And what, exactly, is the purpose of a manager communicating that something unpleasant is coming without actually giving context for what that domain is going to be?
If you’re going to tell me something unpleasant is coming, at least give me enough clues to steel myself for news about:
- technology problem
- customer problem
- team communication problem
- team performance problem
- personal performance problem
- litigation problem
- etc
Any of those things still might lead to me getting fired for any number of reasons, but at least my imagination can spin something potentially productive to bring to the meeting.
If you say only “let’s talk” all the time, it just becomes a background anxiety due to being acclimated to it, sure, but I don’t see how it’s productive.
This whole “you need to have anxiety now” makes absolutely zero sense to me. The meeting can be for the details that you’re not prepared to dig into right now, that’s fine, just give me enough broad context to hang a hat on.
Edit: I guess if there’s zero power imbalance, I might be fine with just “let’s talk,” but I still don’t see why providing zero context results in a better meeting.
If you’re going to tell me something unpleasant is coming, at least give me enough clues to steel myself for news about:
- technology problem
- customer problem
- team communication problem
- team performance problem
- personal performance problem
- litigation problem
- etc
Any of those things still might lead to me getting fired for any number of reasons, but at least my imagination can spin something potentially productive to bring to the meeting.
If you say only “let’s talk” all the time, it just becomes a background anxiety due to being acclimated to it, sure, but I don’t see how it’s productive.
This whole “you need to have anxiety now” makes absolutely zero sense to me. The meeting can be for the details that you’re not prepared to dig into right now, that’s fine, just give me enough broad context to hang a hat on.
Edit: I guess if there’s zero power imbalance, I might be fine with just “let’s talk,” but I still don’t see why providing zero context results in a better meeting.