Outline

• Definition
  • “effective” means you get someone to change their behavior
  • hurting someone’s feelings is a distraction
• How to avoid hurting someone’s feelings while criticizing them
  • Talk about the behavior, not the person
  • Talk about yourself, not them
    • Good: “This makes me feel…”
    • Bad: “You do X and you are being Y”
  • Be as specific as possible, with examples
    • Don’t generalize about them as a person
    • Have counter-factuals. “If, isntead, you did X, here is how I would interpret that”
  • Be open about your own mistakes
• When it goes wrong
  • Establish common causes
    • “We both want X, right? We just disagree on how to get there”
  • Apologize, because you fucked up