Sooner or later somebody will pass you a note that started with a person who is not there. Some people find you difficult to work with. A couple of teams mentioned you are territorial about the codebase. I have heard you can be dismissive in reviews.
This is the hardest feedback to handle, because you cannot ask the source anything, and it has already been through a translation you did not see.
Two reactions are available and both are wrong. Swallowing it whole means rebuilding yourself around a sentence that might have come from one bad meeting. Dismissing it as gossip means throwing away something that may be entirely real.
Do neither. Interrogate the delivery gently, without treating the messenger as the accused.
Start with attribution. Is this something you have seen yourself, or is it something you are passing on. Those are different pieces of information and they deserve different weight. A manager who has watched it happen is telling you about reality. A manager relaying a comment from a conversation in July is telling you about a rumour, and should be willing to say so.
Then get the size of it. Some people is very often one person. Ask how many, and ask when. Recent and repeated is a pattern. Once, four months ago, during the migration when everyone was fraying, is a bad week.
Then ask, politely, whether you can speak to the person directly. Sometimes the answer will be no for legitimate reasons, and you have to accept that. But asking is reasonable, and how the request lands tells you a lot.
Finally, weigh it against yourself. If it lines up with something you already half suspected, act on it and stop worrying about the chain of custody. If it matches nothing you recognise, take it to two people who will be straight with you and ask whether they see it.
And when you are the one carrying a message, be careful. Encourage the person to say it themselves. If you will not do that, own it as your own observation. Handing over unattributed criticism you cannot support is not honesty, and the damage happens somewhere you never see it.
– Asael Shinder
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