alt Hacker NewsThis article should be included in every Professional Development program. This is excellent advice.
I live in an area of the midwest United States where nearly _everybody_ is kind, but severely conflict averse... To the point where it becomes difficult to gauge true intentions. Lack of clarity on everybody's priorities make work far more difficult than it needs to be because everyone here are people pleasers who don't know how to say "no" or "I don't like that".
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My mother's side of the family was from the Midwest.
Super polite, agreeable, but almost impossible to nail down with clear communication as to how they felt or what they wanted.
During reunions with that family, it was nearly impossible to get them to say where they wanted to go out to eat.
I'm also in a Midwestern city and see similar things. I once saw a project manager at a Fortune 500 that literally fabricated statistics about an ongoing project I was on to please management.
I've found that not being afraid to say no or opine on things has been very effective in my career.
Sometimes it is not conflict aversion as much as, and maybe i am speaking for myself here, being unsure if the opinion/judgement you have and are about to express is valid or if this is a real bad misread. Maybe conflict aversion is a form of short-sighted kindness
I tell my managers "no". I tell them why: this process doesn't scale with the team, the security policy forbids it, this is the fifth project you've given top priority to this week, etc.
They say, don't worry, just do it. I'm at a point where saying no doesn't matter, so I have to consider if I should even bother.