Feb 13 • General discussion
Successful Week 1!
I'm so excited to share how I applied what I learned this week to real life. Reflecting on what came up in skills lab & group coaching, I made an effort to come to a situation with an open mind & curiosity rather than defensiveness. I spent the day collecting some data to compare how different changes would impact a project. I sent out my findings to 3 executives: My boss (VP), her boss (Pres), and his boss (Exec President). Exec P immediately asked questions that were already answered in the report I sent. Rather than assume she just didn't read it closely, I examined how I worded that information and responded something like, here on line x I wrote this, would it be more clear if I reworded that? She responded apologetically that she had not read that line and asked if my overall conclusion was xyz, to which I replied 'yes, exactly' and suggested some further data I planned to collect because I didn't feel my approach was representative of real customer data. Pres came to my desk later and suggested that because I did more work than they initially asked, he thinks she was confused with my report. Without bringing my defensiveness because I worked hard all day & still thought the information was valuable, I acknowledged that it was more than what was asked to do and explained why I collected the other data. I asked if he thought it was completely useless or if it was helpful that I showed those things made no impact on the project. He then agreed it was useful to have data to back up what we suspected and I then explained what other data I planned to collect that will more accurately illustrate the comparison between how it works now and the proposed change. Then I asked if he thought that was a better approach and he gave feedback on what he liked about my idea and what he thought I should change and why. I told him that was a great idea and I would send out the new information in the morning. He thanked me for my hard work and the extra effort I put into making sure the project was a success & he looked forward to hearing what I discover. This is 1000% more positive interaction. It did not end up in arguments. I left feeling my day was not a waste and I'm motivated to redo my data collection and not dreading starting over. 10/10 interaction with both difficult bosses & my boss (VP) said I must teach her my new ways.
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Successful Week 1!
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