Don't take it personally

Something I was never fond of in the past was review comments. I used to get annoyed by review comments and would always say to myself, what more does the person want to see in my work paper. It was this dislike for review comments, that addressal of those comments would be pushed down my priority list. This led to me to spend a lot of anxious hours thinking about the comments, addressal of those comments and most importantly, the mad rush at the end to turn around my work in time. Basically, I would procrastinate.

But it all changed after three things, first was a team meeting with a large gathering, discussions with my local team and introspecting all those discussions. In the global team meeting, we were discussing about quality of work papers, when I raised a point about the number of review comments and turnaround time for that etc., when a member of the senior management mentioned that they too get comments from their bosses, and it brought about a little more perspective. Then I spoke with my peers, and they too were plagued with the feeling of incompetence when addressing review comments on their work. I thought to myself, that's how I feel too. Then was the time of introspection.

I realized and it was also one of the points that I brought up in the team meeting; I tended to take review comments personally, that is, I used to feel that the reviewer of my work feels I am not competent, or I don't know something, that they have to give me comments on my work. For me, my workpapers used to be a piece of art, like the writing of Shakespeare or Hemingway with the philosophical depth of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Like my work paper was a piece of me on a paper, but it wasn't. What I only realized later, after much introspection was; comments on my workpapers were not a comment on me as a person or my knowledge or my know-how of a particular area or subject, instead, it was the reviewers way of saying "Hey, I get what you are saying, but I am not seeing it exactly how you are seeing it, but if you added some more data points in this work paper, I think it will help me get the same message as you are trying to convey". Once I told myself that my work paper is a piece of work, which can always be amended, improved or edited, and it's not me that the person is commenting on (Comments on oneself, i.e. feedback isn't bad either. It only helps us get better) , is when I noticed that I started inviting more comments, instead of shying away from them. Comments allowed me to understand that people will not always see a piece of my work exactly as I'd like them to see. This is because everyone comes with their own perspective and their knowledge of a particular area. For example, a manager working on 5 different projects at the same time may not have the level of understanding of a particular area as compared to an auditor who is dedicated to one project and been involved in the project throughout it's lifecycle, working closely with all the stakeholders on a daily basis. It's the responsibility of the auditor to help the reviewer to see how auditor sees it. I realized that I need to make an effort through my work to bring all the parties involved to a common understanding and ensure that both the preparer and reviewer is comfortable with the final product.

This slight shift in my thinking of not taking comments on my work as comments on me, have I noticed that quality of my work has steadily improved (based upon feedback from my reviewers), I have even started enjoying comments and feedback on my work. Additionally, I realized that all the people taking out time to comment on my work, are helping me improve, helping me see the things I haven't seen. They are helping me get better.