Bingo. It's a management problem, not an individual problem. Management can turn "Yes, if..." people into mindless drones over time by constantly shooting them down and feeding them negativity. And where does that negativity come from? The next level up; someone above that manager telling them they can't do things and what they should be doing instead, or rewarding them for aligning their team's goals with the status quo. More often than not, it's driven by fear and the danger of getting fired, or a strong desire to fit into an existing structure and climb the ladder.

In my opinion, most people will be "Yes, if..." people given the right cultural conditions; this looking at people as dichotomous types set-in-stone is dangerous and in my experience incorrect. It is as divisive and ineffective as the current US political climate. If someone has become a No person, it's likely because they're being moulded into that by their management, or has been in the past. Fix the environment and create an innovation-positive management structure and they'd probably jump at the opportunity to take more risks. I have seen this happen first-hand.

W. Edwards Deming, 8th point: "Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

> Management can turn "Yes, if..." people into mindless drones over time by constantly shooting them down and feeding them negativity.

And individuals can turn everyone else into mindless drones by constantly saying "no, because of XYZ."

Blaming "management" is so fashionable, and so counterproductive.

Counterproductive from an individual perspective; the only means of productivity from an organizational perspective.

I take management blaming here to mean that this is a systemic problem that can can only be solved at an organisational level (rather than blaming a caste within that org).

Exactly this.

I had the misfortune of working with a salesperson who only read the "yes" part in an email and sold a lemon to a client for not enough cash.

I protested immediately after the sale (when I was informed of the technical specification) that all the conditions were meticulously described but ignored and presented the email. Management decided to take the risk of going forward. The project failed. I was still blamed for it because by then I was an easy scapegoat.

Never received an apology and lost a good chunk of my reputation at the time. I haven't been an employee and have been my own salesperson since then (15 years ago). Less politics and ass covering between my ears.

Tiny little things like this can make or break you.

I don't necessarily think you're wrong, but I don't like this point. Sure, often people stop listening after Yes,... but...

You don't have to accept that. The general excuse, "Managers man... they suck", is something that really bothers me.

Why not stand up for your idea, insist upon the Yes, IF... and hold management accountable?

Document concerns and don't be shy about raising them. In my experience I have seen people make the assumption that management will not listen and therefor not act more often than I've seen management ignore feedback.

That's not to say that management wouldn't ignore you, or dismiss negativity in favor of the "yes", but the defeatist attitude as it relates to 'management' troubles me.

Again, Michh, not to give you a hard time. Maybe I'm naive.

If you have the power to hold management responsible, great. But you probably don't. See your sibling comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6999303 . Documented concerns ignored, including after they were proven right. Credit rises, while blame falls.

That's why you start your response with "Here's how we can do that:"

If you have a boss like that then you could always form a habit of saying the "if" part first.

If we just deal with the issue of X and solve the Y problem, then yes, we can most certainly do it. I have some ideas on how to deal with X and I think that if we bring Marketing into the discussion then we should be able to make a plan to address Y.

The above paragraph is still "can do" and it is arguably a better way to answer such questions because it is not as easy for a listener to misinterpret it.

If this is what your managers do, I feel sorry for you

I love this comment; it so beautifully and unintentionally proves the OPs point. It's like the perfect comment to represent Hacker News.

In an article about Can Do vs Can't Do culture, it piggybacks on an insightful top comment that takes an optimistic approach and provides the kind of cynical pessimism and tries to shoot down the Can Do nature of the OP's comment. But the best part of it, the most beautiful part, is that it places the blame on the cause of all problems for hackers: the manager. Literally, managers are the only reason the world isn't amazing, they're the ones that shoot down all my brilliant ideas.

It seems somewhat unfortunate to distil this down to where there are only two possible interpretations of someones idea, right and wrong. I don't think you could have straw manned his point any more either.

The entire idea of "can do vs can't do" is such a platitude anyways, it's not even remotely interesting. It takes all nuance away from communication. As if just because someone has to make their position clearer than a statement like "yes, if" in order to manage the expectations of others that they just don't have a "can do" attitude and by implication are destined to fail.

How is "no, unless" clearer than a statement like "yes, if?"

I think the entire point is that they say the same thing while projecting a completely different attitude.

The way that someone responds to the question of "can we do this" is very important.

Because there's plenty of people that don't listen past the first word.

So start with "If..." and finish with "...then yes!"

This is my favorite comment in the thread :)

That... sounds like it might actually work.

Why is that only a problem if you start a sentence with 'Yes' ?

Cynics always have scapegoats. It's always everyone else's fault. Dumb colleagues, idiotic managers, stupid customers. Just remember you control your situation and how those around you interact with you.

The 'Yes, if' thing is one of the major reasons I love startups.

Because they want to hear yes. So, they will keep looking for it even if you start with no.

Then there are MUCH bigger problems than the first word anyways.

This kind of reply has become such a meme. Of course, it's always some "bigger" problem that are at the heart of disfunction. The problem is the _people_ who are often at the heart of such disfunction are usually the ones that judge their "reports" by how often they say "no, because" vs. "yes, if", typically because of some quote they read paraphrased in some internet discussion.

We typically call this middle management.

Regardless I'm not really interested in the blame game on who's responsible management or engineering. Both are irrelevant to this discussion. "Can" or "can't", as the article discusses, is an issue of leadership in a business. If it isn't there, it isn't going to matter whether the engineer says "how high?" whenever their asked to jump.

Neither is really, which is why this is such an empty discussion.

I disagree; as long as we're generalizing about how "Hacker News" any one comment is, let's call yours the perfect HN comment: Bikeshedding (as if the world is black and white, no less) about who is the most wrong in a discussion. The commenter above you was at least still on the point, made an attempt at an alternate solution, and still left reasonable room for shades of gray.

The only thing that could top your comment is mine; now we're two meta levels deep, not even discussing the original article anymore.

One person's cynical pessimism is another person's realism borne from 20+ years of professional experience.

I prefer "yes, if" but reality says that the "ifs" will never be made part of the planning and then blame will come back to you because you said "yes"

I find it similar to the "estimates" of when we'll finish something, that get turned into hard delivery deadlines once the project scribe commits them to the first draft of the project plan.