Reacting defensively or with dejection is counterproductive. I always remind myself that when a manager gives me constructive feedback, it’s a good sign. It means they see my potential and want to help me get there.
I like to get ahead of feedback by regularly and directly asking for it, rather than waiting for it to come to me. This shows I’m passionate about addressing my shortcomings and improving my performance, and it makes it easier to swallow negative feedback when I’m mentally prepared for it.
5. Adaptability
Like many of us, my world turned upside down with the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, I was in the NBCUniversal Page Program, working five to six days a week in the office. As pages, we didn’t receive work laptops, so we didn’t have an option to work remotely.
Suddenly, March 2020 happened. All pages were required to work from home for the foreseeable future. It was a shock to suddenly lose face-to-face human interaction in a program all about learning and networking.
However, we adapted to this change by setting up virtual informational interviews where we would have typically done coffee chats.
Change is inevitable, and the pandemic is a great example of a massive change that affected us all and was uncontrollable. We had no choice but to accept the change and adapt how we worked to keep businesses moving forward.
LinkedIn listed adaptability as the “top skill of the moment” in its 2024 Most In-Demand Skills report. Lam spoke to this soft skill:
“Adaptability is often considered a top soft skill, but can also influence how quickly someone adapts to technological advances, leveraging new tools to produce more effective and efficient work,” Lam says.
