Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

You assume what they say is the same as what they are thinking

The converse is also true. People saying something assume that people listening are understanding and thinking about the same thing. This is why it's important to write things down in details and as-unambiguous-as-you-can forms.

If you're in a meeting and someone puts up a slide deck with a 6 word bullet point that 'explains' what they want, that is a signal that literally no one understands the goal. If they put in a meeting without writing a one page doc about it, they don't understand it well enough to explain it.

And if your progression hangs off delivering that thing, you should by demanding that you get a clearer picture.

Agree with the problem but this list reads like a vent.

Communicating effectively is the central problem of all humanity!

This vent criticizes developers for not knowing how to listen. that's why it comes off condescending. The root problem is that people don't know what they don't know.

The best communicators are translators. People listen because the message becomes self evident in their understanding.

It's hardly a breakdown because everyone is acting like a toddler with their fingers in their ears.

This is ironically why we reach for systems and engineering. The system can build in gap detection and frameworks for translation. It's not perfect and creates its own problems but scolding each unit human to listen better does nothing for the collective environment: the team, the company… the system.

Related, I think, and I found TFA a very interesting read: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23617188

>And if you're wondering why this happens, it's normally because:

1. people aren't talking to people

2. people aren't listening

I don't think this is right; I think the reason is - to use the metaphor from the cartoon image at the top - that what most of the people involved in the not talking and/or not listening were looking to get out of the situation in the first place was the ribbon cutting, not the road, and they got it.

Or maybe we're spending too much time on communicating. If too much time is allocated then its hard to stay focused and there's always the next time that can be used to clarify. Cut all the unnecessary meetings and only allocate the minimum viable time to communicate. Then everyone will be listening.

The point about "specialism effect" is underrated.

I've caught myself frustrated at users for not understanding something I've spent years internalizing. The problem is: they've spent those same years internalizing something else entirely. Their knowledge isn't absent, it's just elsewhere.

You you you you. A rant article

Most of the problem is that talking to non technical people is frustrating, they often start like

1. Can u add X 2. Can u change Y

Without understanding cost of doing all this. Yes, i can do all and everything you ask for, but each action has a cost, which you fail to understand.

We cannot do everything if we need to launch a reliable product.

> Tonnes of frameworks around this concept, so I won't repeat what others have done decently already. Jobs To Be Done, Outcome Driven Innovation, and in the UX camp, empathy mapping.

Totally understand, but I would love if the author included links to these other things for articles/etc they thought did a good enough job not to repeat them!

Get ready for the not reading, between people asking for AI and the slop everyone is writing Today communication will only get worst.

Talking to a 'yes and autocomplete' that will agree with everything you say and praise it as a "Great idea!" will make everything terrible

I was just working on this product & now I have to scrap it: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/13/meta-ai-m...

> 8. You judge people

You know, I was actually hoping for a good listicle of things to watch out for in meetings. The author should take their own advice. Assuming bad faith immediately kills all productivity, so there's no point in finishing reading this.

I agree with the general notion that there are often knowledge gaps getting in the way of better planning and execution. I was hoping for techniques to overcome them, but (sigh) I guess that's just more "engineering" getting in the way.

I've been doing this for long enough to realize there's no substitute for experience. It's basically the opposite of all the popular advice. If you're serious about any successful long-term career, you can't avoid looking foolish and having lots of difficult discussions. There are no shortcuts. There is no "higher path" you're missing out on. If you're going to grind it out, at least save face by working at the "shitty places" with bad reviews on glassdoor where you can safely fail without damage to your ego or reputation. When you finally get hired somewhere nicer mid-career, you can just bury all that in your mind and pretend it never happened. Nobody cares anyway.

If we're going to be judgy, I gotta say some of the worst people I've ever worked with never got out of that phase. It's that simple.

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