Constructive Criticism

I got some constructive criticism at work today, and it was fantastic.

The feedback came when I talked to Bob Lowe--Lead Toybox Producer--that I wanted to schedule some time for him to see the levels that Chris and Shane had been working on, and he thought it was a great idea. Then, he told me that he had some feedback for me and that I should try to raise my awareness by looking for more feedback just like I was doing now. He said he felt blindsided by a couple of the bugs that were going on, and really wanted to know more about what I'm up to before it's too late.

I told him that I'd really take the feedback to heart, and I went upstairs to my office and wrote it on my whiteboard to really internalize it. Right before I headed off to the university for the undergraduate industry panel, I sent Bob a detailed email of all of the networking teams goals, the status of matchmaking, and the other plans I have to help push matchmaking forward. I also proposed a weekly meeting with myself and Bob to try to keep us on the same page. 

I learned a lot from the experience, and I'm really excited that Bob is interested in investing in me enough to consider my performance and give me feedback to perform better. 

The first thing I learned is related to the reason I went down to talk to Bob in the first place. My primary goal wasn't to give Bob feedback at all, but rather to go promote Chris and Shane and get them more exposure to Bob, who has sway in the positions that Disney hires for. Bob seemed to interpret this as an attempt to keep him in the loop, which prompted him to give me feedback. I've long had a policy of primarily looking out for other people, and this is a surprising example of it turning back in my favor immediately.

Second, I strongly suspect that I wouldn't've got this feedback had I not reached out and done something different. I haven't fully digested this idea yet, but I think that part of the lesson is to try things I wouldn't normally, and the other part is to identify feedback for others before they do something that reminds me to give them related feedback. Perhaps I might have got feedback from Bob in either case, but reaching out definitely helped.