How to professionally say
Hey Akash,<p>I like the idea of giving people some help expressing themselves at work. You might be interested to learn about the Power Distance Index, and the body of work on PDI and work culture.<p>You’ll see if you read the comments here that some people are like “the alternatives are bullshit corporate speak and infuriate me”, and some are like “yes, at last, a way to help people be more polite / better communicators”. There’s a smattering of “this is passive aggressive” thrown in.<p>One of the broad pitches PDI at work types make is that the lower the PDI, the more direct communications are preferred; the higher, the more ‘diplomatic’ the communications are preferred. My vibe on your list is that it’s just a tad more diplomatic than Silicon Valley wants to be, hence the slight negative ‘passive aggressive’ reactions.<p>Some of the lowest PDI countries in the world are Israel, and many Northern European countries, and it fits my experience that in those places additional respect is given for bluntness - as Jan Maas in Ted Lasso says “I’m not rude, I’m Dutch.” As a broad stereotype using the alternate wordings you give would be a sign you are not someone to be respected in that environment.<p>On the other hand, Saudi Arabia’s PDI is high, and I would bet that some of your alternate list there would still be much too rude; just a guess, I haven’t worked in Saudi.<p>Anyway, thanks again for this; if you stay interested, you might consider reworking this into different ‘cultural norms’ lists to help people acclimate / go both ways; at that point, I think it would be a very broadly useful resource.