How can I get unbiased and objective feedback when my manager is a friend of mine?

Question

I work in a ~200 person company; my team is composed of about 15 people and my manager is an old friend of mine who has extensive confidence in me.

According to my colleagues' feedback, I'm doing a great job. Still, there are a few who talk behind my back saying that I'm too fast and will introduce too many bugs into the product.

I tried to ask my manager for feedback about this (and similar) situations but he always tells me to give no importance to this because I'm performing very well.

I think he's biased because of our friendship and I would like to get objective feedback but I'm not sure who should I ask.

I could ask the manager of my manager but I fear he's not informed enough about these low level problems, or that he could think my manager isn't doing a good job because of his bias.
I may also wait for the periodical performance reviews but if something is wrong I'd like to know about it before I get a bad PR so that I have time to fix the situation...

Are there possible solutions to this problem or should I wait for the periodical performance review?

Answer 1

You can ask your manager whether there's any area you can improve on (without referencing what people are saying behind your back).

There's a big difference between saying "No, there is no possible way for you to improve" and "No, don't pay any attention to those idiots trying to put you down".

Beyond that, you should just trust that he'll give you honest feedback.

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People talking behind your back could just be coming from their own insecurity or lack of ability to perform at your level.

Try to look at their feedback objectively and try to see whether or not they're making a good point.

You can possibly also ask your manager about the quality of your work as well as the number of bugs you introduced and whether he thinks there's room for improvement there (without pointing out that this might be related to how fast you work or that this is coming from others talking behind your back).

If you or your manager see a good argument there, you can work on that and try to optimise the speed / attention to detail trade-off a bit better.

If there isn't a good argument there, just laugh it off.

Answer 2

I try to ask my manager feedbacks about this (and similar) situations but he always tells me to give no importance to this because I'm performing very well.

Take you manager at his word, this is his role and he's a professional. Your failure impacts badly on him so it's in his best interest to provide honest feedback.

Answer 3

Don't worry too much about the (lack of) feedback from your manager: He will let you know if there is anything to correct if necessary - it is part of his job, after all; and also in its best interest.

Also, I would not give too much importance to the comment of your colleagues. However, you can give it a go and think wether they might be right in some of their criticism (are you really that fast? do you follow proper programming methodologies? do you test your code early and often?), and if you think so, try to improve on these areas by yourself. You don't really need a manager to confirm that if you already realise by yourself.