I screwed up royally because I wanted to fit in

I screwed up royally because I wanted to fit in

“A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. ”

— Alexander Pope

For those of you who have been following my blog posts, you'd know that I have recently started in a new role. The previous blog post where I wrote about why I quit my job was the most popular blog post ever since MyCorporateDiary started. I appreciated many of the Facebook comments and emails that were sent in, and many of you were obviously feeling the same way. 

After taking a few weeks off, I was so excited to start my new role. The position, the environment, and the challenges were such that I felt like I could really make a difference and contribute to the growth of the organisation and maybe, just maybe leave a proud legacy.  I was so excited, that in the first four weeks of the role, I felt like I could do no wrong. I'd wake up in the morning looking forward to contributing, and walk into the office proud of who I am. I'd even taken to waking up at 5AM, do my exercises, and meditate. Yes meditate. In fact, I was on fire and felt that I could do no wrong. By week 3, my new boss even said to me to slow down or else I'd burn myself out. 

But most importantly, a new role means a new start. I could apply all the new skills I've learnt and documented here in MyCorporateDiary. I'd be able to present the updated version of myself. And in the first four weeks, I certainly felt like I was. Everybody responded well to me. I could talk to the CEO without being nervous, I would openly introduce myself to strangers in the elevators, and I'd talk with a strong sense of purpose.

But by week three, I could feel the people pleaser behaviours start to sneak back in. I ignored it each time it came up and unfortunately, I ignored it at my peril and it blew up in my face big time by week 6. Once the blow up occurred, the flood gates opened to allow all the negative self talk and confidence destroying thoughts to come flooding back in. It's taken a fortnight but I am now slowly closing those flood gates again.

So what happened? What did I ignore or do that opened the flood gates? So here goes...

In my new role, I report to the Board, and I lead independent reviews of areas of interest. The key word to the purpose of my role is "independent". One of my first reviews is over a supplier contract where I had to review sales conversations and conduct mystery shopping tests to validate that the vendor's sales consultants were performing to our expectations and selling in an unbiased manner. 

In week 2 of my role, I met with the General Manager in charge of this area and he mentioned to me that my team would only need to listen to 10 calls. My gut instinct told me that 10 calls was not sufficient, especially given that there were hundreds of thousands of sales calls a month. As the weeks progressed, I found out further that the calls were provided by the supplier rather than us picking them ourselves. Again, my gut instinct told me that the supplier providing us the calls instead of us selecting them at random did not satisfy the definition of "independent". 

In both cases, I ignored my gut instinct. I'd raise my concern in a friendly manner but when I didn't get the response I was after, I didn't push the point. Why? Because I'm new and I didn't want to rock the boat. Several other similar instances arose and I didn't push my point. I was new, and I wanted to fit in. With the benefit of hindsight, boy did I wish I listened to my gut instinct.

I walked into the Board meeting where I'd be presenting my report with pride, thinking that the insights, the new format I had designed were going to blow their socks away. How wrong was I. The Board and the CEO were relentless in ripping the report to shreds. They didn't care about the format or the other insights. They ripped into me with questions like: "why did you only listen to 10 calls?", "how is that a representative size?", "if they gave us the calls, how can we trust that?", "how reliable is this?". The worse comment that really struck me deep into my sense of self belief was "maybe we should get an external company to do this." Oh man... I did such a poor job that they were thinking of going externally. 

I walked out of that meeting feeling like I was on the edge. All that self confidence that I had carried into my new role, literally just crumbled around me. I walked back into my office, closed the door, and just sat there for about a good 20 minutes trying to regather my thoughts. I eventually got back into the rest of the day. But inevitably, I'd replay the meeting in my mind. Over and over again. I didn't sleep well that night and I didn't sleep well for the rest of the week. I didn't sleep well because I knew that not only had I let myself down, I've let down my new boss, and all the people along the way who supported me and recruited me. Each day after, I'd walk into the office with my head down, shoulders slumped. Each time the CEO looked at me, I felt like it was with a sense of regret and disappointment that he had hired me. Just like a typical introvert, I take one incident, and play it over and over in my head, overthinking things, and eventually convincing myself that I was the worst hiring decision the CEO had ever made.

To be sure, the CEO didn't have this sense at all. If anything, he didn't quite remember the conversation. After re-living it in my head for two weeks, I asked him about his views in my one on one sessions with him. He looked at me with a straight face and said bluntly that he only has a vague recollection of the meeting and that while he didn't get what he wanted, he thought I did OK. He laughed out loud when I told him how I was convinced I was the worst hire he's ever made. He looked at me and said, the fact that I even thought that, means I'm self aware enough to improve, and that alone means I'm not likely to be one of his bad hiring decisions.

It was a good two weeks before I regained some resemblance of self confidence. What hurt the most in all this time was the fact that I knew exactly what I should've done and I chose not to do it because I wanted to fit in, I wanted to not rock the boat. For that, the price I paid the price of looking foolish and running the risk of undoing all the great work I had done to establish myself in my new role.

So what's the moral of this blog post? Always listen to your gut instincts. You might not always get your way but you should raise your concerns. Not just once, but at least three times. Always think about what if the situation played out, could you firmly say that you've tried everything to do the right thing. 

So here I am committing to you that I have learnt my lesson and from this point onwards, I will listen to my gut instinct, I will raise my concerns until it is heard, and I will not let the desire the fit in, override doing the right thing.

Blog Photo by Pietro Tebaldi on Unsplash.