Difficult Conversation Follow Up
Well, I had the conversation with Chad this morning. I picked my power outfit (I’ll spare you the fashion details, but it’s one of my favorite dresses), and I felt like even more of a badass in it after biking to work – never thought I’d be biking anywhere in anything other than some sort of spandex gym clothes or jeans I don’t care about.
The conversation started to go down a similar path as in the past, which is to say, avoidance of the giant elephant in the room that I’m doing a completely different job than I was hired for with no acknowledgement in any way. So, I called it out.
2 things that stood out for me that were different than before:
*First, I was better able to express my frustration in a positive way – that I want to be able to add the highest amount of value to this company by prioritizing the right tasks and having the time to do them well.
*This seemed to allow him to open up to me and be more transparent than he had been before by acknowledging that he was (and has been) struggling to convince the upper management of the value of building community internally versus the value of staffing a more robust marketing/business development team.
I remembered your comment from yesterday @Jess about being able to see the situation from the other person’s viewpoint and I really clearly saw/felt that today.
I didn’t reach my epic goal (new title, new salary stated/signed off on in the meeting), but I pushed for a concrete follow up plan. He is meeting with the Finance Director tomorrow and promised to follow up with me directly afterwards. At a minimum, he assured me we are posting to hire for the part-time person by Friday of this week. Once hired, I will be directly managing this person, which is exciting for me!
My new challenge/assignment: narrowing down the top 3 priorities/projects I’d like to focus on moving forward so that we can better redefine my role. Caveat – my priorities/projects should take into consideration revenue earning potential as a way to sell it to the management team – game on!
Overall, I walked away from the conversation feeling a lot better than I have in the past, and regardless of what happens moving forward I’ve got my BATNA – thanks for the acronym Eugene Chan 🙂 So grateful for all of the feedback/support Bootcamp team – more to come! Looking forward to hopefully seeing you all and working with you all again in the near future.
Eugene Eric Kim 10:56 pm on November 6, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for sharing, @marie! So glad to hear your meeting went well. In particular, I loved that you:
What does “BATNA” stand for?!
Eugene Chan 3:17 pm on November 7, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
@marie: thank you for the report. you went into the difficult conversation on your own terms. this is inspirational!
Eugene Chan 3:30 pm on November 7, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
BTW, narrowing the projects/priorities seems like a perfect candidate for a bootcamper exercies – either solo or in conjunction with others. (I am happy to offer feedback or be an active listener.)
Rebecca 10:38 pm on November 11, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Agreed! Narrowing would be a great bootcamper exercise! And something I’d love to practice. Count me in! & Marie, if I can be of service at all from a long term member in helping you play with that narrowing, don’t hesitate to reach out!!
Brooking 5:17 pm on November 7, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Awesome! Thanks so much for the update and glad it went well with clear follow up in place. This part:
“my priorities/projects should take into consideration revenue earning potential as a way to sell it to the management team – game on!” seems like great learning – in smaller organizations where justifying entirely internal roles can be difficult, it seems smart to link the work you love with work that aligns with profit/biz dev goals. Look forward to hearing more please do keep us posted!
Jessica 4:44 am on November 15, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Marie, thanks for the report! I was totally empathetic throughout the whole description, having had my own set of tough conversations recently… (and apologies for the delayed reply… I was paying attention to exit interviews and must have missed this email)
Re: narrowing, and this may be a bit tangential, but two things come to mind… and maybe I can solicit your and @eekim ‘s help in turning this into our next bootcamp exercise (yes team … I’m “it”):
1. There’s a neat exercise that involve narrowing down a deck of “Purpose” cards (e.g., thinking critically, connecting to others, writing) to identify what your core interests are. Would it be interesting to go through an exercise of narrowing down a set of skills to think about what you might be passionate and/or good at? (I have a sense that @brooking might have done this before)
2. As part of a community of practice of which I was a part, we had Holly Minch present a “persuation framework” (see this link: http://networksguide.wikispaces.com/4-6+Creating+shared+language+and+talking+about+networks+and+network+impact) that helps you think about crafting highly targeted/relevant messages.
Does anyone have a particularly negative reaction to either of these two?
@impact hub? @eekim and @marie, you interested in helping a changemaker create a workout around either one of these?
Eugene Eric Kim 1:04 am on November 22, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I think both are interesting, and I’d be happy to help.