This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Bernard Hampton, managing director and head of Bank of America’s learning and skill development organization, The Academy. He’s based in Fort Lauderdale. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
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We learn from disappointment in life.
There was once a time, around 2010, when I didn’t get a role. A key quality for the role was leaders who were helping peers elevate their performance, beyond leading high-performing teams. Ultimately, I didn’t get it because I made assumptions.
I assumed my leader knew that I stood up a weekly routine, bringing my colleagues together as a peer group. They were also unaware of the colleagues I mentored in each division across the country each month.
These activities weren’t something I shared in one-on-ones. My leader typically talked about performance and business planning, so that’s what I talked about, and I missed an opportunity to expand the view of my value to the company.
While disappointing, it allowed me to reorient. It also gave me an opportunity to be clearer and build better relationships — not just with my leader, but with other leaders at their level, and even the leader above.
Fortunately, I was able to take the role a year later. But without that disappointment, there could have been a real miss for a long time. Here’s what the experience taught me:
Routines matter
Feedback shouldn’t feel like it’s coming out of left field. Ideally, you get formalized one-on-one coaching through regular check-ins or performance assessments. So I learned to better use my one-on-ones.
Reputations are formed through consistency, and these kinds of conversations, depending on level, should take place consistently two to four times a year.
When it’s time for a six-month or 90-day review, I make note of the really important milestones in my work. That includes things that underscore the value I bring to the organization, as well as the ways I showed up throughout the period.
That’s the time to paint the full picture, and that composite view can be really powerful when summarized in the right way of what it’s meant for your skill development, what it’s meant in contribution to the organization, and how it impacts the organization or line of business that you support.
Don’t make snap judgments
Disappointments, mistakes, and challenges are part of life and careers. When they happen professionally, it’s important to recognize that I joined the right company, with a culture and values that I believe in.
Too often, people make snap judgments. If you think favorably of those parts of the company, then, in moments of disappointment, the key question is: “Where did this go wrong? What was my share of it? Am I just blaming the company?
I find that much more can be understood about one’s reaction to adversity over the much easier circumstance of when every day is roses. Our best efforts come down to asking for feedback, and being very open to feedback and questioning if we have done our best work.
Have confidence and humility
In moments of feedback, it’s easy to lack confidence. I’m a high-functioning introvert, and it’s easy to feel like I can’t ask the important question. Even in disappointing situations, you need to be able to ask what made the difference and where you could have been stronger. The people who continually ask for feedback and take action on it are the ones who build credibility and career confidence.
My mom used to say to my two siblings and me, “You are no better than anyone else, but no one else is better than you.” It was burned into my brain because it combines humility and confidence in one sentence. Humility keeps you learning and open to feedback.
Confidence helps you take on stretch work and speak up. It keeps you going, even when you may be more junior. You need to engage with that feedback, and even more so in an era where the world is changing fast.
Feedback can be humbling, but it’s not a weakness — it’s the game. So being humble enough to learn, and confident enough to try, couldn’t be more important.
