I’m the longest serving team member enjoying the
respect of my colleagues.
We have a new manager who is trying hard but makes
unfortunate decisions. My team mates are looking to me to "do something"?.
Advice please?
Anonymous
Scenario One
A
delicate situation indeed, calling for a great deal of finesse. First, I
would suggest you clarify with the team that yes, you are willing to "do
something" but that it could take time – in other words, impress upon everyone
that the situation at hand is not one lending itself to quick resolution.
Second, ask your team members to work together to provide the most significant
specific illustrations of behaviors they find untoward (1) for the reputation
of the unit among stakeholders and (2) for the internal workings of the
unit. You will need solid information and strong linkages to the
perceived impact of the observed behaviors. Third, stress that you may
need to strengthen your relationship with the manager in order to build a
foundation upon which to broach a difficult subject – and that such
relationship work does not constitute any diminution of loyalty to your team.
Then,
your task is to seek HR advice if that is possible in your organization, and/or
to seek the advice of someone in another department whose judgment you trust. It
is HR’s role to support employees no matter what the situation at hand – with
full discretion. I will assume here that it is not possible to reach the
manager’s manager in any defensible way.
Once
you have such advice, you are in a position to consider the approach to take -
and to discuss it with the team. One scenario could be:
As a
team, you work on identifying the most significant actions on the part of the
manager you feel raise concern, and ask the key question: What
information could be missing for him or her?
First,
you could determine what information was available upon arrival, and what has
since been supplied. Perhaps an inaccurate picture emerged? It
could not hurt to produce an overview setting out the team’s key observations
and the derived outlook for the coming year in terms of service delivery,
opportunities, etc. Providing such an overview gives the new manager a
chance to discover nuance that may not have been apparent and thus to
graciously tweak his or her approach.
Second,
you could jointly develop appropriate commentary – focusing on clients and on
the overall success of the department – to be applied "on the floor" to
specific instances. For example: "My team members and I
understand why xxx; and we
thought we’d let you know we have received input from the clients that they
would prefer instead … perhaps we could discuss it at the next staff
meeting?" Or "we appreciate the reasons why yyy might be a good approach; only in our
environment, there are some factors that suggest another approach could be even
better." Or "clients have suggested that zzz; what do you think?"
In
this scenario, the focus is entirely on the clients and the department overall
as opposed to on the manager. For that reason, it is likely to be
preferable to another scenario I’ll share next week – but first, let us hear
from you LMD’ers: What do YOU think?