Platform as a Service team takes even-handed approach to meetings(gds.blog.gov.uk) |
Platform as a Service team takes even-handed approach to meetings(gds.blog.gov.uk) |
Suggests the author needs more experience of the workplace.
It turns passive aggressiveness to 11, there will always be rude people or people with poor conversations skills.
However they are usually toned down because there is a limit to how much you can interrupt someone before people tell you off, especially if there is a line manager or a supervisor present.
Now you get stuck with some douche constantly using the disagree sign to your face, and worse it can be maintained throughout your entire speech forcing you to yield or tell them to sod off which means you lose.
It also doesn't really help new or shy team members if they don't want to express an opinion they won't regardless if it's verbal or smoke signals.
Improving meetings can easily be done by having a meeting captain and a clear agenda.
The vast majority of people aren't actively malicious. I'd go so far as to say the majority of people who would be described by their colleagues as "assholes" don't get up in the morning planning to be shitty. Typically, at least in my experience, it's the product of a vast intent / ability gap, usually in communications / EQ-type skills. They honestly think (generally, overestimate!) they're being constructive or "honest".
It'd be easier if they were all just sociopaths.
I tell all my team members to call me out when I've interrupted. I usually catch myself, though, and apologize profusely.
The person running the meeting may then have to step in and act as traffic cop, but they can only be reactive, after people start talking over each other or whatever. It can take a combination of a good chair and mutual goodwill to sort out the communication traffic jam. It's also rough on the people who aren't assertive, as the article says.
Similarly to that other commenter who didn't give a reason, I would also immediately start looking for work if my workplace implemented this.
The occupy signs are deliberately chosen to be readable from really great distances and not being part of a larger signing system they are hard to expand upon.
[0] http://www.signbsl.com/sign/vagina [1] http://www.signbsl.com/sign/agree [2] http://www.signbsl.com/sign/disagree
Hiding the symbols behind videos means I can't see what the symbol is as the people haven't made it yet, unless I play the video.
Couldn't they have at least one sketch or marked up jpeg showing the symbol or gesture?
Weird.
http://www.lovelifepractice.com/practice/using-hand-signals-...
Another hand signal I've used in large groups is pointing at a person who has a hand up (wants to say something). It's a useful signal to the person speaking and can avoid people stepping on each other to speak next.
When I am talking to a team I want to know what they think, ideally as immediately as possible (which visual clues allow) but don't want to have to preplan anything.
And on a team, doesn't everyone have a vote?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_movement_hand_signals [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaqpAlvDKsI&feature=youtu.be... [3] https://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/APPLAUSE/7950/1
The "OK" circle with thumb and finger is offensive in Southern European countries (e.g. Greece), also somewhere around the same level of offence as the middle finger.
GDS might be part of the British civil service, but the UK is still a multicultural society with workers from all over the World here, including I believe, GDS. That might change in the next two years, but right now, it's who we are (and I personally hope it's who we remain in years to come).
It's not "political correctness gone mad" to choose a hand signal that isn't offensive over one that a third of the room might find offensive. It's just polite.
It's also much harder to create a sketch than simply record yourself signing.
And sketched signs are pretty much useless for everything except finger spelling
What was said was "It's weird that they chose the English-speaking-world's hand gesture for "stop" as their "agree"" - which it is, I see two hands palm up at me and I see "stop".
It is also unbelievably patronising to suggest muslims or greeks that work in the article's team and are trained in this unusual form of comms, that they don't have the quite low bar of maturity required to not be offended by a gesture that is offensive in their orginating culture.
As for suggestions of "PC gone mad", that is 100% your injection. I'm actually quite in favour of PC, as really it's just the extremists of that movement who are fools. As Dara O'Briain said to a heckler who shouted out "Fuck PC!": "Yes, fuck those PC people and their manners".
Frankly, offense should only be taken from a person's intent, not from words or specific gestures (negligence can also be a form of intent here). Compare the phrases "He's a slimy, despicable excuse for a human being" and "He's a lovable old cunt". Which one of those means the speaker holds the subject in contempt? If you're taking offense at a phrase or hand gesture regardless of intent, location, culture, or context, then you're a moron and shouldn't be pandered to[1][2]. People that try to make the world safe for those kind of idiots are those PC extremists mentioned earlier.
[1] inject video of Mr Rogers 'flipping the bird' here - only a moron would be offended given the context [2] or for another example, an anglo visiting a tribe where the women don't cover their breasts - we would think them an idiot if that anglo took offense
Must one run their hand signals through a worldwide hand signals dictionary to assure non-offense? That's ridiculous, they're a British government agency and thus British is the only culture they should consider. Words and gestures mean different things in different places, if some Greek Muslim working for the U.K. Government is offended, that's too bad. They ought to get over it.
Source?
I've heard a similar claim with Muslim cultures replaced by India and that's blatantly false (I live in India).
No.
It would largely depend on the structure of the team as to what is optimal, however it is obvious that even though the h/w specialist should be involved in the discussion of the DB system we use on the device it is the data specialist who makes the decision.
Many decisions have many more involed parties than decisionmakers for good reason.