Little rooms
By: Vijetha Rao
Tags: Management, Appraisal, Manager, Introvert

A brightly lit small room with enough space for a tiny table and two chairs facing each other. The chilly room made me want to wrap my arms around myself but I stopped at just rubbing my palms. The warmth could take me through for a few more minutes of this anguish. I wished I had stopped to get that hot coffee. I swallowed to overcome my dry throat and mustered up the courage to stand up, squeeze myself through the narrow space between the table and the wall and stretch out to place my hand on the shoulder of the girl sobbing on the other side.

It was that time of the year. The time when the Gods bestow upon the chosen few a strange power with which you can judge another person if they have been good or bad and decide if you ought to grant him or her your good graces or toss at this suspecting subject, the rubies of unsought guidance. No, I was not playing Santa at the mall! I was in my slick corporate office and trudging through the appraisal season as the appraiser and my fellow occupant in the room, the appraisee.

Merriam Webster in its definition of the word “appraise” includes this -

‘especially: to give an expert judgment of the value or merit of ‘.

Essentially, we are endowing a person with this power of judgement and also believe it to be coming from an ‘expert’. Are all the people performing these appraisals experts? And what are they really supposed to be experts on? Is it the product, the service, technology involved or the processes governing it all or experts at being able to judge the worth of an individual’s performance, strengths and weaknesses? Or is it all of the above?

The common perspective if we were to ask a sample set would perhaps be ‘None of the above’. Even a manager who is doing these appraisals would probably have the same thing to say about his/her manager — ‘She knows nothing about what I am doing’. While this is a common perception and has provided fodder for a vast number of jokes regarding corporate life in general, it is rarely that we hear about what this friend (or not) of ours, the appraiser has to say about it all.

Having been in the technical side of things since the time I began my career in the software industry, a manager’s job was not something that I especially looked up to. I had often associated it with people who were interested to wield a sense of authority, had not much technical involvement and more importantly someone who loved to talk to people, participated in “fun events” and enjoyed it. I had none of these qualities or interests. As I traversed through my career, at some point I faced the prospect of taking up a management role. A list of qualities demonstrated in my capacity as a technical lead were stated which apparently made me a good candidate for it. Although reluctant at first, I eventually decided to take it up. Perhaps my seniors were able to convince me of these abilities that I possessed unknown to me. However, I have often wondered if all that persuasion was because I was being terrible on my technical job and they had to push me onto something else.

A few months into this job and I found myself in that cold room with one of my team members, doing the one thing which I perhaps hated the most of that job. It was the first time that I had faced the predicament of having to console an adult in my professional capacity. I tried to remember when was the last time I had to comfort someone at all. Certainly, it was not the job description that I had signed up for but apathy was not the route I desired either. This would not be the last of these occurrences too. Tears, anger, angst, envy, resentment, disappointment, self-awareness, gratification, joy, trust — some of the human emotions that I would go on to experience along with my fellow occupants of these tiny rooms spread across these smart inanimate buildings.

As someone who gets drained out by the mere thought of having a conversation with anyone who is not a regular on my interaction periphery, a job as a people manager was not an ideal choice. It is much like the experience a person who has never cooked anything ever has while making that first dish — measuring everything twice, checking the timer with every turn and stirring it incessantly, all the while anticipating a burnt dish. I was essentially this novice cook trying to find my way through these conversations, all the while monitoring and treading with extreme caution with the fear of faltering.

Having been a technical lead for some time until then, giving feedback to people was not new. What was new was the content of the feedback. As a technical lead the focus of the feedback is mostly limited to technical skill set and ways of working. There are cases of people seeking professional advice but it is largely around what are the skills that he/she need to pursue to further their career — technical and self-development. Also, the person receiving the feedback knows that you are not directly evaluating them for that grade or number at the end of the year or going to be a participant in the financial plan of their household. If you are worth your salt in your technical skills, there is a feeling that the feedback you share is honest and a level of trust in this transaction. It is a world which is governed by — ‘Trust first, test later’

As a people manager, the notion shifts since there is a level of skepticism and guard that builds up on both sides, irrespective of the actions of the other. Also, the parameters here are vastly different and far too many ranging from professional advice and discontent to personal challenges and personality development. There could be someone on your team who has not just social anxiety but also fear of speaking up about their own work. The same demons you are fighting! You know where we are heading — ‘Test first, trust later’. Trust is also a deeply personal emotion and not an easy one to develop even in your personal relationships, let alone professional. This can be particularly challenging for someone (or at least me) who has social anxiety to be able to connect at this level.

Um, how was I persuaded for this again?

In the initial days of this change, I treated it as a job that needed to be done and for which I was being paid for. It was not like a switch that you can turn on and start feeling comfortable but whether or not practice makes one perfect, it sure helped to smooth out some of the spikes. Each such conversation helped me to learn one new perspective, grasp one new emotion better and know how to reciprocate it better. It sure does benefit that each interaction brings you closer to the person and move from being a mere acquaintance to someone more regular on that social circle. The notes that I needed to remember certain elements about an individual moved from the paper to the mind and the discussions more organic, at least for me. There were a lot of instances where I actually started to enjoy the talk and it very naturally moved to being more casual, where it was more of a stress buster than inducer.

There are countless management guides and pointers which list how feedback should be given and how your 1-on-1’s should be structured. But once you start a conversation, you realize that all those feedback models help you only as much as that recipe on paper you started with. I had started with looking at seasoned cooks at work and then referred to the recipes along the way. But there were some things that I realized I needed to alter considering that I was working with different utensils and the same recipe may not yield the same results.

Hear! Hear!

We often hear the phrases — ‘Don’t hear but listen’, ‘Listen to understand and not to react’. These are great instructions and not so difficult for an introvert to practice. As I practiced this, there was one more thing I observed — the intervening pauses and silences are as important. I do not recollect if the pauses we had was because I was zoned out by the boring talk at some point (that can happen too) or because I was trying to come up with something intelligent to say. I would imagine it was both. Regardless of the cause, the result was that pause gave an impression for the other person that his part of the conversation was not done yet. And usually, it was then that some of the unprepared points were made and these often revealed a lot more.

So, I would say — ‘Listen. Listen more without speaking during those pauses and then listen some more to hear the unsaid too’.

I understand.

Charlie Harper on Two and a Half Men said in one of the earlier episodes — When I say, “I understand”, it doesn’t mean I understand. It doesn’t mean I agree. It doesn’t even mean I’m listening.

The last part of that quote removed (c’mon, I just talked about listening); this is one of the very few things that Charlie Harper said on that show that resonated with me. A lot of times in the conversation I realized that the person you are with actually knows that you do not (or could not) agree with what they were saying. Also, there were situations where you cannot solve the problem that they are talking about but they chose to still bring it up. Why? Was it a whine?

Sometimes, yes. But also, a large number of times, it was just to be able to get it off their mind and out there. What did they want? For me to listen and acknowledge. I realized empathizing does not mean that you agree with what the other person is saying. It means that you are able to acknowledge the way the person feels and are offering your time to listen and perhaps try to find a solution or a way forward for it.

A trip down memory lane…

This one time I asked a colleague of mine if she was back at her home in Mysore after her trip and she told me that her home was in Bangalore which was about 150 km apart and hoped she would continue to stay there. While she might have felt anywhere between being amused to annoyed, I was mortified.

Remembering your past conversations with the person whether they are the ones related to work or also the casual ones are imperative in general but also a savior if you find conversations hard, since it provides a conversation starter. Asking about how the kid of your colleague has adapted to his new school is as important as asking about the project deadlines. It is also important then to remember what you spoke about in your last discussions. It might not be best asking how the kid has adapted to school if it is a 1-year-old that you are talking about.

As a matter of fact

There was once that I had to share a not-so-pleasant feedback to one of my team members, received from another senior colleague. I was to realize it later that the facts which were shared as feedback were in fact impressions. This is especially difficult because a lot of times our facts and truths are based on our context and conjectures. And sadly enough, not every action is quantifiable.

However, my learning was to try and base it as much as possible on your observations and if not, let the person know what instances that you are basing your feedback on. Along with moving the conversation to a more constructive mode, it moved in the zone of being more factual than abstract.

Also, if you realize you had got it wrong all this while — Apologize.

All’s well that ends well

360-degree, 180-degree, 0-degree — The strange marriage of geometry and HR management. There are probably a lot of different modes and degrees of feedback that the kind HR folks have invented. I had both filled and received these feedback forms but a lot of times these happened to be just forms with 5 correct answers.

At the end of every one-on-one conversation, I practiced to always ask for feedback about me. The fact that you want feedback from the people you work with is a no brainer. The fringe benefit of this is that a lot of times you get to know of things that you did unintentionally but it actually helped someone or vice versa and brought out a different perspective.

Am I fully comfortable now to have these conversations? Not really. There are still the conversations where someone is tearing up about a decision you made or is bitter and has some unkind words to say. But it is important to also remember that breaking out of your introversion does not mean becoming a people pleaser. It is about being able to have difficult conversations and not fold up while doing it. It is about building that trust in yourself and for that person across the table to have that conversation in that little room.

One of the people on my earlier team reached out to me some days back. He wanted to have a chat and to know my opinion on something that was troubling him. At the end of our conversation, he said that it made him feel better.

I do not know if the conversation made him feel better but it sure did bring me joy, albeit outside the little room.