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3 Ways You Can Stick Up For Your Colleague (And Show Your Leadership) Forbes
Jessica Powell, the former Google vice president who wrote The Big Disruption and told you how to quit your job, is here to answer your common but tricky work questions. Check back every other week for more management advice with a tech inflection, and send your own work conundrums to askjessica@medium.com. (Your name will not be used.)
At my company, we do peer reviews as part of our performance rating and promotion process. A co-worker has asked me to give him a review. Am I actually supposed to be 100% honest in a peer review, or tell him the bad stuff privately? What if he’s up for promotion? I don’t want to keep him from being promoted, but I definitely have some constructive feedback I think he should hear.
The answer to this would surely be “100% honesty!” if the workplace were truly a meritocracy, and if people actually wanted to hear your opinions about them. But companies are rarely a meritocracy, and people generally don’t like criticism. In that case, the best guiding principle is probably to be honest but careful.
You say that your peer has asked you to write a review, so it sounds like the place you work lets employees pick some or all of their peer reviewers. Most likely, this reviewer thinks you two are on good terms and is expecting that you will give them a positive review. (Rare is the employee who actively seeks critical reviews and feedback, though they do exist, and should be praised for this behavior.)
In addition, this employee apparently knows they are up for promotion and it sounds like you are supportive of his move to the next level. So overall, you should plan to write a positive review.
The important thing to remember is that writing a positive review doesn’t mean writing a review devoid of critical feedback. At any point in our careers, we have development areas — just think of your sociopathic CEO, who probably has at least ten things they could work on.
Start by writing all your positive feedback. If you are supportive of this promotion, you have a lot of good and valuable things to write.
Now let’s tackle the hard stuff. Writing useful and honest critical feedback does not involve listing every fault of your co-worker. Not only is that super demoralizing for the recipient — it’s going to torpedo your relationship with them.
Instead of listing out every fault you’ve ever noticed, pick the most salient areas for growth and provide concrete feedback with supporting examples. That means no dialing it in and simply saying Richard should “be more assertive” or “work better with others.” If you’re going to say those things, you need to be specific about how those behaviors manifest, i.e. “Richard has really high standards and wants what’s best for our team. But sometimes that means he can be hard on less experienced team members. For example, many team members were asked to spend a weekend rewriting an entire presentation because Richard didn’t like the color scheme and graphics used.”
Ask yourself whether these development areas are things that your co-worker is already working on and where you’ve seen some growth. That’s worth noting if so. Also, are his development areas commensurate for his experience level? Talk about the areas within the framing of longer-term career growth, so that they are seen as potential enhancements to his abilities rather than current obstacles to him advancing to the next level.
Now read through your review in one go. If you’re doing it right, it should be clear that you are supportive of this promotion, but it should also not leave you feeling like you’ve totally compromised your values and lied on a performance review.
Most importantly, if your honest assessment doesn’t read to you like a strong endorsement for promotion, ask yourself why. For example, if you find yourself writing and rewriting critical sentences (e.g. “Lia is a bully and screams at her team” gets downgraded to ”Lia should act more professional with her team,” which then becomes “Lia could do more to empower her team members”), that’s a red flag that maybe this candidate truly isn’t ready for the next level.
Be honest, but be considerate. Or more simply: do unto others as you would have them unto to you.
BRONX, NEW YORK — A fight between Jeep dealership coworkers Monday afternoon ended with one fatally stabbed in the neck and the second charged with murder, police said.
Jose Almodovar, 53, stands accused of repeatedly stabbing 22-year-old Brandon Almonte inside the Riverdale dealership on Broadway and West 240th Street in The Bronx about 4:30 p.m., said police.
Medics rushed Almonte, of Yonkers, to New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital where he later died, police said.
Almodovar, of The Bronx, was arrested after police found a knife at the dealership, according to the NYPD.
He was charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon in the 50th Precinct about 8:30 p.m. Monday night police said.
With Election Day right around the corner, San Jose Inside has given readers a peek into San Jose’s District 2, District 4 and District 6 City Council races. In this installment, we focus on District 8, where Councilwoman Sylvia Arenas is squaring off with her old Evergreen School Board colleague, Jim Zito.
District 8 lies along San Jose’s eastern border. Pushed up against the Foothills, the area encompasses the Evergreen and Silver Creek neighborhood, parts of East Side and a large swath of open space. D8 residents have increasingly grappled with gridlocked roads in recent years—especially the Capitol Expressway Corridor.
The district is also the site of some major public transit projects. Last year, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) finally decided to move forward with its light rail extension from Alum Rock station to the East Ridge Transit Center. Though excessively behind schedule and over budget, the extension aims to one day connect residents in District 8 with the rest of the region’s rail system for the very first time.
Forty-six-year-old Sylvia Arenas says she hopes to be an advocate for women and families in San Jose for another four years.
The councilwoman was born and raised in Silicon Valley’s capital city, but moved to the Evergreen neighborhood 18 years ago where she and her husband, José, are raising their two children. Arenas kicked off her public service career more than two decades ago after graduating with a master’s in public administration from the University of San Francisco.
She got her start working for the city of San Jose through what is now called Project Hope—a Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services program that’s a part of the Mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force. In 2014, Arenas was elected to the Evergreen Elementary School District Board, where she served until she nabbed the District 8 seat in 2016.
(Graphic by Grace Hase)
During her first term, Arenas made it a priority to tackle the rising number of reported sexual assaults in San Jose. If re-elected, she says wants to make sure that the City Council as a whole puts more of a focus on the issue. “We need to make sure that our policies address [the increase], and so we’re trying to look at the policies internally to see what can we improve to make sure that we have the best outcomes for our survivors,” she says. “We’ve had an increase in our Sexual Assault Unit, but we need to continue to have additional folks in those units that can speak the language.”
Arenas says it’s important for the San Jose Police Department’s Sexual Assault Unit to increase the number of women within its ranks.
The councilwoman says she wants to focus on Evergreen’s struggling retail sector, which has left the district with many vacant storefronts. Arenas recently advocated for her district to be a part of San Jose’s citywide retail strategy—a policy that focuses on boosting retail in areas scarce with businesses.
“We have a lot of empty storefronts that typically bring a negative element to our neighborhoods and create some insecurities for our residents who are shopping nearby,” she says. “I want to make sure that we have the vibrancy that Evergreen needs.”
Sixty-one-year-old Jim Zito, who works as a substitute teacher for Downtown College Prep-Alum Rock Middle School, has lived in D8 for the last 30 years.
A Brooklyn native from a family with deep New York roots, Zito moved to San Jose in the 1980s. Before venturing into his current role as an educator, the Evergreen School District trustee had a three-decade career in biotech. In 2002, he was appointed to San Jose’s Planning Commission, where he served for eight years. Zito has served on multiple committees for San Jose’s general plan over the years, as well.
(Graphic by Grace Hase)
As San Jose struggles to keep pace with the increasing demand for housing, Zito says he wants to make sure that developers have an incentive to build in the Capital of Silicon Valley. “In order to build [housing] stock, you have to have the developers willing to do it,” Zito says. “It’s a free country, they can just walk away and build in the next city over. If we want them to build here, we have to make it conducive to build here.”
Instead of just focusing on building below-market-rate housing, Zito says San Jose needs to make sure that developers create units for all income levels so that more affordable options aren’t rented out by those who have the resources to pay more.
Unlike Arenas, Zito has taken a position against VTA’s light rail extension to the Eastridge Transit Center. The D8 hopeful has been a big proponent of light rail in the past, but given VTA’s low rider numbers, he says a change—like investing in buses—may be in order to help ease the district’s traffic problem. “Light rail just goes where the train tracks go,” he says. “You’re going to be limited because the schedules have to be built around trains on the track, whereas buses run more like traffic.”
San Jose State Political Science Professor Garrick Percival originally told San Jose Inside that it could be tough for Arenas to hold onto her seat given Zito’s long and active history in District 8. However, in early February, the San Jose Police Officer’s Association PAC released old divorce filings in which Zito’s ex-wife accused him of abuse.
Zito has denied the claims, which he says were fabricated and discounted by a judge who opted to award the pair joint custody of their children. But the abuse claims prompted Mayor Sam Liccardo, Councilwoman Pam Foley, the Silicon Valley Organization PAC and the Santa Clara County Association of REALTORs to revoke endorsements.
“I think these allegations have an important effect [on the election] mainly because it resonated with a lot of people,” Percival says. “I think it also lends questions with how he’d deal with people on council or on staff.”
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SJ Council Candidate Jim Zito Loses Support Over Abuse Claims, Which He Denies
SJ Council Candidates Square Off Over Fair Elections, Transportation at SVLG Forum
San Jose Councilwoman’s Ex-School Board Colleague Challenges Her Re-Election Bid
San Jose Councilwoman Sylvia Arenas Decries SVO PAC for Publishing ‘Racist Attack’ Ad
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Herndon was hardly alone in his attachment. Bomb-disposal robots have proven to be highly effective both at clearing explosives and at eliciting affection from their human handlers, some of whom have held robot funerals and award ceremonies for favoured bots.
These relationships offer illuminating insights into the experience of working with a robotic teammate, something an increasing number of workers in fields from healthcare to retail will be called on to do.
Industrial robot installations worldwide have grown an average of 12% each year since 2013, according to the International Federation of Robotics. North American companies took in a record number of new robots in 2018, with shipments of non-automotive workplace robots rising 41% from the year before, according to the Robotics Industries Association.
The proliferation of robot coworkers has prompted psychologists, roboticists and managers in a variety of fields to explore what makes for a successful robot-human collaboration, and what makes these relationships go awry.
‘Helping, not taking jobs’
“You need to think from the beginning of how you’re going to put these teams together, and give the robot [or] AI the job that the robot or AI does best and that the human doesn’t want to do, or that’s too boring or dangerous for the human,” says Nancy Cooke, a professor of cognitive science and director of Arizona State University’s Center for Human, Artificial Intelligence, and Robot Teaming.
Workers seem to find robots most useful and respond best to their introduction in the workplace when they are integrated as a complement, and not a replacement, for human labour.
Nicole Burke joined the US grocery chain Stop & Shop in 2001 as a 16-year-old cashier in Aberdeen, New Jersey. After working her way up through the company, she is now a liaison between the chain’s stores and corporate offices.
As I was on the ward one morning, going about my work, a colleague told me that a newly qualified nurse was upset. I asked her to come and talk to me in the office.
She was very upset, as she was on a long day and had been told by one of the ward sisters that they would be one qualified nurse short on the late shift.
The ward sister had told her not to worry, as they would work together and manage with the senior healthcare assistants who would also be on shift.
But she explained to me that she felt stressed that, as a newly qualified nurse, she wouldn't be able to get everything done. And what if there was an emergency she had to deal with?
She did her final student nurse placement with us before applying for the job, so she knows the ward well.
But as a student there was always a qualified nurse she could turn to, whereas now she is that nurse. She said she feels supported on the ward but sometimes feels overwhelmed by the workload and responsibility.
"How do we recognise this and support each other?"
This isn’t only an issue for newly qualified nurses. A nurse can seem to be coping well emotionally, then something happens that tips them over the edge.
So how do we recognise this and support each other? This is especially hard when the ward is busy, staffing is an issue and nurses don't speak out until it gets too much.
Nurses’ mental health has been highlighted in the nursing press recently after the reported increase in suicides. But what can we do at a local level?
Telling a colleague you are struggling is not failure. It is, in fact, the opposite: you have realised you need help and are seeking it before you burn out emotionally and physically.
If I’m struggling, I can tell most of my colleagues, including my line manager. I know they won’t judge me and will give me the support I need. That might be a 10-minute break or to just offload some of the stuff that’s whizzing around my head – often that’s all that’s needed.
I also recommend that nurses reflect on and write down how they feel, what has led to this and what can be done in the future to stop it happening again.
Reflection is a brilliant thing to do and can also be used for your revalidation, so it’s a win-win. It also gets everything out of your head and onto a piece of paper.
This is what I asked the newly qualified nurse to do. I also asked her to share it with us if possible, so that we can look at the support we give to newly qualified nurses and improve or change it if needed.
Lastly, I told her that my door is always open. I encouraged her to come and talk to me before she gets to tipping point, as we are a team and work together.
When I messaged her later that evening, she said the shift had been busy but fine, and she felt supported by the senior healthcare assistants and the ward sister.
Sian Rodger is patient education and health coaching lead, London Spinal Cord Injury Centre
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