How to get fired being an introvert indirect personality at AWS
good intentions are not enough for diversity, inclusion and equity
TLDR
Early on in the first few months I noticed there was friction between me and my manager in our communication, which for me was weekly attacks on my personality, due to our different direct and indirect communication. Being encouraged by the diversity, equity and inclusion programs, I tried to address this issue with him to have a better working environment, even though being an introvert. Unfortunately, I was unknowingly put into performance review instead and was fired later on. I tried to address this, as a problem, but it was never even acknowledged, that there might have been one. In hindsight I think I should have never tried to address it and just play along. I do understand that everyone is trying to protect themselves, and therefore these topics are not even showing up on higher levels. But this makes all efforts pretentious.
Overview
This document describes a series of interactions between me and my manager, where in the end he concluded that I was not performing appropriately to my role I was hired for and therefore started to start human resource processes. The direct interactions between him and me were based on the weekly 1:1 meetings we had. The 1:1 only happened 30 minutes per week, later changed to 1h. That means in a whole work week only 2.5 % of the time was spent in 1:1 (based on 40 hours peer week). I did not consider participating in team meetings and cross region meetings to be valuable data points to consider. I will first try to sum up the whole situation and then later explain several situations, evaluated from a low performance point of view and also describe the intentions of my behavior. I can only assess these situations from my point of view. I will describe the effect the situation had on me with potential reasons, stemming from my background or other types of misunderstandings. Also it shows how the series of interactions led me to develop a subconscious fear to participate in the 1:1 as I feared everything I said will be held against me to prove I am low performing. I stated multiple times, that the way he reacts to me subconsciously attacks me as a person, e.g. indirectly telling me “you are stupid” and I wanted to resolve that. Although he initially researched the dimensions mentioned, he never tried to adapt to request of supplying more clear information, but kept surprising me with conclusions I either did not understand or share, or new processes, which remained unexplained. The result was that I communicated even less, which probably caused a vicious cycle to enforce his opinion, as my mental, subconscious state of mind was not clear to clearly address my points in any following conversation. As research has shown the subconscious and unconscious thinkers can outperform conscious thinkers . And I personally think as a introvert I rely on that subconscious thinking process, but in our conversations this was taken from me, over and over again. When I decided to switch to trying to address his communication style, based on facts, it was already too late. In the end I will give a recommendation how it could have been handled differently from my point of view.
Situation
In one of our interactions I noticed that there are major misunderstandings, that he thought I was opposing. From my point of view this was not the case, so I raised concern and tried to discuss potential measurements to overcome them.
Task
Try to better understand each other to improve the communication between each other, to avoid misunderstandings, that were fore me subconscious personal insults on my person, instead of objectively understand my intentions and discuss how I can grow within the company.
Action
My actions
I proposed 2 possible dimensions that could be different “High-context and low-context cultures” and “Power distance” and was questioning if that could be one source.
Additionally I tried to explain myself in different situations, opening up to provide insights on my behavior. By opening up I tried to bring up examples from the past, so he can better understand my self. I did request more explanations for comments and remarks. Also I offered him to join the reverse shadow sessions, which were already scheduled in the goals, to get his own picture of the situation and proposed to switch to writing instead, also putting the scheduled document as an example he can use to evaluate.
My manager’s actions
My manager researched the dimensions mentioned, correctly identified, that was not necessarily what I meant. But did not put in any other effort to continue to resolve this or adapt to my request to explain further.
Result
For some reason I found myself in a coaching session, not allowing me to switch roles. I did not understand why this comment was made. On request, I received the answer that this is a standard formulation, consequences were left unclear to me. My manager derived stereotypical conclusions, and received a low performance rating and a subsequent probation period contract termination from the examples I mentioned, to help him understand me better. While I was searching for support from peers on how to handle the situation better with him. I felt like he kept pressuring me in 1:1 with conversations, trying to push me for an answer, not giving me time to think about it, and then send conclusions, which I did not agree to. At this point in time I was unclear how to proceed, as my offering to open up and “coach him” to better understand me, by looking at the goals we set up in more detail. For me this was an offer from my side to help him better understand me. Also the coaching goals set up, where my suggestions to give him a better view, by looking at the outcomes of the pre agreed goals, which were terminated for end of this month anyway. The processes he started and the potential consequences, were never explained as my request for more detail. Unfortunately, it all resulted in a low performance view.
Follow — up
I requested help in the introvert community in Amazon and was advised to request HR to mediate. I requested help from HR, they asked my to try to unofficially solve this, so I talked to peer manager and skip-level manager, both telling me to try to focus only on facts for work and try to avoid this topic.
My expectation
I would have expected my manager to at least try to adapt to my request, by explaining measurements he is taking, and clearly stating what has what consequence and what exactly he is expecting. This did not happen, rather he continued with observations I did not agree to.
E.g. I told him about the document and how I want to structure it with data, for him, this was “no progress”. For me it was scheduled for end of the month and not clear, that he want’s to see a draft state. I specifically asked if he want’s to see the current state, to which he answered, he would only check spelling on it, and I can have it reviewed by peers first, to insist on highest standards.
Especially due to participation of my manager in the inclusion ambassador team from the diversity, inclusion and equity efforts and the content provided there I would have expected him to at least try to work this out with me, and not treat me like a broken robot, where some checkboxes could not be ticked off. To me he never made the effort to get my point of view. This is why I often felt like talking to a hypocrite, who will flip anything I say into low performance anyway. So I wanted to show him, that I can in fact fulfill my role together with the account team, but I never got the chance to prove this.
The stories behind it
The second part is describing the multiple situations in details with possible interpretations, which support my manager’s point of view, but also provide input from y side, such as effects it had on me and intentions behind my behavior. They can be optionally read to get more insights on the situation.
Method used
The situation in this document will follow an adapted version of the STAR methodology. First the initial situation is described. The effect it had on me. The action I took due to the effect. Then will then evaluate how this can be seen as low performing and then lastly describe my intention behind my behavior.
The revelation of a communication problem
Situation
During one of our 1:1 I asked my manager if I could join an expert group at AWS and that I made a preliminary list with some options to pursue.
My manager explained that from management point of view there are others, where we will need more competencies.
I acknowledged his comment and continued to explain, why I find my option to be a valid as well, as we were facing lost projects in our account due to lack of knowledge in that area.
My manager responded that I should not “always oppose”.
Effect
I felt like him telling me “why did not look at these alternatives”. This is due to the nature of me being an indirect communicator so I always try to read between the lines and find the real intention behind it. A good short read on this can be found in “Direct and Indirect Communication Styles”.
I continued to explain my reasoning for my option. When he then say I “always oppose” I interpreted this into “you are a stupid person, who does not accept any other opinion”. This second comment shocked me, as it is opposing my personal values, that I completely froze and was only able to say “ok”, not knowing how to continue the discussion.
Action
I simply answered “Ok.” and did not say anything anymore to that topic and we concluded the meeting.
Possible interpretation
The employee opposes suggestions given by his manager.
Intentions
The intention of me explaining on the option, was to show him, that I had some thoughts on why I chose this as an option and I wanted to explain this to him. This matches my introvert rating of my MBTI report. I did not intent to oppose his opinion.
When I just sad “ok” and stopped the conversion I was very confused and had to think about it, as the manager is a person I look up to and look for their respect. Him telling me that I “disrespect” him, required me to rethink about the situation.
Follow up
Noticing this conflict in our communication I brought this topic up in our next 1:1 interaction. I told my manager that I was worried about our communication and have noticed that we might misunderstand each other. I tried to explain the situation above as stated. In that meeting I explained two different dimensions where I though the problem might stem from, but not exclusively. The first one was “High-context and low-context cultures” and the second one was “Power distance”. He agreed to look into them and we discussed them in the following 1:1. We decided that we might want to extend our 1:1 sessions to 1 hour to give ourselves more time to discuss topics.
We also agreed that maybe writing is a better method for us, so he started to summarize the 1:1 via E-mail, in which he stated, that “we figured out that the problems are not based on cultural background”. Even though I experienced, that he put effort into researching and trying to understand it objectively, it felt more like he was trying to tick some box to finish up with the issue. I do not claim this to be the fact, this is just how I perceived it.
I replied that I did not agree to anything, and this was till open to me, as I do not think in communication one can agree and has to accept non closure.
Requesting feedback from account team members
In one of our 1:1 he also stated that he had talked to other’s and they confirmed his view. Which is why I contacted the persons I interacted the most with, which were the account manager, the customer success manager, peer solutions architect and my buddy in the company, to ask them if they had the same opinion, which they denied. Also they told me that I should not worry too much as I will have time to adapt and learn to get into the culture better.
I though about how this can be confirmed by others and I do think a possibility is to ask someone else specifically: “Do you also think he is opposing, because whenever you tell him something he goes quiet”. I do agree that I need time to think about input from others so I tend to go quiet.
Start of the coaching session
Situation
Following the discussion on our misunderstanding I was told he does not see me working at the level he is looking for my role. He sees issues in Earn trust and want’s to resolve this. He explained how a manager at AWS is a coach to help the employees.
After our initial discussion where I proposed we can maybe solve this, by having him shadow my reverse shadowing sessions with the customer and switch to writing. He send out an E-Mail stating that I should work on 3 topics, an I would not be able to switch roles without additional approval.
Effect
I was not expecting this at this point and was very confused how he came to that conclusion based on the little interaction we have during the week. Therefore I though maybe the reason could be our misunderstanding from before, where he concluded I was opposing him, because I can agree that in a customer situation opposing the customer would not be an effective way to earn trust. The comment, which surprised me that I cannot switch roles during that coaching, since I was not intending to do so. I suspected that it was an standard formulation since some process was started with me. I had a sleepless weekend, trying to think about what this could mean, and whether I am already one step closer to being fired. I was unclear of the process and the potential consequences it might have.
Action
The first thing in our next interaction was to ask about the last sentence from the E-Mail. He stated that it is a standard formulation, when you are in a coaching process. I told him, that I would appreciate if he could explain things like that to me in advance, as I tend to overthink (did not say this) and want to understand it better. He agreed, but did not explain the process to me further.
Trying to discuss his view I decided to open up and stated that I think can understand why he came to that conclusion but I believe in our discussion it was a misunderstanding on a different level. I wanted to give another example and explained that also in the past I was told that my learning points that I have “good ideas but is easy to dismiss” I described that from my point of view this can be a “having backbone” topic. I also explained that in our account meetings there was a situation, when I disagreed to have a specific point into the open task, as I knew it was already done. But in the heated discussion it was mentioned 3 times, but I gave up explaining that it was already done after the second time, thinking this information was not too important anyway. I explained how I thought this is part of my introversion and I do not want anyone else in the team to loose face by necessarily proving them wrong in a large group meeting and that I prefer doing so in a 1 to 3 person setting. I expressed that I was very fond of the fact that Amazon is based on writing and that I can potentially better proof myself in large settings in writing. I told my manager that I do not think it is an earn trust problem but rather disagreeing and having backbone, so I suggested my manager to join my reverse shadow session with the customer and I can try to express myself in writing as agreed.
Possible interpretation
Not only he is having this earn trust issue right now, but already in the past he had problems with having backbone and disagreeing. Also he cannot address concerns in the team.
Intentions
I wanted to address his concerns by trying to move away from the interaction between us and provided an example from the past, trying to make my point that it is potentially less an earn trust problem, but rather just a different form of communication I am comfortable with, which might not fit into his expectations, which I can accept.
Follow-up
Experiencing that all my efforts to try to discuss my personality with him to explain that it could potentially be interpreted differently were in vain I struggled to figure out how to continue.
Feeling that I cannot resolve this on my own I put an anonymous post into the introvert community channel on internal slack asking the community for advice. I felt like “I was pushed into a box I did not agree” with and they advised me to involve HR. Therefore I contacted HR to discuss this topic. They told me I should try to informally solve the problem first by also talking to peers to my managers manager. Therefore I scheduled a meeting with my manager’s peer and my manager’s manager to discuss this topic which was a few weeks a head.
The peer manager gave me useful input that and pointed out to me that as far as he knows the employee can decide who the coach is in the process, and since I stated my discomfort in the communication with my manager, he advised I could request to change the coach. Also he stated I should mainly focus on what he is asking from me if he we cannot work out the communication.
My skip level manager also agreed we should work on this and also proposed to switch to writing more to solve the communication and also to try out switching coaches as discussed with the peer manager. We were supposed to schedule a follow up end of January to see how it went.
The reverse shadow
Situation
I had organized a meeting through contacts with my former teams, as they were looking into putting a image signing workload into the cloud. As agreed I invited my manager to shadow the presentation. The person joining from the customer was new to the team, and I only met him once, interviewing him as being partly being the replacement for my role, therefore I did not really know how he would react to my presentation. The presentation itself went very well and the customer was satisfied and we scheduled a follow up meeting. Shortly afterwards I asked for a feedback from my manager to get his view on it. He confirmed that the presentation went very well but said it was with people I know and therefore it is different.
Effect
I was very disappointed in my manager, for neglecting this opportunity for me to show that I can perform in my role, as he decided it would not be countable when talking to my old team. I do agree that I had subject matter expertise in the topic, but I also had to prepare content talking to security specialist within the company to fit the customer’s needs I identified in a pre-meeting call. Also the fact that the customer representative was new to me as a person apart from the interview, made it a real example for me. We specifically were looking for a more traditional employee, as the project was moving into production, during interview phase. Therefore I was curios whether the content I provided would be enough to convince him to schedule a follow up. I became unsure on what was necessary to show my skills.
Action
I acknowledged his feedback and promised to invite him for the follow-up meeting.
Possible interpretation
This meeting was very good, but he knows the team and the people from before so there is an existing level of trust, therefore it is not valid for any evaluation.
Intention
I did not want to correct him in his view that the person from the customer side was new to me, as I though this would trigger him thinking that I oppose his opinion again, so I left that information unmentioned.
Follow-up
Unfortunately the customer decided against continuing with this project as they worried that the internal processes to perform the security checks would be to cumbersome for their small team. Originally they wanted to pass on operations to a larger team after implementing the first project in the cloud. Therefore I had to cancel the follow up
The holiday break
Situation
Shortly before the holidays I received the E-mail from my manager. In this he wrote about power distance and was stating some facts about the sate of the coaching topics. The first one being overdue, the second one he though there would be more opportunities for reverse shadowing and offered to help if I was struggling to find opportunities and the third one he mentioned I did not send him anything yet.
Effect
After reading this I saw, how fixed he was on the two dimensions I mentioned during our conversation, and thought I should have brought up the direct and indirect dimension as well. But I decided to follow peer manager’s advise to not engage in the communication issue anymore and focus on the task at hand. Seeing that he wrote about the coaching topics I decided to give an update on these in the next meeting.
Action
Initially I told him about talking to some others and that they told me I could have someone else working on the coaching with me and asked whether that would be ok with him. He sadi that I can get additional input from someone else but he does not want me to change our coaching session.
Then I simply gave a status on the topics. I gave an update on the progress the first point and asked if it was a misunderstanding, that I do have time until the end of the month, which was presented to us in the introduction presentations. He confirmed that this was the deadline but a alert would be shown after. For reverse shadowing I explained, how we decided within the account team that I would take up new topics from customers to start to earn trust and invite him then, but unfortunately the customer’s demand over the holidays was low. The amount of meetings he sees is are all follow up meetings and we decided to not use them as experiments for me to earn trust. For the last point I was asking him if he wanted to have the document immediately, as this was not stated to me before. I had written 6 pages so far, but they were not reviewed and I could also send it to him if he wants to see it. He said if it is not reviewed, he could review it for mistakes in the English language if I want, but I could also review it with others first before sending to him. Therefore I asked to have it reviewed by others first.
We also looked at the probation goals and I updated the numbers accordingly. Only a few had updates, and I explained the situation on them. I talked about the struggles I had with them with no further comment.
Possible interpretation
He is avoiding all the topics and not making any progress there. Also on the probation goals there is no progress.
Intentions
The first goal was well in progress and I was expecting to finish it in time. I simply wanted to clear up the information in the E-Mail stating it was too late already.
Regarding the second goal, to me this was unfortunate that customer’s did not request new projects, which is why I explained it that way.
For the third topic I felt that he wanted to see something, so I actively asked him whether he wanted to see a draft, but he declined. So I wanted to show him a more polished version. Since all of the goals were to be finished by end of the month, I did not escalate this further. As the probation goals were linked to the coaching topics, I wanted to have a high quality and thus did not want to finish them early as I also feared a low quality document would
Improving the situation
This chapter is about options an measurements that could have been taken additionally to improve the situation.
Acknowledging good intentions
An important part of all interactions is to always assume good intentions and acknowledge them during discussions. People always act with good intentions, even if they seem selfish. they will generate a positive outcome for the actor.
I do acknowledge that my manager did have good intentions trying to help our situation. He immediately looked into literature about the dimensions I mentioned to understand them better. Also he offered coaching to help improve the situation form his point of view. As written above I can relate to the conclusions drawn, based on the observations and target to conclude low performance in mind.
Break unconscious bias
In all our interaction I did never had the feeling that he accepted that fact that we need to improve our communication. The research done and the conclusions made were enforcing his opinion on the view. I think it is important to acknowledge that communication between individuals is always different and non-closure has to be accepted as well. Nevertheless the willingness to improve fundamental issues first before jumping to conclusions to quickly should be avoided.
When an employee voices a concern for the communication towards the manager, another option to break the bias is to involve a third party to be a mediator between the two parties, to remove the conflict itself from the conversations
Adapt to your employees needs
If the employee addresses the need to require more information on processes and in advance to meetings to prepare, reuse information available to you and send them out in advance. Especially for new employees who might not be familiar with the processes, this will benefit for all parties to discuss from the same basis. Similar to provide time for a reading when discussing a document, everyone should get the chance to have common information.
In my specific case I was unaware of the start of the coaching process as an official process. To me it was an offer from my side to help my manager understand me better in an unofficial way. That was the reason I was surprised that I cannot switch teams. Even after requesting more information I was unaware of potential consequences and therefore probably took it too lightly, based on the feedback of my peers.
Even when requesting the change of a coach to my manager and while looking for a different coach, the requested coach was asking what kind of process it is and we were unable to find it in the intranet with “coaching” as the only known keyword.
Use mechanism
When I realized we were not getting anywhere in improving our communication I though about how we can structure the interaction better to improve the transparency of my performance. In the following are some ideas, which I have not been able to communicate yet.
Create daily hourly report
In order to better understand the performance of an employee it is possible to have them create hourly based weekly reports. It does in fact feel like micro management, but it will help to understand the employee, when reading the content for an extended period of time. Also combine this with a outlook to the next week. Combining this data over a longer time can give the manager more insights on the behavior, e.g. is the employee planning the week and keeping the plan or does he spontaneously adapt to the events during the week.
Check-in more frequently
Especially when in doubt, the regular frequency of interaction might not be enough, it might be advantageous to increase the interval of interactions to get a better picture of the situation.
Setup tools for tracking
Another alternative to track the progress is to setup task in a tracking tool like a kanban board and review them together with the employee regularly and ask them to update the content as promptly as possible.
Setup milestones for goals
When settings goals which have a long deadline, it sometimes is hard to see if there is any progress. Proactively create milestones and intermediate results to review together do discuss additional outcomes.
Consider employee situation
Apart from the formalities also the specific employee situation can play a role as there are internal and external factors that influence their behavior.
Internal factors
Cultural background
Think about differences and cultural backgrounds. What kind of role do you have, how might the other person perceive you. Are you a partner and coach who can be trusted and information be shared, or are you a leader which orders have to be followed without questions. What do you want to be? Does the other person have the same understanding of your definitions?
Confusion in the role may complicate interactions and create misunderstandings.
Communication style
Acknowledge differences in communication, e.g. direct and indirect communication styles and spend more time on explaining intentions and meanings, when verbally discussing, if necessary. Especially when it has been pointed out that one of the persons is struggling, this should be solved first to avoid long term misunderstandings.
If unable to solve it between the two parties, including a third party to help is also an option.
Processing of information
How does the other person process information. Do they need to read them or listen to the information. Do they need time to prepare in advance or can you spontaneously interact on any topic. Does it make a difference if you talk about processes and persons? Does it make a difference when you talk about the other person and other persons? Especially when discussing another persons behavior, interpretations will probably differ. If they differ to far of the other persons internal values, it might be subconsciously be interpreted as personal offense, causing the other party to either to start to defend themselves or avoid conflict to protect oneself. Both options do not provide a good basis to start discussion.
External factors
In interactions also outside factors should be taken into account. Even though goals are set to be achievable by the employee alone. There will always be external factors which do play a role, these should be integrated into an evaluation as well.
Account related
The account teams work with customers and customers do have their own life-cycle and topics. During the time of the assessment was in a very big drop in revenue and the customer started major saving initiatives. Where existing projects were predominant. New projects were non existent and the account team decided to defer opportunities for me to the new year, when budget cycles at the customers start anew.
Private situation
Also the private situation of the employee can be a factor to be considered. Sometimes you need to dive deep into the situation to understand the employees current worries and priorities in live to get a more complete picture.
In my specific case we are currently expecting our first child in February, since we live here without any grandparents to support, especially in the times of COVID-19 preparations have to be made and worries have to be addressed within the family, e.g. what happens if my wife has to do the birth alone in the hospital. Given my personality I consciously will probably always say that this does not affect me in any point, but thinking and writing about it showed me that this is a major step in my life and has been the top priority the last few months without any question.
Optional measurements
Sometimes the situation can be overwhelming for the employee, then additional measurements could be taken to extend the time to asses the situation. It is possible to talk to the employee to extend target goals, probation time or make use of unpaid vacation.
Closing words
I do acknowledge that I could have put more effort into solving the situation between me and my manager, but the comments and interpretations I received from him made every meeting a harder growing challenge for me, as I constantly felt all my efforts were meaningless and words were put into my mouth to confirm his view. In the end I gave up trying to solve the situation and also tried to move to a fact based approach, but this might have been too late already. In conclusion I feel I had lost from the beginning, never getting the chance to proof myself, being stamped off into a category I felt very uncomfortable with.
I want to thank the manager from the diversity, equity and identity community, whose contents have always lifted my mood, seeing the company is trying to give everyone an equal chance and also the community manager of the introvert community on slack, providing content how people can be different, but acceptance plays a major part in being introvert as well. These two programs have prevented me from deciding to quit based on this relationship earlier, as it took me more than 50% of my energy to deal with this 1 h 1:1 sessions compared to the 97.5% of the other week. This situation would not have been bearable for the long term anyway.
Also I want to thank the account team, who has always been supportive and available in 1:1 sessions, even spontaneously, to guide me through the processes, as far as they understood them.
Overall I still think my manager could have used more input and data points to completely assess the situation, rather then, again this is how it came across to me, jump to conclusions quite quickly, which confirm his beliefs.
I hope parts of this document text can be used as a learning for further progressing the efforts of diversity, inclusion and equity at Amazon Web Services and other places.
