Comment by Kalium
6 years ago
> My go-to heuristic is "the wordier the question, the more likely it is to be perceived as well intentioned."
Are you familiar with "How To Make Friends And Influence People"? It trades on exactly this idea.
Specifically, it trades on this idea to both seem well-intentioned and manipulate people. It uses this presumption of good intentions to cover the true intentions. It buries everything meaningful under an endless sea of noisome, excessive verbiage to lull the reader to distraction and smuggle its actual point past the listener.
Wordiness is what you do when you're worried about slipping something past someone's defenses, for fear of being unable to have the required conversation otherwise.
I've actually read this book no fewer than three times. I disagree that it trades on excessive verbiage. I think people were far more eloquent when the book was written and the excessive verbiage is an artifact of that. The book's real value stems from it's ideas around expressing honest interest in other people and making proposals in terms of other peoples needs, for example.
Maybe a little embarrassingly, but I've tried to read it a couple of times and usually bailed around chapter 3 or so due to boredom.
I think I know the type of wordiness you're referring to and my term for the type of person that uses that technique is a "snake". The kind of unconscionable person that, like a magician, draws the audience's focus to one point while enacting their trick with the other hand.
I had a particular person in mind when I wrote my other comment. It was a guy I used to work with who initially didn't like me despite my very team-oriented spirit. I think he thought I was a snake.
Eventually our boss noticed our inability to collaborate and forced us two, along with a more senior team member to brainstorm a solution to a particular problem afflicting the project that day.
I have a tendency to relentlessly refine on a solution or quickly reject solutions I don't see as tenable. Sometimes when someone first meets me, they get the impression that I "shoot down" their ideas because of some desire to appear superior.
I do sometimes shoot down ideas but only because I am an umcompromisably honest person, at least with respect to work, which I take seriously. Which isn't to say I'm Dwight Schrute and I go out of my way to shoot other people's ideas down. I just won't lie and say I like something if I don't. I also am aware of this aspect of my personality and go to lengths to suppress it for the sake of those around me. But it is who I am at the end of the day, and I don't intend to change that.
Anyway, at first the guy wanted to butt heads with me, but I did my best to project a patient and collaborative vibe and the senior member encouraged the dude to look at my ideas in a more removed fashion rather than in an emotional way and my teammate eventually came around and began working with me.
That coworker and I went on to become, if not friends, solid collaborators for over a year after that until the point at which I left the company.
I think some people have an initial dislike for overly straightforward people like me, but most usually come around to it and even appreciate it eventually. You don't have to worry about me double crossing you. I'm predictable.
The rest who don't can pound sand as far as I'm concerned.