Hiking the Mediterranean Steps in Gibraltar

M and I just celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary and decided to do it with a two-week Mediterranean cruise, just like we did for our honeymoon except better with a few more stops. I decided instead of trying to cram information about every stop into one mega-blog post I would break it up so that I could give each place the care and attention it deserves. Our first stop was Gibraltar, a British territory attached geographically to Spain. I learned a lot of fun facts about Gibraltar on this trip, including:

• English is the official language but most locals also speak Spanish and Llanito, a specifically Gibraltarian dialect that merges English and Spanish with words from other languages such as medieval Genoese, Hebrew, Maltese and Portuguese.
• The local currency is the Gibraltar pound, tied to the pound sterling, but they print their own banknotes that are distinct from the pounds you would find in Great Britain.
• There is one university in Gibraltar, established only a few years ago, which is best known for biomarine science.
• Morocco is only 9 miles (14km) away across the Strait of Gibraltar.
• The whole of Gibraltar is only 2.6 square miles (6.8 square km), but over 30,000 people live there.
• John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married there.

Cool, huh? I was excited to see a hike on our cruise ship's list of excursions for Gibraltar, and then I was even more excited to see the hike labelled "strenuous" because sometimes I'm disappointed when what's billed as a hike turns out to be more of a leisurely stroll by my standards. So I asked M if he wanted to join and when he said no (as he usually does for that sort of thing) I booked the excursion with a tour group for myself. This hike was up the Mediterranean Steps, the challenging ascent up the Rock of Gibraltar, a 200 million-year-old Jurassic limestone formation that dominates the Gibraltarian landscape.

Our group drove up part of the way and then began our hike. The path was easy to follow and well-labelled, with restrooms at the entrance to the hiking path. At first, we moved very slowly as a group since the tour guide asked the more experienced hikers to stay in the back and let slower folks set the pace. About halfway through, though, he took pity on us and let folks go at their own speed while he stayed in the back to help the slower people. Unfortunately, this delayed the tour group quite a bit, with some members seriously struggling with the difficulty of the trail. It was challenging, and I would not recommend it unless you're in shape and have hiked before. Because the last folks in the tour group were running hours behind, I and a few others who finished the hike first ended up breaking off from the official tour group (letting those who stayed know we left so they could tell the guide) and finding our own way back down the mountain via cable car.

The view at the top, which I heard is normally excellent and allows hikers to see from Spain on one side to Morocco on the other, was completely obscured by clouds on the day we went. Although this made the summit a little disappointing, it led to some stunning photos on the way up with the sun filtering through low-hanging clouds and reflecting on the misty ocean. I enjoyed stopping at various points throughout and capturing the movement of the sun, clouds, water, and boats as the morning progressed.

At the top, we visited O'Hara's Battery, a must-see for military history buffs. We could visit the engine room and see the ammunition and the cannons that hint at the site's past. The exhibits were quite minimal by way of explanation, so if you're really interested in this topic I recommend you go with a proper tour guide or at least an audio guide.

Another surprise of my time on the Rock of Gibraltar was the prevalence of Barbary macaques, monkeys that can be found all over the Rock of Gibraltar. Our tour guide warned us to give them their distance and he did not need to tell me twice. I'm not here to disrespect wild animals or tempt fate by teasing or feeding them. (I saw one group of tourists getting the monkeys to jump on their shoulders and pose for pictures, and I gave them a very, very wide berth.) That being said, I did enjoy taking photos from a distance. The monkeys were everywhere! I even saw several sweet little baby monkeys with their moms.

After finishing my hike and getting down by cable car, I met up with M and S in Gibraltar City for lunch and a nice walk around. I had the best fish and chips of my life at a pub called Lord Nelson, and I understand Gibraltar is well known for British pub fare and Spanish tapas. By the time we finished our food and explored a bit, though, we were really sweating. Once we all got back on the ship, we were so relieved. S laid on top of our cool bed sheets and said, "Ahhhhh, I like cold things." I guess living in Dubai has given us as much a taste for appreciating air conditioning as tolerating the heat. Well, I hope you enjoyed reading about our time in Gibraltar, and I look forward to sharing other stops on our 10-year anniversary journey in future posts! Until then, I hope you're enjoying your summer as much as we are.

The One Best Piece of Career Advice I Can Give

I'll never forget in my first tour when a dear mentor told me, "You'd be amazed how far you can get in this career just by responding to emails." I have a whole blog post about how to manage emails when you don't have enough time, but as I reflected I realized that if I had to share my single best piece of career advice it wouldn't be "manage your emails!" It also wouldn't be things like "make sure you get a Master's degree" or "read The Economist cover to cover every day" or anything like that.

The single best piece of career advice I can give anyone is to learn how to give and receive feedback well. A former State Department senior leader whom I deeply admire once said, "Feedback is a kindness." Although it can be extremely difficult to see feedback (especially constructive criticism) as a kindness in the moment, the more I progress in my career the more passionately I feel that this is true. In the conflict averse culture of diplomacy, many Foreign Service personnel I know have never received constructive criticism at all. Yes, there are people who have been in this field for 10, 15, or even 20 years and never once received any information about what they could have done better, what they need to work on in themselves, and what weaknesses they should address to prepare themselves for the next level. This is an enormous disadvantage.

Giving feedback effectively is just as important. You may have learned to provide a "feedback sandwich" of praise, followed by constructive criticism, and then more praise. The conventional wisdom is that bookending the constructive criticism within the praise will soften the blow. Yet my understanding is that research shows the format of feedback isn't necessarily as important as how it's delivered. I do think it's kind to express praise for what went well or gratitude for the effort (and there's always something worth praising if you search hard enough even when it's just "Thank you so much for taking this on. I appreciate the time you took for this project.") But you must deliver the constructive criticism or the person will never have the chance to improve, and that's not fair to that person or to yourself or anyone who has to work with someone who keeps making the same mistakes. (And no, just because you know you need to have the tough conversation doesn't make it easy or fun. I have a whole different blog post about managing conflict that might be helpful if this is something you find challenging.)

Let me share a story about myself in my first Foreign Service tour, when I was in Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. I had to send a press release out to hundreds of editors and journalists. I watched how my colleagues did it a few times and then, finally, my boss said I was ready to do it myself. I worked with the team on the next press release, about a major donation the United States made to Kenya and what a strong symbol this was of our partnership. I edited it, read it a million times, and then released it into the world. In that moment, I felt proud and excited that I was trusted to convey such an important message to so many people.

Later that same day, however, my supervisor pulled me into her office. I had made a huge mistake: an error in converting the Kenyan shillings to the U.S. dollar amount. Or maybe it was the other way around? (It's been quite a few years since then.) Either way, now all the editors and journalists had the wrong donation number and we had to issue a hasty correction to the press release to avoid the wrong number getting published. I was so disappointed in myself, but one reason I was able to bounce back is because this feedback was necessary but kind. I spent more time training and practicing for a while, and then when I was more reliably catching every detail I was allowed to do press releases myself again. And I didn't make any more mistakes with them after that.

This is the difference good feedback can make. Good feedback, although painful, allowed us to correct the record and for me to improve so I could succeed in the future. If the feedback had been delivered in a cruel way, I might have lost all my confidence and struggled much more. If I was extremely arrogant and refused to admit my mistake and receive the feedback or if I tried to blame someone else, I could not have accepted the need to improve and changed. Worst of all, if the feedback had never been delivered but my boss had quietly corrected it and then never let me do it again, I might be confused and wondering why I was suddenly losing professional opportunities with nobody telling me why.

I don't think the difficulties around giving and receiving feedback are unique to diplomacy. It's always hard to do this well, but I think the most important thing is to try never to sacrifice a long-term working relationship for short-term gain. If you knew you were going to work with that person extensively in the future, how would you deliver feedback so you can work together effectively? How would you receive feedback?

Even in the Foreign Service when we change assignments every few years, I think it's a huge mistake to postpone those conversations and assume you won't ever see them or work with them again, so they can be someone else's problem. If everyone stopped running out the clock on issues that should be addressed right away, the whole institution would be a better place - and we would all be better for it.

There are many articles online about how to nurture "criticism-open" employees, but a few of my favorite tips include providing a few suggested solution options along with constructive criticism instead of vague feedback like "needs to work on their judgment" as well as demonstrating genuine openness to constructive criticism and acting on it from the seniormost levels. Because people have a hard time giving feedback unprompted, it's helpful to request feedback frequently on your own work and where you could improve.

I also agree with inclusive leadership experts that feedback should be a two-way conversation. There were times when I wanted to provide constructive criticism but learned during the conversation that the person I was giving feedback had other very logical reasons for doing things a certain way that I hadn't known about before we talked. In those situations, we usually can find a new solution that addresses the issues I raised and accommodates the additional factors I wasn't aware of before.

I hope this career advice helps someone else out there, especially those earlier in their Foreign Service careers. I wished I had known when I started out that "feedback is a kindness" and nothing to avoid or fear. Dear colleagues, friends, subordinates, and mentors have given me feedback that has helped me grow as an officer and a person, and I'm so grateful they did - it's really helped set me up for success.