people are best when served with the truth

one of the things Gloria taught me early on was to stop confusing honesty with cruelty. she taught me that protecting someone's ego at the expense of the work does not make me kind, and avoiding difficult conversations only makes the eventual outcome worse. this is one of those lessons i keep coming back to, especially in product and tech. these are her words:

this is business, not personal.

please do not think about someone feeling badly. the reason for this is twofold:

no good decision is made this way, you compromise on tech, and that is bad. the second reason is you don't serve someone well by tippy-toeing around their work, their feelings, etc. this does no good, it just delays the thing that should be said, done, etc. this is true in life, not just in business. people are best when served with the truth.

it's not offensive, it's business. you're not saying her dog is ugly. you're saying that there's a different UX design needed, and her design helped you get there. all good. if she interprets this as her dog being ugly, this is her fault, not yours.

ego cannot be a part of this process.

the best tech and UX decisions have to take precedence over everything else. we all have to be comfortable telling each other when we're wrong. this is so important. how else will we all learn? i absolutely want you to tell me when i am wrong. but i don't even think of this as right and wrong, that's too simple. it's research-based negotiation. i have an opinion, i want people to show me better ways and change my opinion.