Just declare a reset
Sometimes a person in your organisation will mess up and annoy others enough that they lose the trust of the team, and are consequently looped-out of key discussions and decisions.
I’ve seen this and I was wondering whether it’s a redeemable position or not.
I was once in this position due to what I’d call a working environment not conducive to my growth and wellbeing. Now, being back in a working environment which is hella conducive, seeing others unable to thrive triggers these questions.
What could a reset look like
Here’s my concept:
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Admit - call out the things (you are aware of) which have annoyed and frustrated your colleagues, where you broke expectations or otherwise screwed up. This takes a lot of self awareness and perhaps you won’t be able to know some of the things in other people’s heads!
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Plan - express what actions you are going to take to turn about your direction…
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Act - …and then actually do those actions, with accountability to your team.
To some cynics and skeptics, this is going to look like weakness as it requires an amount of ego-slaying. Alas, that is the point. If you’re mad at someone but they’re keeping up a veneer of “I’m doing a good job”, it further erodes your trust in them (and increases the rage!)
Example
Hey everyone, I want to take a minute to make some observations about my performance in this team, and to apologise. I see that my individual contributions on this project have not been what you’d expect, and it’s taken a lot of everyone’s effort to get me up to speed - effort which appears not to pay dividends. I also recognise that my oversharing of information with PMs, managers, and other stakeholders has caused the project team grief. I never meant for that to happen and I’m still learning the dynamics of this place.
Although I’ve disappointed so far, I’m now in a place to make a plan and act on it, accountable to you all, to restore your trust in me as a dev team member:
- Do more out-of-hours training on {tech} and {framework} so that I can be more productive and need less help;
- Check with the project team about our planned messaging to stakeholders;
- Proactively choose, investigate, and resolve tickets according to dev team’s priority;
- Stop making suggestions to PMs and leave it to the leads;
- Etc.
Btw if you’re reading this thinking that sounds crazy, it’s because that was a crazy place to work, and actually taking the actions above (and the others I couldn’t bear to write) was not tolerable to me 😌😌😌 i got out! PTL.
Could this work?
Would people accept this olive branch of humility?
Perhaps some and not others.
I’ve written this from my perspective now, knowing that I would respond warmly to something like the above. I think the clarity to admit specific mistakes shows that someone is ready to move on and grow.
On the whole I feel sorry for anyone who is in that pit of professional despair. It sucks. I hope you can climb out or else find a new place to be.
It’s very important to remember that even if your work life seems hopeless, there is more to life than work life. You can look for a new job!
I’m on email if you want to talk. ste at this website on the dot co uk.
Peace 🕊🤓