“Hey Linh, this morning my manager asked me to create an Excel report. I spent over 2 hours on it, but it was still such a mess that my manager had to make corrections everywhere. Eventually, I had to redo the report. Then, in the afternoon, I saw another colleague creating a report of the same type, and it only took her like 10 minutes to finish it. Now I feel horrible…”
“How long have you been in this new rotation(*)?”
“About a week…”
“…”
(*) Rotation: job rotations in this case are part of the Management Trainee program.
Above is a conversation between me and a younger friend, who is working as a Management Trainee at a multinational corporation.
After completing 8 job rotations in just the first 3 years of work, I’ve learned something valuable:
When starting out, we are all “incompetent.” At that point, the more we compare ourselves with our colleagues, the more we may feel “incompetent.” Everyone else seems to know exactly what they are doing, while we have no clue.
Why?
Firstly, a new job requires new skills, both hard skills (technical knowledge, report writing, software usage, etc.) and soft skills (establishing relationships with stakeholders, identifying key influencers, knowing if the decision-making process is democratic or top-down, etc.). Everything is new, and we have to handle them ALL AT ONCE.
Secondly, we have yet to develop an internal benchmark to evaluate the quality of our work. Is this report insightful enough? Did I complete this task within a reasonable amount of time? Most of the time, the only way we can know how well or poorly we’ve done is to wait for feedback from others (supervisors, colleagues). We are like children asked to play a game without being informed of the exact rules, limits or consequences.
The good news is: in most cases, after a period of being “incompetent,” we will gradually become more competent.
The more we work, the more accustomed we become to the job. We start to know exactly which buttons to press to generate the data we want, whom to contact to get things done.
The more feedback we receive, the better we can evaluate the quality of our work. On our own, we can assess how well, how fast… we completed each task.
We gradually develop our own working process, our own working standard. Then one day, we suddenly realize that we are no longer “incompetent” anymore.
Let me share with you another story.
As part of my 3-year Management Trainee program, I had regular job rotations. During those 3 years, I almost always felt like I was only learning (not contributing at all), and I constantly doubted my abilities.
Even after completing the Management Trainee program, I still wondered if my capabilities truly matched the “Associate Manager” title I held, until a recent project – when I was the project owner, responsible for a livestream event watched by thousands of people on Facebook. I handled various tasks: assembling the project team, brainstorming ideas, planning, scripting, working with stakeholders, purchasing materials, and hosting the livestream…
It was a project that required multiple skills, usually requiring collaboration from many people, and it was a task that would have been impossible for myself just a few years ago.
Yet, I did it, and did it well.
Imagine if you were just starting out in a company and saw a colleague “rising to the occasion,” handling such an event with ease. Wouldn’t you feel pressured and even “incompetent” compared to her?
But, my dear, before coming there, I had been “incompetent” for three years, “incompetent” across multiple departments, “incompetent” while picking up a diverse range of skills that seem unrelated at first sight, but ultimately complemented each other beautifully.
When starting out, we are all “incompetent”…
So, if you are starting something new – a new field of study, a new skill, a new job – give yourself time to learn, to explore, to make mistakes.
You will be fine in the end.
