I just got my half-year work evaluation feedback from my boss and he’s not happy with my skill sheet I haven’t been able to fill all the lowest tier skills such as communication and told me he must decrease my salary if I can’t fill that skill sheet this year.
I’m an introvert, rarely start a conversation, and have social anxiety talking to my boss because I kept getting scolded by my parents and teachers in the past. It stresses me how to start a conversation to discuss my task with my team leader. I did a few mistakes last year doing a task without consulting with my team leader and in doing so I got criticized by them many times. I tried to improve myself little by little but I think it was too late and I was branded for not being able to contribute enough to the team even though my work output is better than the other co-worker.
I’m working remotely as a DevOps team where we received some orders to increase other team outputs and this is where communication is essential. Also, my boss wants the team to be perfect as possible for the team branding.
I think communication skill is a good thing to have and have benefits to it. I could stay with this team to learn how to communicate properly. I could also find another job that was not too focused on communicating. If I stay, any advice on how to learn to communicate properly without creating too much stress?
TLDR: I’m working remotely as a DevOps team in a large company, I’m lacking communication skills because of my social anxiety and need to improve it if I don’t want my salary got reduced next year. What do you think I should do to improve my communication skill or should I find another job?
Other Info:
\- I have N1 and am able to speak in Japanese, the problem is I usually get the nuance not all the context properly I might create some misunderstanding. I’m too afraid to ask for the details because of my social anxiety, guess this is one of the core problems in my 報連相。
\- Our team members share our tasks progress with Daily Scrum meeting
\- I think what I need is how to handle stress in communication and how to be able to speak freely (stress handling and confidence), improve my mentality.
\- We are discussing tasks on Slack, and for some reason I’m not confident enough to write in Japanese.
Conclusion:
I’m going to improve my communication skill this year by creating a communication rule for myself and creating a daily report. I hope it’s good enough to get evaluated by my boss. I’m not going to give up yet just because I can’t communicate freely. If anyone has some advice to improve communication effectively, I’ll appreciate it.
I might need to go to a psychiatrist to get some mental improvement. I think it’s the only way to ease my mentality problem.
Many thanks for the advice so far.
14 comments
Can you explain what isn’t working because you aren’t communicating? I don’t see any examples of problems here.
It’s easy to send an email about the weather or the baseball game or whatever, but is that what they want?
The other big question is if they already decided to force you out through low pay. If so, spend time polishing your resume instead of worrying about this.
It’s hard to say anything without knowing what exactly you are lacking. Are your team members communicating things that you aren’t? Is it a problem of other members not knowing what you’re working on? Are you one of those people who wants to go into a cave and throw out your work when it’s done?
Actually same. Like I would rather spend a day fixing a problem myself rather than bother my coworkers on a task that should only take 30mins.
What I’ve done was list up what I want to talk about beforehand then send it to the person concerned before approaching them. Always take notes during the conversation then repeat what you discussed to confirm if what you understood is correct.
If it’s a job that requires frequent “報連相” then maybe it’s not right for you.
But if you want to keep the job, why don’t you ask your boss and co-workers to tell you every time they find something you need to improve?
That way, at least everyone will understand that you are willing to improve, and it is the supervisor’s role to educate his/her subordinates.
He’s probably just priming you to mentally so you are willing to accept no raise/a pay cut.
Personally I’d start looking for another job if my boss started to threaten to (probably illegally) cut my pay. I might give the ministry of labour a call too.
Also have N1 but would never touch a job that requires traditional 報連相 with a 10-foot pole. The job doesn’t match your personality, so it’s probably best to find another one if you can afford to.
If possible, I’d look for a company with a better cultural fit. By cultural I mean the company culture. It very well could be a foreign company (my preference) but there are more progressive Japanese companies as well.
If there are no specific examples, it is hard to improve. It is either some sort of subjective thing about what feels proper (run, fast) or you could do a なせなせ to figure out how things went wrong.
There basically is no job, especially not a devops job, that you would be able to do without basic communication skills. You will always need to capable of understanding what tasks you are expected to work on, and if you have any issues/confusion, it’s 100% on you to seek support and you will need to communicate to do so.
Social anxiety is a real thing, but it’s not some kind of insurmountable physical disability, esp. not in the limited context of a workplace. Unless your boss is complaining you don’t share about your personal life or something it is definitely on you to get over yourself or switch to a more mechanical role where there’s always perfect clarity and fixed tasks.
Probably not what you want to do but ask to have a quick weekly one-on-one catch-up with your boss, cc him in any important communication, ask for confirmation/guidance before starting any major work and checking before delivering the output.
If your boss is a criticizing dick about every small detail, then I can understand not wanting to, but this is what they expect from 報連相
After they know they can trust your output and decisions, they’ll ease off.
As someone who also struggles with heavy anxiety in this kind of situations, I just kept at it although I was stressed as fuck until I got used to it and now I now longer get anxiety from it. Kind of exposure therapy. I think it was worth it as now I can feel I can do it in a new job if need be but YMMV, everyone is different after all.
So you are doing a task without your team leader’s approval. What did it cost for your team or company in particular? It honestly look like an excuse for your boss to cut your salary since it doesn’t look like a constructive feedback, rather threatening.
This sounds very much like a micromanagement if you don’t have any kinds of flexibility in doing your task. If I may ask, are you a new employee there? How long have you been working there?
Seems you’re working with the scrum framework. In theory there is a scrum master whose very job it is to support you in communicating with others in the team. If it’s possible I highly recommend reaching out to that person. They may be able to help you work out the exact issues that people are having (“your communication sucks” is often not enough to motivate anyone, let alone someone with anxiety). There are probably some middle ground options that haven’t been explored yet that can be tried and improved on.
Additionally, knowing where your anxiety comes from and where you would theoretically be comfortable compromising can make it easier to have these kinds of conversations.
If communicating them in Japanese is hard, use whatever language is easiest. It’s important to get it out in front of yourself. You can always rework it into Japanese later.
> – We are discussing tasks on Slack, and for some reason I’m not confident enough to write in Japanese.
Don’t let this bother you; communication through short chat messages is *much* harder and more demanding than regular conversations or even traditional e-mail communications.
Unlike spoken communication where both parties can anticipate what the other is trying to say even when it doesn’t come out clearly, in chat you have to know the exact words to use and how to use them, all the time. With chat you have to instantly grasp contexts because messages pop up out of nowhere and there are no subject lines like an e-mail would have.
Don’t beat yourself up over this. Chat-centered communication is still in its infancy and I’m sure the whole world will be better at it in a few years.