We like to talk a lot about assumptions on this show.
One of the assumptions that you're probably making is that your boss is giving you all of the feedback that you need to improve.
Think about this. So often I hear stories about people who end up getting laid off or end up on a performance improvement plan, or for whatever reason, they get surprised by some action by their company.
Now, setting aside the fact that many companies are indeed practicing performance management in ad hoc and chaotic ways.
There are also opportunities that we often make assumptions about.
We assume that our managers know what they're doing, for example.
We assume that our manager is going to tell us when something didn't go as well as it could have gone.
We assume that our managers are paying attention.
That they are watching us.
That they are watching how we behave in difficult situations.
That they know exactly what we're doing or at least they know all of the good things that we're doing.
These assumptions can come back to bite you.
But I want to give you one simple tool, one question that can shift this dynamic more in your favor.
I'm not saying that it will fix everything, but remember that with any kind of intervention and a lot of the things that we talk about on the show are interventional in nature.
So intervention in this case, what I mean is some kind of change in order to stop a particular situation or or a series of events or to to, you know, change direction.
That's the idea of an intervention, we're intervening, okay?
With any kind of intervention what we care about is a dose -response relationship.
In other words, we want to know what is the, kind of the balance, the ROI, so to speak, because if it takes a lot of effort to accomplish some change, then there may be other better ways to spend that same effort.
All right, so in this particular intervention, I wouldn't say that this is going to fix all of your assumptions about your manager, but it can give you better feedback.
So if all you're doing is waiting for your performance review to get feedback, or if you're hoping that your manager is going to systematically provide you feedback in your one -on -ones, even good managers, don't necessarily do this perfectly all the time.
All right, so here's what I recommend.
There's a mindset here that I'm going to recommend, and then there is a specific tactical question that you can ask your manager to trigger the right kind of thinking processes to get you the feedback you need.
the mindset is that your manager giving you feedback is your responsibility.
What does this mean?
It means that instead of waiting for your manager to pick up the baton and give you feedback, you are going to seek it out.
Getting feedback from other people, if you own that responsibility, you have better incentive alignment to seek that feedback out in the first place.
So if you are responsible, if you take responsibility for gathering the feedback that you need to make the changes for yourself, then any additional feedback that your manager brings to you is only going to enhance that responsibility.
Also, your manager will very likely appreciate this, especially, okay, and this is going back to that kind of dose response, that ROI conversation, your manager will appreciate you asking for feedback as long as you do it in particularly tactful ways.
So the tactical question that I'm gonna give you today, and you can go and ask your manager this almost anytime.
This is more of an advice question, okay?
And that's the framing, that is the difference here.
That's why it makes it a good question to use.
So the question goes like this, what do you think will hold me back from growing?
You can modify this question a little bit.
What do you think will hold me back from getting X promotion, for example?
But if you ask this in an open way, then your manager can choose to interpret this however they want to.
Your manager may come back at you and say, well, what do you mean by growth?
This means that there are potentially multiple answers to this question.
They may have a rich kind of tapestry of feedback to provide to you for different areas, right?
So you can either be very tactical and very specific.
What do you think held me back in that meeting?
Or what do you think has held me back during my onboarding?
Is there an attitude or some other behavior that you think is holding me back?
The key, I guess, differentiator here is that you're asking them not to provide you with event -oriented feedback, how did I do?
But instead, with kind of forward -looking, what's holding me back is advice for what to do going forward. And this is critical, right?
This is critical. It changes the conversation away from the potential negative which is hard to provide to potential positive which is much more energizing to provide.
If you're a leader, if you're a coach, most managers enjoy giving advice, right?
We enjoy looking forward and saying, here's how you can do better in the future.
The things that are holding you back can be translated into what is the linchpin, right?
And you can fill in the blanks.
So take this feedback and try to fill in the blanks.
If they say, well, you know, I think the thing that's holding you back is that you're not speaking up and sharing your your opinion often enough.
or the thing that I think can take you to the next level is right so you can kind of use both of those framings depending on what kind of relationship you have with your manager.
You know what kind of advice do they tend to give you do they tend to focus on behaviors that you've already engaged in or do they tend to focus on of positive coaching or providing you with again affirmative advice or positive advice rather than you know feedback on previous behaviors.
So both of these do have kind of a forward lean, right?
Because even though you're asking about what's holding you back, that the, the intent of that is not to litigate that behavior, but instead to say, Oh, you know I, I assume that you could make it, that you could do well, that you could grow, that you could achieve your goals.
If this was not in the way, right?
So you're looking for roadblocks, that mindset shift can be monumentally different in tone versus saying, can you tell me how I did?
Rate me, judge me, provide me with some kind of objective analysis of my past behaviors.
Instead, you're goal -oriented, right?
Again, this is this is about a framing that can give your manager the opportunity to provide advice rather than judgment.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Developer Tee.
If you try this out, please let me know.
You can email me at developertee at gmail .com.
You can also send a message in the Discord community.
That's developertee .com slash discord. Thanks so much for listening.
And until next time, enjoy your Tee.
