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Ask Slashdot: How To Improve At Work When You're Not Getting Feedback?
An anonymous reader writes: Too many managers avoid giving any kind of feedback, regardless of whether it's positive or negative. If you work for a boss who doesn't provide feedback, it's easy to feel rudderless. It can be especially disorienting if you're new in the role, new to the company, or a recent graduate new to the workforce. In the absence of specific guidance, is there any way to know what the average boss would want you to work on? What would you advise someone who works in IT, engineering, coding, designing or any similar industry?
No feedback means you are awesome and there is no room for improvement. If people have a problem with you it's just that -- their problem. If you are the problem they'll tell you in a clear. actionable and constructive way.
Oddly enough, the stuff I get the most praise for is stuff that I simply started doing because it filled a void that I felt was present. Full disclosure: I have a cool boss.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
If your boss isn't communicating with you, try to communicate with him/her as to what you need and why. Be respectful and open, but direct; you're trying to improve your working relationship. If that doesn't work, move to a department that has a more communicative manager, and failing that, just bail as gracefully as posible. That workplace isn't going to be a good place for you to work in the long run, and life's too short if you have any other choice.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
I once had a sociopath co-worker who broadcast criticism of my work to everybody and their dog. If I did the same back, he had a fit.
Table-ized A.I.
Serious this is an Ask Slashdot? Failing that figure it out yourself. If you can't tell if you're doing a good job at your job, you should probably find one where you can.
Od course, if you're in the Dunning-Kruger regime, a self-evaluation may fail.
I get feedback from Slashdot. For example, as an IT Support contractor who makes $50K+ in Silicon Valley, the feedback I got is: I don't make enough money to afford the American Dream, I'm a moocher because I work in government IT, I'm not a real IT person since didn't graduate from a CS program with $100K in student loans, I'm fat, ugly and retarded, and, worse, I'm not even ashamed of being fat..
The question in your title is pretty stupid. It sounds like you're fishing for praise. It also sounds like you're dependant on being micromanaged. It's like asking "How was I?" after sex. If you're any good you should have an idea how good you are. I think it's better to discuss how the task at hand is getting ahead.
Your manager many be busy and just doesn't have the time? Maybe the manager is hands off and trusts you to fill your own voids? (very possible if you are a knowledge worker) Just because they are your boss doesn't mean you have to reduce everything that could be possibly interpreted as something negative to be just that (although in a lot of situations you would be right in doing so). If you care to check, you will find that the world doesn't revolve around you and that managers are people at the end of the day, they are not omniscient. On the other end of the scale, constant feedback can be a symptom of micro managing...be careful what you wish for.
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In my experience (both personal and looking at other people), there are three reasons why a manager/supervisor won't provide feedback:
1. They are incompetent.
2. They don't want you/don't know what to do with you and just wish you would go away.
3. They are psychopaths and don't want there to be a papertrail showing that you a) succeeded without/despite them or b) failed because they don't know what they are doing (see point 1.).
Sorry for being so harsh but I've had 1. & 3. as managers and seen lots of people with 2.
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The hard thing is to actually get from your boss why he is not communicating with you. All these answer of just quit and get another job seems like the easy way out. What if you like your job? But If you actually sit down with your boss and get a full picture of the situation you might be able to get a better idea what's going on and find a solution. Could be a million things, maybe he/she is too busy, stressed with his own problems, fed up and trying to get another job, partner left them, lost a loved one. Who knows, only way is to sit down, talk with them and try to get a straight answer or figure it out by reading their reactions/moods. From my experience, remember you work with these people never make the mistake of thinking they are your friends. Because you might end up in a situation where they start abusing that "friend" relationship. But you also don't want to seem like a dick since you have to see them at least 40 hours a week and its better to get along and have a good working relationship and environment.
Good feedback is great when it is given, but don't wait for it. You should always be trying to improve your current skills and obtaining new skills. (bow-staff skills, nun-chuck skills...) This doesn't have to be done in the work environment, you can (and should) be learning things on your own. There are a myriad supply of books and websites available. Don't forget about co-workers. They have a wealth of knowledge. Some of them are even excited to share that knowledge. There is no need to wait for someone to give you feedback.
I do fabrication drawings for corporate theater, and more, sets.
So I do a drawing and when I get done, I'm then given direction other than what I drew.
I once worked with a Project Manager that would intentionally produce work order for the shop that had errors. He told me it gets the shop to think.
Moral of the story, if you are not getting feedback Do it wrong and you'll get feedback.
Then you'll be wishing you had the guy who didn't give you feedback. I really don't know what to say about not knowing what to do. It may be a good opportunity to look for things to do on your own. Be warned that sometimes when you open your mouth on this kind of thing, it can backfire on your spectacularly. Your manager may decide that you're "special" and suddenly be all over your workplace all the time because they conclude that you can't work otherwise. Your manager may decide that if you don't know what to work on, maybe they don't really need you at all. You could be perceived as a troublemaker. I'm sure there are some other bad scenarios that could happen besides those.
Manager feedback can be hit or miss. My current manager is pretty good to give useful feedback. I had a manager once when working for the US government who didn't and all she did was give the highest ratings in the office to her friends in the office. Everybody else fought over the scraps as we had an employee evaluation that was point limited for the office, so if 2 people get the highest possible rating, everybody else gets closer to average. If you need priorities then asking a manager "Should I work on A or B now?" is fine. Asking a manager for feedback who isn't giving it to you is risky as I said earlier.
You should always be looking at ways to improve what you are doing without feedback. A good boss helping you along is a nice luxury but I think the expectation for most senior folks is that they do this for themselves.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Casually drop a reference to this song by Joan Armitrading: When I Get It Right (the mtv version) / alternate with lyrics.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
You need to be working on what your boss wants you to be working on. That is the point of being an employee.
If your boss is not giving you anything to work on, why are you going to work? What are you doing with your days?
If you have down time and want a side project, ask your boss what else you can be working on. If they do not have anything for you to do, then find something and ask them if they think it would be valuable to the company for you to work on it.
>>This seems like the kind of topic that has been popping up here more recently. It is like someone in management decided we, "We need an opinion question to keep the few people left on the site engaged." This one just seems particularly bad.
and either automate them or hand them off to junior employees. Use that to free up time in your day for more technical/valuable/interesting projects. When those projects are done hand them off or automate them and move on to the next project. Meanwhile watch out for other teams trying to hand simple/repetitive work to your team :). There's no better way to lose your job to an outsourcer than to take on simple, repetitive work.
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In IT jobs you are basically junior, [no designation], then senior at "something". Sometimes years, decades after that you might be a lead in your role, if the wind favors you (e.g. C++ Lead). Lead is basically the guy between management and the lower ranks of a particular team - someone being introduced to the management BS that still has a soft touch for instilling the BS on the team. Then maybe manager in-between, but eventually you get another a horizontally displaced title, such as "Build Master", "Systems architect", "IT Manager", "QA Supervisor", "Product Lead" (not your normal lead), or even "Client Relationships" - yes, eventually you can get to stop coding when you move up and sideways of the corporate structure.
The thing is: there is nothing else other than static or weather-prone progress. You go through the 3 junior/standard/senior stages automatically with time, but not fixed time since the company might simply not be in the mood to improve low-rank salaries. More commonly in our industry, you also do this with a job hop. The same can be said for the other steps, just a lot harder. The hopping part becomes essential for the last vertical jumps, unless you're really good on your craft or really lucky. But you either are good, or you find you are good because you never tried; you don't really progress in something you have done for 2-3 years or so - there is no technology that allows for such mastering, that is for fields such as medicine, philosophy and metaphysics. In IT you learn new stuff, you don't complement the old one.
In IT, learning is not progress: learning is learning (think of it like filling up memory with a different dataset - it's more data, for a different purpose) - every year that passes you gain experience but not real ability - so unless you're gonna be doing the 2 things at once, you're only just changing what you do with something you're more novice at - you don't really get to be your old you and the new one doing the crafts you know and the crafts you just learned.
So all in all, the only feedback you need is the one that tells you "I'm learning, thus I'm improving, and eventually I can force myself to a better position wherever I'm at or at a new employer". Better here is you either liking it more or making more money - just that.
With this set, if you still crave for feedback, you're really craving for praise more than guidance, and even the guidance you get is one that better suits others' needs and not yours - all you need is to learn the role you want to have, and eventually MAKE someone give that role to you. If you wanna ask for feedback, ask for new responsibilities and you'll get everything you asked and then some.
And yes, if you're negged, it's gonna suck. But that's life.
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If needed, insist. Unless you can read thoughts, there is no other way. If that still fails, look for another job.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
they are probably assembling a case to fire you. get a lawyer.
I've read articles in the recent past detailing the "generational divide" in bigger workplaces where you have the Millenials, the Xers and the baby boomers all sharing the same environment. The articles I've read seem to indicate that Millenials need much more constant feedback than previous generations. I wonder if that's part of it, and whether older managers are having trouble keeping up with the new pace.
The workplace I'm at currently skews older, but we do have some new grads coming in every couple of years. Since we're all older types who've been around the black a few times, the traditional management "tricks" that work on younger people tend to be less accepted. But, since Google and GE have switched to continuous feedback now, we're doing it too. It used to be one performance conversation a year plus one mid-year checkup...now the dream is that both the employee and manager keep a running journal in their HR files about performance, etc. The reality is that we're so short-staffed that none of it gets done anymore.
No feedback at all for any generation is bad though. There are so many companies where the only hope of advancement is the management track, and so there are a lot of ill-suited managers. Often, you end up being the best at doing the actual work in your department, then you're taken out of it into a completely different world. Some people get the hang of it, and others just freeze - I've worked for both, and I've frozen when promoted.
Rather than ask your manager about your performance, ask your manager about his (or her) goals. Make sure you understand the scope of your role if achieving these goals is a combined effort. Then, try to make the goals happen. If it's possible, make it really easy for management to learn (perhaps without talking to you) the specifics about how you plan to spend your time in the future. That way, you can understand not being redirected as approval. The information about where your efforts are succeeding or falling short may be equally as available to you as to your manager, so unless you really have difficulty evaluating it, you many not need managerial input. In my experience, employers really like it if you're the person they don't have to think about.
"In the absence of specific guidance, is there any way to know what the average boss would want you to work on?"
Take a look at what you think your company needs, and in particular focus on areas where productivity can be enhanced with the least effort. Then, do the opposite.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
While I get the occasional "great job" from management at my job, that kind of feedback is largely meaningless. In order to give good feedback, you have to actually be *knowledgeable* in the field in question. In the case of programming, you actually have to review the code and understand it, including design and testing patterns, etc. In my company, that has never happened. No one ever looks at the code I produce, and there are only two other people who could even make sense of it. I think this is a huge problem.
The check is all the feedback I need
Not every manager is a "good" manager. My present manager, for example, is obviously inexperienced, having bullshitted his way through the interview (he's good at that). In cases like these, attempts to work with them are almost always met with some resistance; more out of their own insecurity. I've seen people placed in positions like this that have absolutely NO business there, yet they get hired.
Trying to "manage up" can also have mixed results.
A good manager has decent people skills and thinks in terms of their subordinates perspectives as well as departmental goals. No feedback is never a good idea from a manager.
Another factor I find really odd in this design is when performance reviews come along. Reviews are always a top-down process, but you never see a manager (especially a new one) getting performance feedback from his subordinates. Now imagine...
So basically I agree with what many people here have said. But when you get stuck with an inexperienced manager, you have your work cut out for you -- and if you happen to have one of these who is insecure, be cautious of retaliatory behavior.
You threaten to shoot people who debate better than you. When this is pointed out, you are still not the victim.
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Have I Threatened To Shoot You Today?
https://www.kickingthebitbucket.com/2017/03/21/have-i-threatened-to-shoot-you-today/
"Improve" in the sense of working for an employer means better meeting the employer's expectations. If the employer is not providing expectations or feedback, you are trying to be clairvoyant which is not possible. One of my parents was like this. They would expect me to do things a certain way or at certain times but never inform me of that except by severely punishing me for not reading their minds. That's a toxic situation.
My advice, unless your employer doesn't question your performance and you can do whatever you like, leave. During the exit interview tell HR this is the main reason you are leaving. Hopefully they will take the feedback to heart but often employers don't because they are more often than not egotistical and believe they are infallible not open to criticism.
Just so you know, there is a cognitive bias whereby people think that everyone thinks the same and therefore they ought to arrive at the same conclusions, you know the "right" and "only" ones because you know there is a right way and everything is the wrong way (black and white thinking). They can't compute why someone wouldn't arrive at the "right way" independently other than there is something wrong with you and you are defective in some way. These people have the emotional intelligence skills of a rock and you don't want to work for them or be in any kind of dealing with them. They will make you miserable.
We'll make great pets
Keep learning everything you possibly can. Start with the skills you use most at work and start improving them. As you do this try and be self aware about where your own faults are. Keep making a fool of yourself in meetings? Maybe your communication skills should be worked on next. In the absence of feedback remember this: if you were doing an absolutely horrible job there would have been feedback. You can also talk to your co-workers and see if they have suggestions for you.
I have personally fielded this question from my team. On that occasion, I reminded them that when I say, "great job", I mean it, and when I say, "You missed this one, lets try $colleague's idea this time." I am not just being a persnickety asshole boss, I am providing feedback, and directing a project.
(I think) At least half the problem today is that the younger generation no longer hears the real praise from their superiors for what it is, because they've spent their lives hearing these things for simply meeting the standard. I don't pass out high fives at the water cooler for showing up to work on time, but I do pass-out pitchers of beer and pizza when we complete a project within spec and on-time.
When you're late on your side of the hardware, and the whole team is off grumbling between themselves while doing make-work for other departments, I'm going to point out a few things you may want to do differently next time. I'm going to remind you that this is not the way we roll around here. And I'm going to ask you if you think somebody else would have been a better fit for your responsibilities. Again this is not me being a dick boss, it's feedback, and guidance.
If I see a problem with the way things are being done, the way you carry yourself, or the way resources are being applied, it's my job to fix it. Part of that job is making those responsible aware of the problem, as well as solicit solutions from them and avoid these problems on future projects. On Thursday, when I *ask* you to change the shirt you've been wearing since Monday, I am not *coming down on you*, or *being a dick boss*, but providing clear direction. If you're so dense you have to ask me why, (this has happened) I'm going to tell you the odor is distracting, and the catchup stain on the collar is annoying as hell. This is the feedback that is remembered. THIS is what he will tell his spouse tonight over dinner, and this is what he is going to remember when review time comes around.
Unfortunately, "Team, we did it again, $client loves our work, and word is they are already bidding our next project. Wonderful work guys, keep this shit up. Anybody wanna join me after work this Friday at $pizzajoint? My treat...." Is considered standard for every project. It aint, It's positive feedback, as well as opportunity to debrief, and decompress, as well as for one on one time with me, over a beer, as friends and colleagues; instead of boss and subordinate.
My boss is counting on me to both guide the teams project to completion, and keep my guys happy. I try to do both. If I don't, he's gonna ask me why not, and provide a few suggestions himself (misguided as they may be) That does not mean I'm on the hook to present a gold medal for meeting the standard, high school was a long time ago.
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If you're any good you should have an idea how good you are.
Most people overrate themselves. Very very few people understand their weaknesses and correctly prioritise addressing them. Most people are insecure.
"Hey, you're doing great, we really value you. Of course you can work from home half the time, your contribution is very visible anyway." makes an employee feel great. Adding, "You've said you want to take this next step in your career, and I was thinking some practice on these skills would really take you forward" makes a manager feel great too.
Some managers need helping to do either piece. So step one about improving on feedback: Learn how to ask for it!
sounds like you're dependent on being micromanaged
Or perhaps they're so pro-active and autonomous that they recognise the need to confirm they're still focusing on the right areas.
How the fuck did you read micromanagement into that? Talking to your colleagues - whether they're peers, junior or three levels senior to you - is a bloody good idea, and talking to your boss definitely helps when year end review comes around.
how to do improv at work. That would have been a much more interesting question.
I'm not sure if you're open to feedback and you're obviously welcome to disregard this. It's clear you're passionate and want to share on this topic and that's great, thank you.
A reader has suggested though that the structure of your contribution may benefit from some small tweaks that would help with readability and increase their chances of benefiting from your input. A specific example here would be the addition of paragraphs, although the multiple nested snippets of text (inside brackets or quotation marks" can also disrupt the flow.
It's a minor thing but one I'm sure you can understand we wouldn't want to detract from your otherwise excellent work.
Yell if you have any queries on this!
I'd suggest asking to schedule a regular one on one meeting with your supervisor, once or twice a month. Bring a list of items and ask directly for feedback. Make sure you set ground rules that you agree to LISTEN and accept the feedback, even if you disagree with it. Perception is reality, understand their IMPRESSION cannot be wrong, but that you may be able to change their view with facts. Stop waiting for your supervisor to do something and be proactive.
Maybe you're going into it with the wrong attitude. As a manager, I don't want an employee to fail, it means that I have failed and now I have extra work to do.
What it sounds like is a lack of communication. I know some younger people with the same problem. You don't do X, Y, and Z without first seeing if it's OK to do X, Y, and Z. Sure, some of that communication does need to come from the manager, but it must be a two way street. Ask for feedback, ask if you're doing the job correctly, ask before you take on the side projects, find out what other team members are working on, etc. You have to talk!
For instance, there may be a deadline involved. The release is coming out at the end of the month, and yet I had one new person who decided that the code needed a lot of rewriting and proceeded to do so without telling anyone. I'd ask "how are things going?" and hear back "fine". Then there was the mad mad rush to get the real work done at the end. The code review that I had to do was a nightmare since he touched about every other line along the way, but it was too late to revert everything.
And yes, keep notes on what you did during the year. It's really helpful with the performance review, and really helpful with the resume.