Comment by wruza | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wruza | Hacker News Reader

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[Americans] would sugar coat criticism under 10 layers of phony praise

It really annoys the hell out of me. What’s wrong with just saying what’s wrong?

The last example here on HN was a web version of flutter, where everyone was like “it’s amazing, so awesome, much controls” and only four comment levels deeper someone noted that it’s an utter crap that stutters at scroll on top hardware, cannot select text, cannot zoom, etc etc, so google reps had to start damage control.

And I wouldn’t even mind this positivity, if it didn’t put landmines in what you choose for daily use. Everything is so amazing and awesome, they love it, and when you try/buy it, it’s just a half-functioning crap that you have to finish yourself or wait until they do. As if these awesome’rs didn’t do anything beyond reading a tutorial. How can you relate positively to something that spent your days of learning and experimenting and in the end turned out to be a joke?

This is also a big annoyance for me. I regularly interact with people of different cultures, and find that interpreting feedback is something I have to context switch for often, always needing to remember whom I am speaking with.

My native culture is quite straightforward in how things are phrased. As such, I find it easy to work with e.g. Germans, who routinely use phrases such as "this is unacceptable" in feedback. Which doesn't mean anything horrible, it just means that the specific thing being discussed is, in its current state, unacceptable for the final product. But Americans would likely phrase the same feedback as "needs some work". If American feedback includes "unacceptable" then you've probably really messed up.

The most difficult part is recognizing when Americans are genuinely impressed by something. Since regular positive feedback is full of "this is amazing" and "we love it" (thing that would just get a "this is good" at home), it's hard for me to recognize when something has really exceeded expectations and they really do love it.

Just to add another perspective, as an American living in Germany, I often find that the German criticism of American optimism/interpersonal warmth is extremely paranoid. I have heard so many Germans describe American "niceness" as "fake", but I don't think the American approach is rooted in dishonesty as it's sometimes assumed by outsiders. For instance, Germans will be shocked if they go to the US, and a stranger starts a conversation with them waiting in line at the convenience store with a lot of warmth and curiosity. As I understand, to them this reads as the approach of someone who wants to con them or trick them, putting on the guise of un-earned closeness. But Americans in my experience just give interpersonal warmth a bit more freely, and are more willing to have friendlier interactions with someone they don't know, with no expectation that the relationship will last longer than the time both of you are standing in line, while that type of warmth and friendliness will be reserved for close friends and family in other cultures. As someone who grew up in American culture, it's not "fake" or forced when I smile to a stranger, or congratulate them on the new grandchild they just told me about in our first meeting. It's just part of the culture, and it's something which I enjoy to give and receive in these random, short interactions throughout the week.

And when it comes to work criticism, I agree that there is some value in what would be considered "blunt feedback" by American standards, and that Americans are sometimes too hesitant to give it. At the same time, I think this also comes from a different cultural approach which is also valid. Americans have deeply rooted ideals for independence and self determination, and a general sense of optimism. I think the default position when someone is showing you a piece of work is often to assume that they have it under control, and that it would be presumptuous to tear down a piece of work someone else owns and that you are seeing for the first time. By focusing on praising the best elements of the work, you are giving your colleague feedback on what they should focus and expand on, and you are leaving it up to them to discover the flaws in their work and resolve them in their own way. So you would reserve direct criticism for times when you think there is a critical misunderstanding in the basic direction of the work which will prevent the correct result from being reached.

And you can cliticise the American approach all you want, and I will be the first to admit that it does lead to a lot of problems and blind-spots. But as someone who has worked in the US and in Germany, my experience is that American companies move and innovate a lot quicker than German ones by focusing on potential rather than flaws, and that trend seems to have been borne out if you look at the major innovations which have come out of each country in the last 30 years.

As a German who's spent a total of about half a year (maybe too little!) in the US, I think you've kind of nailed it with this explanation, but there's a part that's missing to me.

On the one hand, focusing on potential rather than flaws is exactly what feels like one of the things that could be better here. Also, as you say, there's nothing necessarily mendacious about a little bit of friendliness.

On the other hand, the thing that somewhat rubbed me the wrong way in the states wasn't ever the extraversion or friendliness / politeness in itself, but rather those situations where I felt like a particular positive (sometimes highly) emotional reaction was somehow socially expected in a professional context, and then watching people turn into actors to fill the role.

One example of this that I remember vividly was a session at a scientific conference, where a series of larger and smaller prizes were awarded. Some to just grad students, some to senior professors.

The laureates typically had to give a small speech. Everybody tried super hard to act and talk "honored", "humbled", "grateful". Most of them weren't great actors, and looked rather uncomfortable in the process. It was somewhat creepy to watch for me.

The part that was strange to me wasn't the fact that they were saying thanks (obviously), I guess that would be the same anywhere in the world, but rather how they all seemed to think it was necessary to play-act strong displays of emotions.

To me, that was the clearest example of this that I've seen so far, but in general it just seems like Americans have much less of a problem with professional social expectations creeping into the most private realm of your personality.

First of all, thank you for this response. Thought about it a bit. In the end it's a thin line. "Empowering", and "walking around their possible sensibilities". In the end no one way can be said to be completely right. The connection can reasonably be made between optimism, friendliness, positivity (even if questionable), and entrepreneurship, and maybe no wonder the Americans are dominating the Tech industry, while the Germans are stuck building cars (of course grossly simplifying both economies here).

> deeply rooted ideals for independence and self determination, and a general sense of optimism.

But for every entrepreneur that makes it, I feel that hundreds walk around with false sense of optimism, pride in their mediocre work, dream naively outside their intellectual means, while it might be more advisable to be clipped of their wings, and to be grounded more in reality? Sorry I'm taking this discussion one level upwards to a more meta level, it's a tendency of mine.

In the end, who knows. I'm quite harsh dishing out criticism, and being able to take it I consider a virtue. I'd rather tell someone they're overweight than talk about positive body image. Or tell someone they should work on their presentation and speaking skills, rather than encourage them to give a speech they will fail at.

Probably best to take the best of both worlds and try to create something out of that.

There is quite a lot of regional variation in the States. I imagine Germans would prefer New Yorkers to West Coast Americans.

Multiple times, while on a train coming into the city from Portland, OR's airport, I've observed Portlanders strike up a grinning, friendly conversation with a New Yorker, noting their accent and inquiring as to what brings them to Portland -- and invariably the New Yorker has a pained look on their face like "why the fuck are you talking to me?"

It really depends where you are in Germany. There are places, especially in smaller communities, where casually starting a conversation waiting in line at the bakery is rather natural. I have had great conversations on trains, airplanes and such with Germans old and young. Czechia is actually rather similar in that respect. If you really want, you can start a casual conversation with most people in both countries when they aren't in a hurry or morons.

There are companies around the world focusing on stuff that counts and rather less successful companies in that regard. There are businesses that seem to revolve only around corporate BS and not anything real.

There isn't much manufacturing of anything in the west, maybe a bit of assembly from components so I don't know if comparing countries is possible at all in this regard. For physical products, I would rather depend on German or Swiss stuff than made in the USA. Maybe I just haven't seen enough products to be able to compare, but in general I have a feeling there was more thought put into the products designed and made in Germany or Switzerland. The products seem to use materials and energy efficiently while being comfortable to use and robust. They aren't always so easy to repair it seems (the screws are more hidden), where in America more stuff is focused on efficient use of potential technicians time in case of a repair/ change it seems. The German culture has also a different approach to tidiness in every aspect of life. Germans are not comfortable, when there is any trash or leaves on the street. They will often comment or rather complain how the city is dirty and how there should be somebody taking care of it. This also concerns personal hygiene, workplace organization, (not) keeping on shoes at home, expecting drinkable tap water and more. I don't think I can explain it well in this discussion.

In America, you criticise by not mentioning the bad stuff in my experience. To know, what is bad is basically an exercise left to the reader. If there isn't enough praise beyond a certain threshold, you better think hard, where you messed up. Of course, this is rather extreme and people do point out what "needs work" etc. but if you think about it in this extreme way, you will get to useful insight quicker.

In general, being frank online is hard but useful. We don't here the tone in written language, which often leads to tensions. Everybody, who really strives to do something well will struggle with the general incompetence of people to do anything well it seems, tons of half finished work and broken basically everything you think should be long explored fully. Just look at the world wide web and all the half broken and half implemented standards.

I have the feeling, that the Germans I interact with are verbally less expressive/ tend to use less intricate language constructs and subtle variations compared to the Czechs I know. That doesn't mean they are somehow less intelligent (because they definitely are not) or that they are less hearty (because again, they are quite the opposite). I do know some Americans that are genuinely very nice, caring people too and yes, they tend to use more of that positive vocabulary compared to the way we communicate in middle Europe.

> It really annoys the hell out of me. What’s wrong with just saying what’s wrong?

In their minds, they probably are. Why can't the whole world have a singular word to address the second party, as in English, but require multiple levels of deference? I suspect the reasons are related: they're communication patterns that are hard to dispel. And as long as there's no need, people simply keep them up.

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