's one factor that directionally had an impact so I'm going to test it to validate and can scale from there".
Both essentially say the same thing: there's an opportunity for upside and that's why this is worth testing. But the reaction will be different, so it behooves all of us to be mindful of that.
People are responsible for their emotional responses. But you also will be impacted by their reaction. It's unrealistic to assume that people will always act unemotional - they are not Spocks. It makes sense to do some padding / emotional prework. If you don't you will end up actually spending MORE time getting what you want.
Example: you are giving feedback to a peer
Direct: this is a poor user experience. Our customers tell us they want xyz, but this experience is doing the opposite. Can you change it?
Padded: hey can I share some feedback on this experience? (Yes) ok our customers tell us they want xyz, but the experience seems to be doing the opposite. Can you help me understand?
Most people would feel more defensive and closed with the first approach than the second, which will make it less likely they will want to help, listen to you, or take you seriously. They'll just be focused on defending themselves. Whereas with the second, you can start to have an actual discussion.
And it's not just the opener, it's throughout.
Words have power. Two sentences can mean the same thing but can lead to different reactions from people.
Or you might not mention something that significantly influences how something is interpreted.
I just gave this feedback yesterday to a team member. The problem was in a presentation she presented a strong conclusion based on a shaky methodology and people tore into it. She basically was attributing an effect to a change pre/post, not with a holdout.
Her underlying data was sound, she had diligently collected the timing of events and such, but she didn't realize how pre/post methodology could be perceived as shaky.
The whole thing could have been avoided had she said something like "we didn't have a hold out, and all of this effect likely isn't from the cause, but directionally there's smoke - our campaigns performed x before, and y after. So this is worth testing to help validate this hypothesis"
Now their message goes from "This big bad thing happened so I'm going to fix it" to "I don't know exactly what happened, but there's one factor that directionally had an impact so I'm going to test it to validate and can scale from there".
Both essentially say the same thing: there's an opportunity for upside and that's why this is worth testing. But the reaction will be different, so it behooves all of us to be mindful of that.