stone skipping (part 6)

Having the passion to develop people is a double edge sword. My career has been plagued with those who are not open to growing and feedback and so complain about someone being too tough to work with. While I have adjusted my communication styles (after learning business chemistry and Myers-Briggs), I still maintain a similar approach to teaching and developing others. In a corporate world where many are passive aggressive in their "development" of others, I clearly stand out.

When I repatriated, a person I had not met was on a call with me and the leader that she was chief of staff for. She later sent me a message that she had been waiting to meet me as she had heard so much about me from others. Of course, I joked that it was not all true as I am not that bad. Her response was that she had heard only good things about me as one of her mentors had mentioned how much he had learned from me. Another person who is now part of our quality review program mentioned to my team once that they should blame me if they think she is thorough because everything she learned on that was from me.

Sometimes, I think it makes it tough for my managers though, as they try to pay it forward by doing the same to develop junior staff, whereas other managers would not do the same. So they bear the burden of the additional time and stress. The last few weeks had been rough on one of my senior managers who has a team of a lot of either new people or resources who have not been trained properly on prior projects. The added stress had her breaking down on me earlier today; however, we both were thankful that we had the type of relationship where we could feel free to let it out on each other without judgment.

Having that type of day on a hump day made the following message that I received this evening remind me why the effort is worthwhile:

"I hope you are doing well. I wanted to say THANK YOU for your feedback and support during my time on Project Missouri. I’ve had a couple projects since then, but recently started another PMO role, though for an IT system implementation. 

I distinctly remember us chatting after one of the weekly PMO calls for Project Missouri and you provided some very helpful feedback on how I came across over the phone (i.e., not confident) and how to drive the conversation forward. I certainly have taken that to heart and it has been paying off on my current project. My SM and the client seem to be pleased with how I’ve been leading meetings and making sure things get done, and I haven’t been shy about bothering people to get their tasks and deliverables done either.

Thank you again so much – I really appreciated then and still appreciate now how you took the time to provide feedback during my time on the project."

She only worked with us for a month or so, as she was borrowed from another group. I ended up agreeing to release her early as there seemed a better opportunity that came up that would be more in line with her career trajectory. Similar to stone skipping (part 4) and moments that matter (part 3), sometimes all any of us need is for someone to believe in us when we struggle to believe in ourselves. It was also very kind of her to pay it forward by taking time to send that message.