Unfortunately, this is not my experience. I work with many immigrant software developers, and the vast majority have not realised that they have to switch to an "ask" approach.
They will say "yes" to everything, no matter what, and then never ever ask a followup question.
For example, if assigned a task that I know they cannot possibly complete (i.e.: due to a lack of access), they'll say "yes" and then... I won't hear from them again.
A week later, the conversation will go like this:
"Have you started on the task?"
"Yes."
"How? I haven't seen you log in to the source control system, and thinking about it, I don't think you have access."
"Yes."
"So, do you have access?"
"Yes."
"How? Can you check out the source code successfully?"
"Yes."
"Can you show me what you've done."
"Umm... yes."
"That's an empty folder!"
"Yes, I don't have access, so this is all I can do."
My brother had a good tip when traveling internationally; ask questions where the correct answer is “no”. So don’t ask if the food is vegetarian, ask if there’s meat in it. Of course, that was for language barriers.
Also, I don’t know how to tell you this, but that doesn’t sound like an “ask” culture- that sounds like a “yes-man” situation.
It's definitely cultural. You only get this "yes" answer to every question from this area of the world starting somewhere in the middle east through to western parts of asia. It's not any specific country or language, but it's definitely from that region.
Unfortunately, this is not my experience. I work with many immigrant software developers, and the vast majority have not realised that they have to switch to an "ask" approach.
They will say "yes" to everything, no matter what, and then never ever ask a followup question.
For example, if assigned a task that I know they cannot possibly complete (i.e.: due to a lack of access), they'll say "yes" and then... I won't hear from them again.
A week later, the conversation will go like this:
"Have you started on the task?"
"Yes."
"How? I haven't seen you log in to the source control system, and thinking about it, I don't think you have access."
"Yes."
"So, do you have access?"
"Yes."
"How? Can you check out the source code successfully?"
"Yes."
"Can you show me what you've done."
"Umm... yes."
"That's an empty folder!"
"Yes, I don't have access, so this is all I can do."
My brother had a good tip when traveling internationally; ask questions where the correct answer is “no”. So don’t ask if the food is vegetarian, ask if there’s meat in it. Of course, that was for language barriers.
Also, I don’t know how to tell you this, but that doesn’t sound like an “ask” culture- that sounds like a “yes-man” situation.
It's definitely cultural. You only get this "yes" answer to every question from this area of the world starting somewhere in the middle east through to western parts of asia. It's not any specific country or language, but it's definitely from that region.
Or in this case don't ask yes/no questions. Don't give them he option to give the answer they think you want to hear.
What have you done?
What is your next step?
2 replies →
Through necessity.