My director told me my written updates read as evasive, and I got defensive before I had finished the message. I sat with it a day, read it again, and she was right — I had been hedging every number because I did not trust where it came from. So I fixed the source instead of the wording, and the next update took half as long to write. What still stings is that three people had probably noticed…

Six weeks of very direct notes from my lead and the first fortnight was rough. What turned it around was noticing she says exactly the same things about my work in front of the team as she does one to one.

I asked three teammates what I should stop doing and braced for a long list. Two of them said the same thing without knowing the other had: I cut people off in design review whenever I get excited about an idea that is not my own. Eleven years of reviews and nobody had told me, including two managers who wrote that I was a strong collaborator. Now I write the thought on a card and wait for the pause, which is harder than it…