I was less high-maintenance on EOS, Aise, pershing, hamper… because I know these better than anyone in the world.
Email-review-by-mgr is classic highman.
Highman is infinitely better than offending people. I messed up with my emails to GS users. In citi, external (support) team is also considered “user”. Yet, in the big picture, I still fare better in written than oral communications.
It’s easy to feel rejected, inadequate. Let’s consider the other side.
– I didn’t fail at GS. I tried transfer (and passed) so one (of 3) mgr gave me that review to block me.
– I didn’t fail at GS. Many strong developers were let go, but I was retained so many times.
– most GS lateral hires fail within 1-2 years
– I didn’t fail at Citi. I avoided feedback. I didn’t want to promise I will stay here.
– I didn’t fail at citi. I attended so many interviews that I was prepared to offend them and get sacked.
You did notice that I don’t conform to many of the everyday conventions, but you said you didn’t realize it affects my work.
Wait a minute — anyone who doesn’t even know he is behaving differently is kind of “half color-blind and half-deaf”, so this individual would soon run into workplace communication issues, right? So why were you surprised? I hope you could shed some light when free.
Someone suggested a (long) answer. My sister acts even more differently than I do, esp. in the eyes of mainland Chinese. She is more westernized. She has many more friends than I have and very few are Chinese. However, she doesn’t have workplace communication issues because she is not half-blind or half-deaf – she is very sharp. I feel most “odd-looking” individuals are like her, so you feel I’m also that type?
Well, now you know some individuals are more “simple” and “naïve” than that…
Thanks for sharing and listening to me — this is my biggest career “weakness” over the last 15 years.
No need to reply. I know you are busy even on weekends but spent 90 minutes counseling me!
Forgot to say that Huang Cheng left a smaller firmware company and joined Apple, a few years ago. He had a son about the age of your son. I think he was into video codec. He got Green Card around 2007/2008. I asked if he is a team lead but can't remember his answer. He is definitely interested to play such a role.
I no longer feel “stick-out is a good thing”. Rather I try (a bit) to shrink myself in group lunch or meetings.
Attitude, perceptiveness and your action plan are 3 sides of the same triangle. I'll remember your suggestion to “conform (qu1tong2) on every little behavior”. Such an attitude will force me to think why my behavior sticks out and force me to feel how others feel and slowly sharpen my empathy.
The issue with my perceptiveness is – i don't know which behaviors stick out.
– My mentor (now VP) sometimes sends out very short emails to a large audience. I guess that sticks out. I feel i should follow the “norm” and not follow him.
– On a group lunch, almost any topic you create would stick out (in my perception). I often keep quiet and avoid attracting attention, since i'm very poor at dining conversations. People told me i was a bit boring, but it's actually risky to raise a new topic or even respond to a topic.
– when I receive an email cc'ed to 22 people, i frequently remove 20 and reply to just 2 people. I do this more often than other colleagues, because i am more cautious, but does this stick out? I don't think so.
It all boils down to perceptiveness and judgment – what counts as stick-out. I have a very limited perception power — half color blind. I have a modest goal to improve it incrementally over the next 10 years. Your suggestion is the most concrete action plan so far.
By the way, I can mis-judge people's feeling for me, but not frequently. We all can tell if someone likes us or is keeping a distance. Many colleagues didn't need to but did help me beyond mere colleagues. That's why i feel many colleagues are on fairly good (not super) terms with me. My senior mgr was lenient with time booking and my project time-lines but unsatisfied with my overall performance.
In short, try to make yourself helpful to other people but otherwise be invisible.
(No need to reply me…)
My friends told me it's not easy to find tibco documentation. I feel lucky and grateful about those docs you generously gave me.
Your “empathy” advice is really simple and memorable – it's a simple word I remember almost everyday now. I guess i tend to tense up when I try to focus on “empathy”. In other words, it's stressful and tiring to focus on empathy, a bit like watching my own breathing/pitch while talking to people. What i end up doing is — remind myself about empathy from time to time. It helps.
Also, i feel my father isn't empathetic and he's a big influence. I might not have the very best upbringing in terms of empathy training, but that's not meant to unload responsibility (there's no 100% flawless parent in this world) and not a statement of fatalism. I do need to (constantly) look for role models around me – i can think of a few right away.
Talk to you again — i do enjoy writing long diary-style emails to far-away friends, but feel no pressure to read or reply please. I hope you see i'm flexible on this part:)
Wish you and family great health in the new year.
I now realize an obvious mistake I made at GS — I frequently expressed negative attitude when proposing a simpler, easier solution to an otherwise arduous, time-consuming task.
In GS I had daily or weekly interactions with 3 managers — I report to A, who reports to B, who reports to C. The bosses in the examples below include all 3 persons. So my communication issues are fairly wide spread.
Example 1: I once wrote an email to my internal clients on 2 options about a system rollout. These internal clients are the users of the system. I said one of the 2 options would not require the team (potentially including some internal client as well) to stay late in office. I mentioned this stay-late factor as one of the pros and cons. My manager also received this email and she was shocked and even ashamed.
Example 2: My team lead and I each proposed a competing design on a major re-architecture project. I felt so strongly about this design choice that I arranged with team lead to present the 2 designs to my senior manager (who manages about 15 people), me first, team lead 2nd. After a 90 minute presentation and discussion, manager has heard all the facts and analysis. When it came to the final list of advantages/drawbacks, i mentioned that my simpler design has better performance, business logic transparency, auditability, … and can save, very roughly, an estimated 8 days of effort. (I felt it can save 20 days, but couldn't say it in front of manager). Then I said “You all know that long ago I planned a 2-week vacation for this month. The bigger design will be nearly impossible to finish before the deadline. We all know the deadline is not something we can change — many other teams are impacted in this huge project.”
2 months later, this senior manager revealed to me that personal vacation should never be brought up during system design discussions.
Example 3: This happened many times, perhaps 10 times between me and team lead. I often propose a simpler solution, against my team lead's more ambitious design. When discussing (sometimes debating) with him, i often speak about “easier”, “too difficult”, “faster”, “we can change later when we have more time”. These words became such an obvious pattern that team lead wrote in my performance review “seek what's good for the system long term, not what's easy for you… Pushback….Bin often says something is too difficult, but later it turned to be doable… Can-do attitude required.”
In speaking, *content* drives para-linguistics, including warmth,
tone, etiquette… I feel i should not get too concerned about
para-linguistics when there are serious room for improvement in
content.
Content is affected by pdl, perception, attitude, strategy ….
People tell me to show more respect. I believe if i have enough
respect, then it's unlikely to show a lack of it.
People tell me to watch out for the “challenge” tone.
People tell me to reverse the order of sentences.
Experts talk about the first 7 seconds…
Experts point out 'what' to say is less impt than “how” to say it.
NLP…
总说自己没架子? not humble enough.
聆听态度还不到家.