Simple Ways to Be Less Divisive (2021)

&gt; Miscellaneous: joke less, laugh less, stop gossiping.<p>I can&#x27;t tell if the last point is satire or not. I think the other points are great, and do agree with &quot;stop gossiping&quot; on the last point. However, &quot;joke less, and laugh less&quot; seem to be bleeding too much into &quot;killing culture.&quot; You should be able to laugh and joke with co-workers. Not anyone&#x27;s expense, though. Of course there is a time and a place, but the last one (if it&#x27;s not satire) feels a bit mehhhhh. It doesn&#x27;t feel like good advice in this context.<p>(Also, mod note, we may want to get a date added to this post, it&#x27;s from `17 Jul 2021`)

&gt; If you agree with an idea X that Bob said, say “I agree with the idea X”, don’t say “I agree with Bob”. The former states your advocacy; the latter is dividing the group into teams.<p>Not sure I agree with this one. The problem with the former framing is that Bob might perceive it as failing to credit him for his idea (or even taking credit for it).

&gt; Write down what you’re saying, while you’re saying it<p>uh, what? That&#x27;s a great way to ensure that I do a poor job of both speaking and writing.

Kind of ironic that the author has elicited a divided response with the &quot;joke less, laugh less&quot; part of the post.

&gt; Miscellaneous: joke less, laugh less, stop gossiping.<p>Ah, so not &quot;Simple Ways to Be Less Divisive&quot; but &quot;Simple Ways to Be Less Divisive in a Business Environment Particular to the First Quarter of the 20th Century.&quot;<p>Additional bullet:<p>* don&#x27;t talk about unions-- it will create an instant divide between you and management

&gt; “Can I confirm that March should be the launch date?”, &gt; don’t say “I assume we’re all aligned that March should be the launch date”.<p>...only if you really aren&#x27;t sure. I would actually say something like &quot;We&#x27;re planning to launch in March unless there are reasons not to.&quot;<p>If someone has a really great reason, they&#x27;ll speak up. Getting &quot;confirmation&quot; from a group that may be indifferent can sometimes be even worse. How many people in the group aught to &quot;confirm&quot; before we move forward? What if one extremely uninformed person loudly confirms? Then a person with a real issue may feel like they don&#x27;t want to stir things up by disagreeing.<p>Tangentially related: This is why you should say &quot;If you can&#x27;t see my screen, please let me know.&quot; when you start sharing your screen on zoom rather than &quot;Can you see my screen?&quot; Who on Earth aught to answer that in a large meeting?<p>Assuming a &quot;yes&quot; and allowing for the &quot;nos&quot; to speak up is much more successful in general I think.

I find it interesting that getting technical work done is basically just antithetical to getting marketing and sales work done.<p>In marketing, sales, and even management the goal seems to be to restructure the status of a project look good in a somewhat exaggerative way while also mitigating any fatal issues the client does see where as in technical work your goal should be to have simple, clear, honesty and a healthy dose of distrust not for people but for systems and their ability to not fail.<p>Watching them talk at an office party is like watching two people talk who live in different countries and speak different languages.

The HN guidelines have a good one too: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that&#x27;s easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

You know, what is even less divisive than no jokes? No communications at all.<p>Humor not only has very important social functions, but I can tell you that literally every team that is in a tough spot and needs to pull through will rely on humor to keep motivation at some point.<p>The important distinction I&#x27;d like to stress though is that joking <i>together</i> is something different than joking <i>about</i> someone.

&gt; Miscellaneous: joke less, laugh less<p>why did the language police cross the road?

The author of the article betrays his lack of understanding and commitment when he uses the term “divisiveness” in the title.<p>Divisiveness is a term people use to dismiss the value of conflicts that happen to bore them. These conflicts might be quite important to an organization. We may need to settle things. Avoiding those conflicts means less overt divisiveness but more covert sickness and weakness.<p>I gossip, because gossip is important to the health of any society. I support people, not just ideas, because our companies are not driven by algorithms and data. They never are. They are driven by human motivations and loyalty patterns.

<i>Ironic</i> jokes are dangerous, especially in a professional setting.<p>If the words you are saying are not literally true, you&#x27;re increasing the chances of misunderstanding, and it will happen more often than you think.

It says a lot about where we are as a culture that we&#x27;re here having even a semi-serious debate about whether or not it&#x27;s good to make jokes. What a bunch of joyless puritans we&#x27;ve become :(

&gt; Miscellaneous: joke less, laugh less<p>Over my dead body.

Slightly off-topic: any general opinions about this blog? Some very interesting stuff IMO

In today’s attention economy, being less divisive is how you stay behind.<p>Have strong opinions, stick to them, and say them out loud. That’s how your stand out and have influence.