Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 17, 2022, 3:34 am

Rock on, John! :)

Quote from John Freeman on December 18, 2022, 10:08 pm

Thanks guys!

Quote from John Freeman on January 27, 2023, 5:55 am

Yesterday I had a performance review and it was not good. Basically I don't have the level expected. That was one of the worst performance review I ever had.

I work at 2 private practice offices and one is quite happy with me (lower expectations) and the other is not (higher expectations). They work in totally different way and I'm not sure they're aware of it or even want to acknowledge it.

I am aware I must improve and took all their feed-back. That was one of the good points: that I'm open to feed-back and uses it.

In the one with higher expectations, I also made a few behavioural mistakes:

• I still currently smoke. I hide when I do it and it does not impact the work. They hate it but cannot say anything as it would be discriminatory so there might be some hidden anger that express in this way.
• I also think they don't like my beard but cannot say anything against it as it would be discriminatory. I'm saying this as there was some remark like: "Oh the child must be afraid because of your beard" in a particular way it was said.
• A couple parents complained about me because they said they felt I was condescending. I admit it, some parents do dumb things that hurt their children and I have to stay patient and control myself in order to stay calm and inform them in a neutral way. I think this comes across as condescending. So I must improve the way I talk: I understand it. That being said, it came across as if all parents were not happy with me, which is totally twisted. The majority of parents are happy with me.
• Some medical assistants complained that I was leaving a mess in the room. Well, they never said anything to my face so I was quite surprised to find out. They also started to do things for me they were not supposed to do. They were supposed to do it only for my bosses. So I thought naively: "Alright, so the bosses changed the rules." Turned out they did not. Turned out the assistant thought I was too slow so they did things for me not out of niceness but thinking I was too slow. Instead of telling me, they told my bosses. So that was definitely backstabbing. When I told one assistant to stop (nicely), the folowing hour she did it again. She framed it as here being "nice" (but say to my boss behind my back that I'm too slow). I thanked her a lot but told her it was my job. During the review it was also framed as if I was "always" leaving a mess, which is not true. He admitted they were all "psycho-rigid" regarding order and cleanliness. But still.
• Being vulnerable:
  • I said to them that I was afraid of being scolded and this also influenced my behaviour. Now they turned it against me as if I was covering my ass all the time. I had experiences in the past where I worked with abusive bosses and now I quite cautious of not being scolded (in an abusive way). I think I must improve by taking more risks but at the same time they have small to no tolerance for mistakes.
  • I also opened up about being "gifted adult/highly sensitive" as I found this was the reason for some of my behaviour and it backed fire right away as it was used against me instead of them giving them empathy.
  • It felt that every time I opened up, this information was used against me. For instance they said it seems I was a bit stressed around a certain mortal disease when talking to parents. Well, I know people who had a baby die of this disease. Well, now I'm not going to tell them as I see what they do with my personal information.
• Thinking I could be authentic in that environment. Basically, it blew up in my face. In the previous work environment I could. However in this one, despite being small teams (4-5 people), there are quite a few games. Lesson learned.

They trusted me with leaving me alone at the private office during Christmas holiday and I gave them regular feed-back on the phone. They never did this and they did not gave me negative feed-back. So I think I did ok to well but got no comment on it.

One of them is an excellent pediatrician. However I'm discovering he might have some narcissistic traits. I do feel like I'm walking on egg shells around him. Also one of the reasons he was not happy is that he said that at my stage he was ready to start a private practice. So basically comparing myself to him, which does not make sense. Especially knowing that when he opened his private practice, he had 8 years of experience whereas I have 5. He's VERY power aware so I must have been more cautious. He also admitted that they were all control freaks about cleanness and order.

In swiss culture, people don't say it to your face. So it's totally common experience that you think everything is going well and you discover that people are not happy with you. And that is the thing I dislike the most in swiss culture: hypocrisy. Even when you think someone is straight, you could be surprised. Now I'm cautious about 2 categories of people: stupid parents and crazy parents. These are the ones that you must make feel good, basically seduce them. Their reality is sometimes so far out that if you confront them in any shape of form, they will avenge themselves. Of course, I must improve my communication and be more subtle. What I'm talking about is that when you ask them if everything is fine, they will say: "yeah no problem". And then run to your boss. There is a lot of passive-aggressivenss in swiss culture.

So I understand they want performance from me and I'm not up to par. It's alright. It was more the way it was said and framing like most of the things I did were bad.

I lost quite some trust and respect for them as I feel now I must wear a mask. It's not the performance aspect, I will work on it and it's totally fair for them to ask this from me. It's more the way it was done and the backstabbing from the parents and medical assistants. I did a few mistakes. However I hoped it would be interpreted and judged for what they were: mistakes.

Now I think they're just bosses. They're trainers but their main goal is for me to perform in their private practice. They frame it as "helping me" but I feel they're more helping them as they disliked the negative feed-back they got from a couple parents and the medical assistants. This fueled their anger, along with the smoking. So everything I did good was already framed negatively.

They want me to take more initiative and be a leader. And at the same time I cannot do mistakes. So it's a double bind.

This interview felt more like a trial and an accusation than a performance review. I now understand that they are right and I'm wrong. If I start to give my opinion, it's not really helpful as they're not really interested in my perspective. Even if they ask for it. It feels more as they use my perspective as info about me than to find a common reality or understand me. I'm not victim self-framing. I'm saying: it was a mistake to be open, authentic and sincere. I think my previous colleagues did not do this mistake and I won't do it again. It's all a game and I've been naive. Now I feel like I have to pretend I'm happy to be at work. With what happened a lot of trust has been broken. I trust them to give me feed-back to improve. I don't trust them to care for me as a person. They care for me as a worker as I reflect on the image of their private practice. In the end it is all about the work (rightly so) and I was naive about it. I should have been more selective in what I share and not open up so much also during break. I should have been more strategic about it.

They said that in the positive I was really interesting in knowing people, not only out of politeness. However I feel like it backfired as the medical assistants I opened up to later backstabbed me.

I also feel that as resident physicians, the frame is that we have to take it and submit. But at the same time we have to lead and be confident. So to me there is totally a double bind as well.

All in all, I'm here to learn and improve so I'm sincerely grateful to them for their feed-backs. These are golden nuggets. I was just a bit naive about the whole work environment, the people and the expectations towards me. I am a sensitive person so I take it to heart. However I'm also glad to have improved in emotional resilience as this would have been more painful in the past. I will adapt.

Happy to read your thoughts on this.

edit: adding text

Quote from John Freeman on January 27, 2023, 7:00 am

Addendum:

Aside from the work, I think some of the mistakes I did was:

• To be without a mask and put it thereafter. I think the mask should be on by default and removed for selected people in selected moments.
• Some people have written "dumb" on their face and/or are acting dumb. I was judging them. I need to be more accepting as they can feel it. I can always vent to my friends afterwards.

So again, aside from the critics from my work, what brought me down was not playing the game well enough and forgetting there was a game going on.

I thought I might be working with them in the future but after this experience, I'd rather not. I will learn from them and will keep good contacts but I don't want to work long term with people who treat me like that.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on January 27, 2023, 7:38 am

Hello John,

Yeah man, it sucked to read about those "using your own vulnerability against you" power moves: it's the lowest of the lows.

And it's not like they gain anything with it either: it obliterates trust and social capital and it makes people less willing to go the extra mile.

In my experience, what I like doing is having a couple of trusted people at work and sharing your vulnerabilities with them only.
That way you can get the best of both worlds: you have some true friends at work, you make some important allies, and you keep it professional and clean with all the rest.
Edit: started writing this before finishing reading your addendum. Yes, 100%, you had said it already, totally the right move, and we're on the same page.

On giving feedback to parents who are doing something wrong, I'd try framing that as "we both want the best for the child" and then showing with warmth and caring that you mean best, even when challenging their choices or behavior.
And of course, avoiding negatives such as "don't do X" and going more for the positives "do Y".

Some of the "less good" people may still be unable to take any feedback, but that way you should be able to win a larger percentage over (and probably you're already doing so anyway).

As for the during the review session, my goal would be to:

• Sit there and show a stoic face and behavior despite their criticism
• Nod and thank them

Then thread cut and switch over completely to a positive thread:

• Ask them "great, thank you, now please can you tell me what you'd like to see more and I'll get to it"

"What you'd like to see more" is a very smart, inviting and power-protecting way to get positive feedback.

Then thank them again and say you're glad they liked XYZ, and you'll do more of it.

So you end on positive behavior.

And if you can pull it off:

• Push back on some feedback you disagree with -this one, needless to say, careful with and I put in grey as it's easy to do it wrong-
• "OK, and to complete the feedback and make sure I can make the most out of it, what was it that you liked and you may like to see even more of"

So, basically, you force them to say something good.

Yes, it's a power move, but it's totally fair.
Plus, if they're unable to give proper and timely feedback and frame it a bit more positively, then it's up to you to do it.

Quote from John Freeman on January 27, 2023, 9:32 am

Thank you very much for taking the time, Lucio!

This is very helpful.

I read it and will read it again and might comment more. Yes, they basically framed me as a lousy worker, which I know I'm not. It's 2 different things that they think I'm not up to par and must improve vs I'm doing most things wrong. I think the message was too strongly negative. I thought about trying to elicit something positive but did not manage to. Your feed-back will help me at the next performance review.

I think I did another mistake which is a cardinal sin in the social realm. I did not put enough effort at the beginning to make them like me. I saw it over and over again: for the same difficult situation, if someone likes you they will defend you give you the benefit of the doubt and help you. If they don't, they will push you down, blame you and it will cement their initial frame: "that's what I thought: this guy is an arrogant asshole. He got what he deserved".

As I'm in the stage of learning how to behave high power, I make this mistake as I neglect it too much. It is about being warm, yes. I think it also go beyond this as working actively to make people like you. One can be charming as a general behaviour and it might not be enough. So one must put extra effort to mirror to the other person a positive identity: "I am a great person and this guy sees it and gets it. What a cool person." So I would say it's about charming people rather than being charming. Active vs passive. It's turning the charm on even if you think the other person does/did not deserve it. As I learned it can backfire: "this guy does not think I'm worth the effort of smiling or him working so I like him. So he thinks I'm inferior. I'll show him who's inferior."

You never know who can hurt you, so it's better to be actively charming with everyone. It's worth it I think.

Listening to "8 keys to eliminating passive-aggressiveness", I can also tell that my male boss is an aggressive communicator. So I will have to adapt to that as well. I have 3 months to prove myself (including 3 weeks holidays). It's a challenge but I think I can do it.

Quote from Illystorm on January 27, 2023, 11:59 am

Hello John, amazing story and advice seriously

Do you have any advice against being ignored by others?

What is a good way to stop getting ignored?

Quote from Illystorm on January 27, 2023, 4:48 pm

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on April 12, 2022, 7:39 pm

Thank you for sharing, John, and glad to read about what sounds like a huge overall progress.

Interesting part about the "less emotion", I'd be curious to hear if that's also been the experience of other folks.

Well, actually for me it’s almost the reverse

I’ve always been the nomadic type, introvert and never meshing with any group

I fell into depression, and I realized that this was caused my basically being an island… not only I didn’t build meaningful connections, but also pursued selfish goals

So, in a quest to restore my emotions, I discovered this forum to understand what I had done wrong with all my social interactions

Turns out that I despised any value taking from the others and how other people constantly do it among each other

At that point I came to a conclusion: some power is needed, but if one becomes an enlightened Machiavellian he will still be able to build great friendships and alliances

So for me, with this specific definition of “good power” came a sense of self-empowerment along with positive emotions

Quote from John Freeman on January 27, 2023, 8:00 pm

Definitely Illystorm!

Regarding your question, I think it’s better if you start a new thread with more details.

Good news: I accepted a position as an attending physician (level above me) in may in a small hospital. I will have to buy a car to get there but the challenge is worth it. Once again I owe a lot to this forum as becoming higher power definitely helped me in getting this job.

Regarding masks, I think a good strategy is to observe if, when and how often one is dropping the mask. This shows a desire to be sincere and authentic. That means I think someone who’s playing the game without being a game player if you see what I mean. Someone who’s not too power hungry or egotistic but accepts that power dynamics imply certain behaviors.

Another mistake that I did was to judge people based on appearance, including my boss. It does not have to be said, only the body language and the feeling of being judged is enough. Once again it backfires as the person will desire to take revenge for feeling judge. I’m working on it.