So...I just had one of the most emotional work conversations ever. In the end, it was a really good conversation but it was hard to hear. I just found out what my superiors think of my performance. I knew that I have been going "down hill" at my job ever since my old boss (Larry) left the company. I worked really well with him. I never worked well with the boss I was put with after Larry left. I started talking to my new boss (Greg) about a program that I have been put on. It is new to me and I needed some clarification on my role in the program. I am supposed to be the lead and am working with another guy on it. This other guy thinks that he is the lead. So I talked with Greg about it. Wow did that open a can of worms. We ended up talking for almost an hour.
The short version is that Greg is going to bat for me with his supervisors who don't think much of me. They think that I am letting everyone else do my work for me. They think that I am depending too much on going to other people to help me figure things out instead of doing it on my own. They are getting ready to do some shuffling around in the groups and were surprised to learn that Greg wanted to keep me in his group. They don't think that he can get me to perform better. Greg backed me up. He does agree that I have taken some steps back but he understands better than most why that is. He wants me to take a lead role in my programs and is willing to take a chance and encourage me to do that. I told him about my years of therapy and about how one of my biggest challenges is admitting that I don’t know the answer to something. He told me that he understood that but he wanted to help me come up with a better way to deal with that than just blurting out to people that I don't know what the answer is. Basically he wants me to prove to the uppers that I am a leader and that I can do the job. He has told me that he wants to help and encourage me to improve how I am perceived by others. And he asked me to help him do that by taking the small carrot that they have given me and running with it.
The most frustrating part of this is that I thought it was a good thing that I was going to the experts in this field and asking them questions. I was moved into this group 2 years ago and the parts that they work on are similar but different than anything else I had ever worked on. So I did what most people do, I asked lots of questions from supervisors and coworkers who had been working on these parts for 10+ years. They had the experience. Why would I want to reinvent the wheel and go through the growing pains that they have already gone though? But I guess that made me look weak in their eyes. Oh well….you live and you learn.
I think the hardest part is that in my therapy to help myself I have found out that the person I was 2 years ago isn’t who I want to be anymore. I was a person who cared more about being a person I thought everyone else wanted me to be…instead of being myself. I had so many “masks” up that very few people knew who I really was. Over the last 2 years, I have spent a lot of time taking these masks down. I am so much happier with myself now and I’m much more satisfied with how I react to situations. But my new supervisor says that he is looking for me to be more how I was years ago. More assertive and more argumentative. I used to argue about anything just to prove my point to the detriment of not listening to other ideas. Apparently, this is what they want from me again. I will need to come up with a better way to do this than going back to my “old ways”. There is going to have to be some trial and error for me. I need to find a common ground where I am both happy with myself (because that is the most important thing) and where my supervisors think I am doing a good job.
In the end, I have a much better understanding of my new supervisor and want to help him out. And in turn....help myself out.
Now I need to do my part. So I guess this choice of supervisor might not be so bad after all. And even though it was hard to hear...I am glad that he told me what others think about me. I kind of knew but didn't realize to what extent that I was in the hole.
The short version is that Greg is going to bat for me with his supervisors who don't think much of me. They think that I am letting everyone else do my work for me. They think that I am depending too much on going to other people to help me figure things out instead of doing it on my own. They are getting ready to do some shuffling around in the groups and were surprised to learn that Greg wanted to keep me in his group. They don't think that he can get me to perform better. Greg backed me up. He does agree that I have taken some steps back but he understands better than most why that is. He wants me to take a lead role in my programs and is willing to take a chance and encourage me to do that. I told him about my years of therapy and about how one of my biggest challenges is admitting that I don’t know the answer to something. He told me that he understood that but he wanted to help me come up with a better way to deal with that than just blurting out to people that I don't know what the answer is. Basically he wants me to prove to the uppers that I am a leader and that I can do the job. He has told me that he wants to help and encourage me to improve how I am perceived by others. And he asked me to help him do that by taking the small carrot that they have given me and running with it.
The most frustrating part of this is that I thought it was a good thing that I was going to the experts in this field and asking them questions. I was moved into this group 2 years ago and the parts that they work on are similar but different than anything else I had ever worked on. So I did what most people do, I asked lots of questions from supervisors and coworkers who had been working on these parts for 10+ years. They had the experience. Why would I want to reinvent the wheel and go through the growing pains that they have already gone though? But I guess that made me look weak in their eyes. Oh well….you live and you learn.
I think the hardest part is that in my therapy to help myself I have found out that the person I was 2 years ago isn’t who I want to be anymore. I was a person who cared more about being a person I thought everyone else wanted me to be…instead of being myself. I had so many “masks” up that very few people knew who I really was. Over the last 2 years, I have spent a lot of time taking these masks down. I am so much happier with myself now and I’m much more satisfied with how I react to situations. But my new supervisor says that he is looking for me to be more how I was years ago. More assertive and more argumentative. I used to argue about anything just to prove my point to the detriment of not listening to other ideas. Apparently, this is what they want from me again. I will need to come up with a better way to do this than going back to my “old ways”. There is going to have to be some trial and error for me. I need to find a common ground where I am both happy with myself (because that is the most important thing) and where my supervisors think I am doing a good job.
In the end, I have a much better understanding of my new supervisor and want to help him out. And in turn....help myself out.
Now I need to do my part. So I guess this choice of supervisor might not be so bad after all. And even though it was hard to hear...I am glad that he told me what others think about me. I kind of knew but didn't realize to what extent that I was in the hole.
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