Reality Check

Ever since I came to this new company (pretty soon, I won't be able to use the term "new company"), I have established the need to have personal sessions with my boss as and when needed. I think I have made an impression on him that I appreciate honest and open communication between us - me providing feedback on my part about work and him providing feedback on my performances and other work-related matters. I'm in my 7th month working for him now and we have had about 3 of such sessions.

This morning, I had another such session with him - our "reality check session". BTW, I was away from the office for almost 2 weeks at the beginning of the month. And his story began with "while you were away...". He said that he talked to a few people to gauge how they feel about my new role in the company and mostly to elicit feedback on the progress of some things that I've been working on with these people. The feedback given to him was very interesting...

He started by saying that while those people were appreciative the knowledge that I brought in to the company and the areas that they were working on, one particular thing that they wished I had done was to acknowledge the depth of their knowledge. They feel that there was a big gap and that when they were assigned tasks, they were not able to meet my expectations, that I sort of "demanded" more than what they could deliver.

Well... I am working on that part :)) And the boss knows about it. But I find it very hard to balance up between giving tasks to people and expect them to deliver something which is of a low quality. And I find it hard to balance up between instructing and eliciting to get something done. I expect people to come to me with questions if they don't understand my instructions or what is it that they need to deliver. I also expect people to be independent enough to look for information and resourceful enough to provide solutions to a problem before they admit that they can't do certain tasks. Wouldn't that what any bosses want from a staff? I don't think I have met a boss who can tolerate a staff who is dependent on him/her for everything.

At the same time, I don't think I micromanage everything. I am very structured - that I guilty admit. But I think I allow people to creatively work around their deliverable. Hmmm.. how do you satisfy different people with 1 solution?

I am at the brink of giving up. It frustrates me... maybe as much as I frustrate other people here...

ieja