What's your greatest weakness?

I default to over-preparing on the front end of a workstream and under-communicating mid-stream. My instinct under pressure is to put my head down and produce, and I've had to learn that the senior people on the deal need updates more often than I'd naturally provide them.

The specific moment that crystallized this for me was on the sale-side at the boutique. I was building a customer-cohort revenue retention analysis the MD had asked for. I knew it would take about 12 hours, and I wanted to come back with the finished product. About six hours in, the MD came over and asked where I was. He'd been expecting an interim view — even a half-built version — by hour three. The work I'd done was useful, but the gap had created exactly the uncertainty I was trying to avoid.

What I've changed: on every workstream since, I send a short interim update — even three sentences — at roughly the one-third and two-thirds points. "Here's what I've found, here's what's still open, here's when you'll see the finished version." It's a tiny intervention but it's changed how senior people perceive my work, because they don't have to ask. On my last internship the staffer told me I was the easiest intern to manage, and I don't think that was about quality — I think it was about communication cadence.

The deeper version of the weakness is still there — I'd still rather present a polished answer than a half-formed one. The discipline is forcing myself not to act on that instinct.