Handling Feedback
One of the big things that attracted me to Microsoft is what I’d heard about their culture. During my interview loop, the interviewers explained to me what Microsoft does to try to build the careers of each person that works there. And I think it is fairly common knowledge that at Microsoft the communication is direct, clear, and open. Not disrespectful, mind you, or at least it isn’t supposed to be. But if your managers — or even your peers, for that matter — think you’ve made a mistake, or that your approach is wrong, or that you aren’t being effective enough, they will question and challenge you. And you’re expected to do the same, even with your managers.
It’s very refreshing, especially in a social culture that is so different. I don’t know if it is a Utah thing or a Mormon thing, but in most groups around here people don’t communicate this way. Companies I’ve worked for in the past usually pretended to care about my opinion but didn’t, or really weren’t interested in what I had to say. Or they would openly make it clear that they actively believed that my opinion was worthless. I yearned for a place that valued every opinion, and I found it at Microsoft. I love that.
It’s not all roses, though.
Hearing feedback about how to improve at your job isn’t too hard to take. That’s just stuff like a suggestion about a design pattern that will help you solve a problem you’re facing, or someone pointing out to you that your implementation is not threadsafe and suggesting how to address it. Even when the feedback urges you a little out of your comfort zone, for example to confront someone about a concern, it isn’t that bad.
It’s much harder when the feedback you get is telling you that you have to change something that is just a part of who you are.
The first type of feedback doesn’t even have to do with you personally. It’s just coaching on how you do your job. You aren’t your job (or at least you shouldn’t be). The second type of feedback might have a little to do with you, but it is more about encouraging you to improve on something you already want to improve on anyway.
The last type is the type I got last week. I won’t go into any details on it, but the general summary of it is this: ”There’s a handful of character flaws, inherent in your personality, that you need to overcome in order to move forward in your career.”
Or to rephrase: I was good enough as I am now to get my current position, but I’m not good enough as I am now to move ahead.
Truth is, we all need to learn to take feedback like that. It’s all about becoming the best version of ourselves. Nobody on this earth is perfect, so we all have things to improve on. But when it isn’t your skillset or your approach but your lifelong self that isn’t good enough, wow. I’m gonna have to dig deep to learn to deal with that.
