Executive Perspective

Posted by fxckfeelings on January 31, 2011

Like fine art, job performance is open to interpretation, and like artists, workers are sensitive about how others interpret their output. Most artists know that they can’t control how they’re perceived, but your average employee isn’t so lucky, and s/he can react to criticism by speaking his/her mind and bickering over whose perception is accurate. If you can keep anger and defensiveness safely tucked away, there are better ways to manage a negative performance review and protect your right to judge for yourself and act accordingly. Otherwise, you’ll be the artist formerly known as employed.
–Dr. Lastname

I don’t know why my husband accuses me of being lazy and ineffective, like I’m forcing him to do all the work to support our family. I’ve always seen myself as hard-working and conscientious—that’s the way they saw me at my old job, which I quit to have kids. Now, it’s true I often get interrupted because I’ve got to meet the kids’ needs, but that’s not my fault. Plus, it’s hard to do free-lance work unless you get yourself organized and have all the pieces in place first, and that’s been twice as hard for me since I’m also overcoming depression. My husband says I do lots more for the kids than is necessary, and that I spend so much time getting organized that I never get down to work. That’s not the way it feels to me though, and the harder he criticizes me, the harder it is for me to stay focused and keep working. My goal is to get out of this hole.

While erectile dysfunction is a well-known disorder that is treatable with medication you can buy by the bathtub-full, executive dysfunction doesn’t have that kind of recognition.

In fact, it might not be recognized beyond this website, but it appears that you’ve got it.

While our version of ED—ED2—might not be as well known, take our word that the symptoms are all there: a good, hard-working person who, due to the way her brain functions, is relatively ineffective and looks like a slacker.

Someone with ED2 may have smarts and motivation, but they get caught up in whatever they’re doing, or they’re over-responsive to whatever grabs them the most, or they’re too anxious to start something until they’re completely organized. In the end, not much gets done.

What you need to watch out for is how you respond to your husband’s criticism. Expressing anger or defending yourself will make you unfocused and unmotivated, and arguing will get your husband to try harder to prove you’re not doing much. You’ll tear one another down over and over, lower and lower, in a nasty vicious circle.

Instead, accept the possibility that you have ED2 and, as such, your productivity sucks. I’m not saying it does but, assuming that you’ve put shame and defensiveness aside, find out the truth. Ask the opinion of people you trust, and think up your own standards for productivity and see if you meet them. The less you doubt yourself or worry about how you appear to others, the simpler it will be for you to set your standards and see whether you meet them.

If you do, you can tell your husband you’re sorry he wants more productivity, but you’ve looked hard at your performance, you think it’s good enough, he can take it or leave it, and you’d prefer that he shut up about it since it doesn’t help.

If you think that you really are inefficient, then examine the situations that help you use your strengths. Remember, you did better when you had a regular job, so think about the kinds of task you performed and the prompts that helped you shift from one task to another. It’s possible your job allowed you to obsess about one task at a time, but it’s more likely that you were required to manage whatever crossed your desk and that someone else decided your priorities. Whatever worked, think of ways to create the same situation.

If you do decide you suffer from executive dysfunction, you still have to make a work plan going forward, but at least you can relieve that bathtub-full of stress and blame you’re currently operating under. Plus, if you can figure out a plan that allows you to sit and work for up to six hours, you’ll no longer need to see a doctor.

STATEMENT:
“It’s terrible to feel like the weakest link, and worse to feel like my husband doubts my motivation, but I’m the only person who truly knows how motivated I am, and I know that I am. My priority is to find ways to make my work count while I keep a lid on the hurt and anger that could slow me down or drag me into fights with my husband. In any case, that’s the right thing to do.”

I’m devastated by the fact that I’m going to lose a job I’ve done well for 13 years, where people have given me awards and the customers love me, because my new boss thinks I was rude to a customer and won’t take it out of my year-end rating. When I tried to fight it, he stopped talking to me and put me on final warning– it’s nuts! I wrote up a long answer to his accusation, and he accused me of being insubordinate. My head is spinning. My goal is to keep my job.

When your manager wants to fire you, no matter how unfair it is or how much your human resources associate assures you that your company wants to keep its workers and has a due process to protect them from non-objective performance critiques, you’re fucked. A quick evaluation? Life is unfair.

The biggest danger is not that you’ll be fired, but that you’ll get so obsessed about the unfairness of being fired that you will get depressed, do something stupid, and have no energy left over to look for your next job when the other shoe finally drops.

I know you’ve heard of workers who get their jobs back, plus damages, when a court determines that their ill-documented termination was unfair, and their stories are thrilling to read. If you’ve got a little money, ask a lawyer whether you’ve got a chance of winning in court.

Be aware, however, that most companies have their own lawyers and that the main job of a Human Resources department is to protect the company from that very situation. You, on the other hand, have a mortgage.

Indeed, the fear of litigation makes companies respond to a possible suit with cold, polite, consistent documentation of your faults and their good reasons for telling you to shape up or ship out. It can drive you crazy when you know the facts are wrong, but if you appear combative, you just feed the heave-ho machine.

So, unless your lawyer tells you otherwise, avoid a fight and prepare for your next job. Meanwhile, don’t contest unfair criticism; you’ve probably done it already, so there’s no need to repeat yourself.

Instead, express your dismay about your manager’s dissatisfaction. Stick with the uncontestably positive. State your confidence in your ability to do good work, pride in your record so far, and determination to change their negative perception if at all possible.

Tell them you’re open to suggestions, then end the conversation. You want the goal to be keeping your job, but it should really be keeping your sanity, then your focus for whatever challenge comes next.

STATEMENT:
“I hate being evicted from a job I value in an organization I care about and have devoted myself to, but it happens, and the biggest danger comes from my expressing negative feelings, not from getting fired by my jerk-manager. I’ll script myself to put out the fire, but I’ll also remember that work is work, my opinion of myself remains excellent, and I have good things to offer my next employer.”