Found in 1 comment on Hacker News
I disagree with much of the premise and frankly don't think this person should be giving advice. Some of what's in there isn't bad like "be thoughtful about what you say". However, if you already feel something needs to be changed to the point where you're thinking something needs to be said but then you follow the article to force yourself to ask questions like

> “Can I live with this? How much does this bother me? Is it worth giving them feedback and what are my chances of success doing it?”

and doing multiple rounds of this you are compromising with yourself at an early stage. This frequently leads to things escalating (the problem didn't go away and in fact got incrementally worse because there was no negative feedback) which makes it a much harder situation.

This article is also written with examples like, if you don't make small changes to your wording, you'll get responses like "You think I don’t know that I need to give new hires guidance? I obviously gave them guidance. GTFO." which clearly catastrophizes outcomes based on small nuances in your own already inoffensive language.

Feedback is like gardening. Take care of small problems early and gently but relentlessly. If there's a wolf in your garden you should probably do something about the wolf instead of working around the wolf and spending your life in fear, even if that means finding a different garden.

I will recommend the book "The Coward's Guide to Conflict" which helped me get a healthy perspective.

https://www.amazon.com/Cowards-Guide-Conflict-Empowering-Sol...

Fresh book recommendations delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday.