You’re Different
I usually take everything that’s written in the Harvard Business Review with a grain of salt, but this piece about “When Your Colleagues Have an Outdated Perception of You” resonated. That’s not only because I think people have had an outdated perception of me in the past, but also because I’ve been guilty more than once of having an outdated perception of someone else and seen people I respect and admire have their career paths impeded due to others having an outdated perception of them.
For example, I recorded a podcast recently with some guys who work with some guys I used to work with. In order to make that happen, we exchanged emails with the customary pleasantries. One of those jokingly closed with “We’re looking forward to having you on. A lot of folks think very highly of you…[but Person A] warned me to avoid you on the basketball court.” As Shakespeare wrote, there is truth in every jest.
Because was I once a competitive monster on the basketball court? I will cop to that.
Am I still? Not as much!
But the perception persists.
As for how this works in the working world, that HBR article relates the story of an entry level employee at a company who grew to manage a team responsible for $22M of revenue, but was still considered unqualified for the role of chief sales officer when it opened up. I had a similar experience in a previous job when I was trying to hire for a role whose primary responsibility would be measuring, reporting, and providing feedback on the performance of others – which therefore required a lot of collaboration and conversation. I identified someone I thought would be perfect for the job, but was warned by his manager that he was too stubborn and single-minded to do well in such a role, citing, when I pressed for information, an experience he’d had 24 months prior (the guy ended up doing great).
A recurring theme this season has been that either you or the world is always moving on. My hope for you is that you’re always moving on and in more interesting and productive directions. A funny thing about that, however, is that even if you are, others may not see or understand the change. To combat that, the article makes two recommendations:
Have a “conversation strategy” with your coworkers that enables you to receive immediate feedback.
Delegate tasks that may make you feel productive, but that you have outgrown.
Now, even if you do that, perceptions of you may linger, but if you’re getting transparent feedback and always seeking out your highest and best use, my experience is that you’ll achieve tremendous personal growth and that the world will catch up to reality eventually. That’s because, as I wrote when I was talking about high-performers, the world is more merit-based, and more people want it to be so, despite injustices, than it appears.
-Tim
