> and worded so as to appear nicer than someone delivering a message, which is "you messed up"
You can debate whether "you messed up." When I speak about what I know I experienced by describing things that happened from my own point of view, I'm giving a far less controversial and debatable account of events. Perhaps both parties are comfortable with conflict, in which case there's no issue. But in my experience, I've found that most people feel extremely uncomfortable with something like "you messed up."
> However, "it means that the other team can't process it until the next day" isn't necessary - 90% of the time employees know things need to be done by deadlines. You are asking for them to deliver by the deadline, you don't need to rationalize.
I had mentioned how when giving information, you give "only what they reasonably may not know." In my example, I was thinking maybe they didn't know that 10am was the cutoff before there's a cost. If you know they already know, then yes I agree with you here.
> an attempt to be nice while calling someone out.
For many of us, our jobs require us to regularly coach others. I don't consider it as "calling someone out," and I see no reason to automatically consider it not "nice." It's a potentially uncomfortable interaction that we must do, so why not try to do it in an agreeable and effective way?
> When you take a weak, passive, indirect voice, you accuse while trying to protect yourself from any consequences, since you can always say "woah, woah, I wasn't accusing you, I just didn't get my paperwork".
> To go even further with this - "Ben" missed the deadline, your goal is to communicate they missed the deadline. Why add all this other garbage?
I did in fact use the active voice in my example. Although, I would consider that avoiding the word "you" is a good reason to use the passive voice. That said, using the first person as suggested makes using the active voice much easier. People may use it only to protect themselves from consequences, and if so I'd agree when you describe this framing as "weak." We ought to have a good enough reason to give feedback to stand by it, and if not, then we need to be able to admit that. That isn't why I suggest it, though. The reason I use this kind of language is to make the criticism easier to hear and to avoid unnecessary defensiveness.
You can debate whether "you messed up." When I speak about what I know I experienced by describing things that happened from my own point of view, I'm giving a far less controversial and debatable account of events. Perhaps both parties are comfortable with conflict, in which case there's no issue. But in my experience, I've found that most people feel extremely uncomfortable with something like "you messed up."
> However, "it means that the other team can't process it until the next day" isn't necessary - 90% of the time employees know things need to be done by deadlines. You are asking for them to deliver by the deadline, you don't need to rationalize.
I had mentioned how when giving information, you give "only what they reasonably may not know." In my example, I was thinking maybe they didn't know that 10am was the cutoff before there's a cost. If you know they already know, then yes I agree with you here.
> an attempt to be nice while calling someone out.
For many of us, our jobs require us to regularly coach others. I don't consider it as "calling someone out," and I see no reason to automatically consider it not "nice." It's a potentially uncomfortable interaction that we must do, so why not try to do it in an agreeable and effective way?
> When you take a weak, passive, indirect voice, you accuse while trying to protect yourself from any consequences, since you can always say "woah, woah, I wasn't accusing you, I just didn't get my paperwork". > To go even further with this - "Ben" missed the deadline, your goal is to communicate they missed the deadline. Why add all this other garbage?
I did in fact use the active voice in my example. Although, I would consider that avoiding the word "you" is a good reason to use the passive voice. That said, using the first person as suggested makes using the active voice much easier. People may use it only to protect themselves from consequences, and if so I'd agree when you describe this framing as "weak." We ought to have a good enough reason to give feedback to stand by it, and if not, then we need to be able to admit that. That isn't why I suggest it, though. The reason I use this kind of language is to make the criticism easier to hear and to avoid unnecessary defensiveness.