Lee McKeeman’s Post

Enjoy Criticism I talked about mentorship, but this is different. A mentor normally means someone is committed and there are regular sessions to get assistance. Taking their input is important, but often they are giving you advice on how to proceed, or how you could have acted differently. That’s all good, but you also need someone to look at your work, tell you you’re wrong, and you believe them and appreciate it. That kind of blunt feedback isn’t easy to find, and moreso it is hard to get it from someone you respect enough to actually accept it and act on it. It is easy, and I’m guilty too, to dismiss critical feedback because we are uncomfortable with it and don’t like the idea that we make mistakes or should change our behavior. If we don’t trust and think highly of the source of feedback, we are more likely to reject it because “they just don’t understand, I know better”. I’m not saying this is healthy, but it’s a realistic attitude. If I took a year of Tennis lessons and tried giving Serena Williams some advice on her backhand, she definitely shouldn’t listen. Except our work isn’t like that. As we grow in seniority, we work for the engineers we are responsible for, and if we’re bad shepherds we should listen. Despite “listen to feedback openly from everyone”, it can still be useful to get a “sage” you can listen to without bias. I mentioned that this isn’t the same as a mentor, so who is it?! Like mentors, try to have a variety with different expertise. Who writes the most solid documents? Who designs the most robust systems? Who led that last multiorg project? These individuals may not be available but it’s good to build this network, get recommendations from them, and keep them in your Rolodex after introducing yourself. Throw them on a doc or design review as optional, ask if they could give something a once over offline if it’s more convenient. Demonstrate receptivity (not spinelessness, just listen) when you are gifted with feedback. This is a great vector to identify growth areas to work on with a mentor. I have felt the hot flush of shame when I made a dumb mistake and heard about it from one of these “sages” in my own life, but that was all self-initiated. They weren’t being mean-spirited, I just wanted them to think I was a cool person and felt like this flub hurt that chance. Today in a code review I wrote something to the effect of “I hate switch, so maybe…”. Someone unprompted was willing to give me direct feedback that it would be better to avoid inflammatory verbiage like that. I felt dumb. I had a lot of excuses. I needed to express how strongly I feel! No, I really don’t. I can say “Sometimes switch can be error prone and over-verbose. Here’s how this snippet would look with a Functor map”, and don’t have to make the feedback less digestable. When people give the gift of feedback, especially those going out of their way to help, do not discard it. Take a breath, read it once more, try again. Remember to pass it on.