Don’t get me wrong.

Do you remember my recent article about communication problems among developers in remote work? Misunderstanding is a common issue when working remotely.

When we don’t see each other, we can’t express our emotions as we would like to. We often misinterpret and are misinterpreted.

How to understand each other?

Many people can correctly interpret what someone else thinks based on their mimics, gestures, a pace and a tone of voice. We can easily recognize when someone is angry, mad, tired, or sad. We can just take a look or talk a little bit to orientate what’s going on. This happens as long as you are doing it face-to-face.

Things are getting harder when we start working remotely. Being used to interpreting human behaviors and body language, it’s hard for us to do the same without seeing each other. We are not good enough at interpreting what someone else wrote. Have a look at forums, Facebook groups, or YouTube comments. You can spot flame wars all over these places. People often don’t understand someone else’s thoughts and prefer to fight rather than read carefully.

Empathy is the thing most of us are missing. Let’s don’t lie here — we usually care and think about ourselves, not about the others. Don’t tell me you always wonder what other person thinks before jumping to a conclusion. It’s easier to start an argument than trying to dive into some statements or event accept a trade-off.

Don’t take things personally.

I have this habit of starting questions with “why”.

Why did you do this?

Why did you do this like that?

Why didn’t you do that?

…

And you know what? People perceive it as a criticism. They usually treat it as if I found something wrong.

My intention is far away from it, though. Sometimes I’m curious about implementation details, sometimes I want to know a rationale, sometimes I just don’t understand this particular piece of code or I just want to learn new things. However, many think I don’t like the idea or the code itself is bad.

Think twice before making any assumptions. Doesn’t this person really like your implementation? Does your coworker really blame you? Does your colleague seriously think you are doing things wrong? Is your teammate mad at you for sure?

Don’t take things personally. Don’t presume anything upfront before asking.

Evaluate a code, not a person.

How often do you feel touched when someone criticize your code? Does it happen frequently while working with others?

I see this very often, and I know developers have a huge EGO. People don’t like being criticized. Developers treat their code very personally, so telling bad things about their code make them feel being attacked.

It’s funny I didn’t see it at the very beginning. Actually, I didn’t notice it until some female developer pointed me that out. She said that among women something similar happens very rarely. She explained that women can accept it and treat it as a feedback, not as a disapprobation. Male developers, however, defend their code and don’t accept any remarks. And it’s true the longer I’m watching it.

Usually “hey, please review my code” means “hey, please say my code is good, otherwise stay silent”.

The next time someone will criticize your code, stop for a while. Do they blame YOU or YOUR CODE? Are you attached to your codebase that much? Don’t you want to be a better developer? Maybe someone is right? Maybe they know a better solution? Don’t be blindly chained to your implementation, discuss or accept these changes. Don’t treat it personally, it’s an evaluation of your code, not you.

Work philosophy

At my company, we established a set of rules helping us to communicate all together. Let me paste them here to help you as well:

When in doubt, we ask questions. If somebody asks a question, we don’t answer with a question. Instead of being implicit, we #overcommunicate things. Before jumping to conclusions, we let people express their thoughts. Rather than making assumptions, we explain all confusions. Finding an agreement is more important than forcing individual decisions. We follow a common sense and avoid discussing who is wrong. Always assume good intentions in others.

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Summary

My intention of this article is to write a guide for anyone who will ever work remotely. Maybe someone is not explanatory enough, maybe someone’s thoughts are not clear, maybe sometimes someone cannot express what they really think and feel.

I hope this article will help everyone to communicate in a remote environment. It’s very important to understand what other person means.

Overcommunication and keeping asking are the keys to avoid misunderstanding.