One of the things that I have always struggled with is confrontation. I don’t necessarily mean about really big, deal-breaker things, but I mean about sharing any type of “constructive feedback” to people that is ultimately not a compliment. You never know how they are going to receive the feedback. You never know if they will really understand or hear, even if you state it, that your intentions are positive, and you just want them to be the best version of themselves. Oftentimes, people will hear constructive feedback as a personal attack or a tear-down of who they are, take it really personally, get defensive, and just shut down. I think we’ve all been there, and it never feels good. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized exactly how important it is to be honest and forth right about constructive feedback, even when it’s difficult. It benefits the relationship in the long run. It’s transparent. It’s not passive aggressive. It’s direct. We ALL need to work on being more direct with each other, while also not being total assholes.
On my team, we actually had a “taking and giving feedback” session at our offsite last month. It was very introspective, and it was also a practice in… just being a damn adult. But it probably was needed because like most organizations, our company is full of people who clearly cannot handle getting feedback from their colleagues. A colleague of mine who I’ve worked with for over 4.5 years was sending me really passive aggressive Slack messages yesterday. He was insinuating that an email I had sent to a customer was going out of my swim lane and that he was “concerned” that I was not aligned with him on roles and responsibilities. I re-read his messages a few times, compared it to the benign, friendly email thread I had with the customer, and felt very confused. He was clearly overreacting, and I have a feeling it’s because of pressure on him to hit his number this year as a sales person, especially since he missed it last year. So I very directly told him over Slack that I found his commentary counterproductive, that I had done nothing out of bounds, that my manager was aligned with my approach, and I would appreciate it he could get on a call with me to talk this through.
Instead of looking back on what he said and reflecting on our interaction and wondering why I would react this way, he instead shut me down and said, “If you don’t like my approach, then you can talk to (your manager), who can talk to (my manager), who can then address it with me. I’d like to avoid this type of confrontation in the future. Thanks.” He also made excuses about being “too busy” to get on a five minute call with me for the rest of the week.
The way I read that message from his side is: I’m a late 40s/early 50s-year hold grown man who is incapable of receiving direct feedback from peers or being introspective at all about areas where I could potentially be wrong. I would prefer that you tattle on me to your mommy, who can then discuss with my mommy, and then my mommy can determine whether I get a punishment or not.
I responded with, “I think that after 4.5 years of working together and given that we’re both adults that we should be comfortable enough to give each other direct feedback. If that is not the case, then clearly there is a disconnect between us.”
Work doesn’t have to be awful if your colleagues aren’t awful. But it’s in moments like this where I wonder how people get older and never really grow up?