Comment by davideg

I appreciate you calling this out! In my community we started talking about it as "Ask" vs "Attune" culture. On the one hand do you assume everyone will be explicit with their wants, needs, and boundaries? On the other, do you pay attention to who you're engaging with, their general disposition, their communication style preferences, etc?

I personally like to keep a balance between the two extremes and try to adapt my behavior to who I'm engaging with (you can tell I'm comfortable in an "Attune" culture environment, but I appreciate when people are up front and communicative about their needs, wants, and boundaries). Considering the power differentials at play and the ability for someone to enforce their true boundaries is really important to me, and also having meta conversations to encourage folks to speak up about their needs and boundaries.

In a work context, I will have a meta conversation with someone about their preferred communication style, how they want to receive feedback, how they want to be checked in with, etc. to avoid mismatched communication expectations.