## Tech has a Toxic Tone Problem — Let’s Fix It!
When it comes to communication, especially involving engineers, tech has a toxic tone problem. I know because I’ve not only been surrounded by it for the past decade, but during less enlightened moments, I’ve contributed to it.

Just to be clear, by [_tone_](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tone), I am referring to the “attitude expressed by the words that someone uses in speaking or writing,” and by [_toxic_](http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/16-057_d45c0b4f-fa19-49de-8f1b-4b12fe054fea.pdf), I mean “harmful to an organization, including either its property or people.”

Software engineers are not generally known for their stellar communication skills. Many reasons have been proposed to explain this phenomenon: the possession of specialized knowledge, the amount of time spent with computers compared to human beings, the personality types that traditionally lean toward programming, etc. Most of these potential reasons are problematic—the last one is especially stereotypical—and _none_ of them excuses engineers from acting like decent human beings to those around them.

Poor communication by engineers is not a new phenomenon. Gerald Weinberg wrote this back in 1971’s [_The Psychology of Computer Programming_](http://www.worldcat.org/title/psychology-of-computer-programming/oclc/216809):

> It is possible to be too smart for programming — if the person is not smart enough to use his intelligence to modify his social behavior and methods of conversation.

In addition to crippling a team’s productivity, these communication issues discourage people from pursuing engineering and also discourage existing engineers from participating in the social activities of programming, e.g. asking and answering Stack Overflow questions and contributing to open source. **Therefore, improving the communication surrounding programming is essential to creating a more inclusive development community.**

In order to address the problem, we must seek to understand it. I’ve observed that the tone problem comes in three common varieties. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, and engineers are not the only people who experience these communication issues.

The toxic tone generally presents as a condescending tone, a robotic tone, or a pessimistic tone—or some deliciously toxic tone cocktail containing all of them.

## The Condescending Tone
When you gain any sort of technical skill, you come to possess specialized knowledge that others around you may lack. Unfortunately, learning a technical skill doesn’t necessarily come pre-packaged with the ability to communicate effectively with those who lack this skill. A common result? In discussions with others, your inability to empathize with those who don’t share your understanding can make you seem like a condescending jerk.

Did you ever see Jimmy Fallon’s hilarious [Nick Burns: Your Company’s Computer Guy](http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/nick-burns-your-companys-computer-guy/n11268) sketch on Saturday Night Live? While Nick may technically be a fictional I.T. professional and not a real-life programmer, his behavior, caricatured as it may be, is a surprisingly accurate portrayal of the condescending tone that pervades tech.

I’ve listened over the years as colleagues called other engineers or interview candidates “idiots” who “couldn’t program their way out of a paper bag.” I’ve seen the eye rolls when junior engineers ask questions. I’ve heard the judgmental comments about bootcamp grads or self-taught programmers.

You can also see it in the way many engineers talk to and about employees working in marketing, sales, product, and customer service. It’s especially apparent when an engineer labels someone as “non-technical” to dismiss their input, which, incidentally, is one of the reasons I think we should [ditch that term altogether](https://medium.com/@Aprilw/if-you-can-use-a-fork-youre-technical-352e21d92c87).

The condescending behavior is not always so blatant, though. Let’s look at a subtler example. Someone [asked the Stack Overflow community](http://stackoverflow.com/q/13744450) for help understanding the difference between _Observer_ and _Observable_ because even after time spent searching online, the individual was still struggling. Here was the top-rated answer with over 100 votes:

> I'm not sure I know how to spell it out in plainer English.
> You have the definition above. It's two sentences. Not much to digest, even if you have to read it ten times.

The distinction between the terms seemed so clear to the person answering the question that he couldn’t imagine how someone possibly needed “plainer English” in order to understand. I wonder how the original response made the question submitter feel. I can’t imagine it made the individual feel supported or more confident. I know from the [ensuing discussion on Twitter](https://twitter.com/loooorenanicole/status/745685279940411396) that people who had just stumbled across the exchange found it disturbing.

Luckily the Twitter discussion seems to have inspired someone else in the community to edit the answer, removing the condescending preamble to an otherwise helpful response. If only the community as a whole valued kindness enough to cast their upvotes accordingly!

The attitude behind any case of condescending tone is essentially, “I know something that everyone else around me doesn’t, and my superiority exempts me from showing them my full respect.”

This is a dangerous attitude. It’s reminiscent of Raskolnikov’s “superman” complex in [_Crime and Punishment_](http://www.worldcat.org/title/crime-and-punishment/oclc/27188192). He sees himself as above the laws of decency governing the rest of humanity, which enables him to commit murder.

We may not be dealing with behavior that extreme, but it’s still not healthy for our development teams. As Sarah Mei, founder of RailsBridge, [has said](https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/673599699819958273):

> Anti-social behavior in any employee invisibly & silently costs you money - WAY more money than their extraordinary productivity gains you.

## The Robotic Tone
This is a message my dear grandmother once left in a flat tone on our answering machine when I was a child. There was no emotional verbiage to delay getting to the point, just an efficient statement of fact. I like to think I got my directness from her.

Unfortunately, not everyone appreciates this emotionless directness. We tell the computer very directly what to do, and it complies. It’s a beautifully efficient and logical process, and it’s probably what drew many of us to engineering in the first place.

For better or worse, people are not the same way. We can’t just share facts directly with no consideration for how they’ll be received—I mean, we can, but then we get labeled as “abrasive” or “blunt” ( _trust_ me). If you talk to humans as if they’re machines, most people are not going to enjoy working with you.

## The Pessimistic Tone
The last toxic tone is the pessimistic tone. I’ll start by saying that I believe a healthy amount of skepticism is important on any team, so that is not the problem.

The problem is when nearly _every_ creative new idea or tool or approach is shot down, usually by an embittered senior engineer who’s “seen it all before” and thinks it’s all terrible.

“That won’t work.”

“That won’t scale.”

“That new tool is just as bad as the old one.”

For some reason, engineers often belong to a group that former USC President Steven Sample [has called](http://www.worldcat.org/title/contrarians-guide-to-leadership/oclc/47140745) “congenital naysayers.”

**The Future**  
Gerald Weinberg [wrote that](http://www.worldcat.org/title/psychology-of-computer-programming/oclc/216809) back in 1971, and unfortunately, it is still too often the case. I think the time has come to give communication in engineering the attention it deserves.

We may be skilled engineers who love building beautiful masterpieces of software, but can we also be kind, compassionate people who support each other and inspire each other with our words in both spoken and written communication?

I envision a brighter future for tech, where we ditch the toxic tone in all of its varieties and instead embrace a tone that is positive, humble, hopeful, clear, and inviting.