Dealing with a Toxic VERY Difficult person at Work

Are they a QP?
Sounds like classic QP behaviour.

It is very weird indeed that you open by saying you are "working in partnership with a senior colleague" but technically you manage them.
Those are two very different things, and if you are confused about your roles then no wonder they are.

Things like them asking what tasks you are working on that day is them 'pretending' to manage you - they are signalling that they will treat you like their equal. They don't understand your position.

Is the formal line-management structure clear in the organisation? Are you the colleague's line manager for all purposes or just this project? Do they think that someone else is their 'real' line manager?

How has this situation arisen? How come you think you are colleague's manager but they don't recognise that?

Use the formal structure: take it to your line manager and ask them to ask colleague's line manager to clarify and formalise the situation.

Once they understand that you are in fact formally managing them, at least for this project /area of work, then you can move forward.
You then use all the usual management tools (meetings, targets, KPI's, etc etc.) and document everything, back up every conversation with an email.

But you can't do anything without clarity of authority.

Set the kpis

Leave him to it. When he doesn’t hit them have a meeting to discuss why and what his plan is to meet them.

If he doesn’t meet them again have a similar discussion and say if it doesn’t improve you will escalate.

If he doesn’t meet them again, escalate to your boss and let them decide what happens.

Evidence everything in writing.

The bottom line is you’re the younger colleague/manager who’s come in and wants him to do stuff he’s got away without doing or wants him to do things differently or faster.

Don’t put so much energy into this. Firm KPIs, regular meetings, if he doesn’t perform then take it higher. If he kicks off walk away and ignore it.

Do stuff and make them think it’s their idea.

It sounds to me as he/she sees you as their equal in terms of seniority.

how do the people above you treat both of you? Sometimes blurred lines come from the top.

I think with difficult people the best way forward is to win them over rather than fight against their nature. I agree with others who have said not to give “instructions “ on what to do. A more collaborative approach works best.

not sure what kind of work you do but could you discuss the overall job needed and let them “manage” the execution of it independently with regular updates with you?

This is what I thought. They think you're swinging your ego around, because you're both senior.

I'd suggest (although it will be very awkward) that you include some yearly objectives around their attitude to feedback/behaviours as well as just productivity. I would do it as unemotionally as possible and not make it personal but perhaps go down the "it's really important we all take feedback on board and strive to improve, change and move forward. This year I'll be doing a 360 review to get feedback from everyone I work with. What goals and objectives would you like this year to help you improve, move forward and take on board feedback for where you need to improve". Ideally you want them to buy into their yearly objectives/kpis and contribute to creating them too. You also want them to buy into getting feedback (not just from you but from other stakeholders - clients, their direct reports, colleagues they work closely with) and then building their own development goals around that feedback too. Put in place monthly 121s and allow them to do their own thing in their own way the rest of the month (if youre telling them wgat to do on a daily or weekly basis at a senior level then youre a micro manager) but bring the kpis and objectives to those 121s to discuss. Where they aren't hitting them ask "what are your plans to address this and how can I help you succeed" - document all your 121s ready for the end of the year. At year end, go through them, they cannot say they've not had opportunity or enough support because every month you'll have discussed them, offered help and discussed solutions. If they're consistently not hitting them talk to HR about a performance plan/pip.

'All hell breaks loose' so you wont bring it up and you'll leave him alone. I worked with someone like this, if they didn't want to do something they would act so badly that people just wouldn't ask them going forwards.

I also agree with a PP that he does not think you mange him and that is part of the issue.

Agree with @Doggymummar on very frequent but short meetings. If small teams have a daily stand-up meeting to plan work, highlight problems, etc, there's no reason that a team of 2 can't.

Agree with @LoveRules on keeping a log of every interaction. I'd give it a week of this and the super-frequent stand-ups before escalating to your manager though.

The employee is probably a man who can’t get his head around a woman being more senior than him. Not sure being “supportive” Will help with that.

How do you manage someone without telling them what to do?

I'd escalate this issue to your own line manager or with HR tbh. There's no reasoning with unreasonable people.

Keep a log of EVERY interaction
Get a summary of conversations in email back to toxic colleague
Get every meeting set up with a clear agenda and Aims/Objectives.
Deal in facts only not emotions.

It's a horrible stressful situation.
I've been there and ended up leaving for a better paid job in a nicer org who would not tolerate this behaviour. At my last job bullying at a senior level (by men mainly) was rife.

In this situation I'm would be having twice daily on to ones. Ten minutes in the morning, these are you objectives for the day. Ten minutes at end of the day to see how they got on. Add in a midday one if they are routinely not completing the work set. It's exhausting, but they will soon realise you mean business and knuckle down, or leave. I did this very successfully when I inherited a team if 14 intransigent sales reps. They were all gone in 8 weeks and I could recruit my own team. This was in a 1000 seat call centre and I never got grief again as they saw I meant business.

And if this fails, you follow your performance management guidelines to the letter.

I've seen managers twist themselves into knots trying with people who are either none idle or utterly resistant to anything that is not their will.

Do you every say “yes, why do you ask?”

could it be they want to get into this area of work?

@Moanranger i don’t see how she has indicated anywhere that that’s her management style at all. You have to at a baseline lay out what a certain project includes which may include ‘telling people what to do’ by simply explaining tasks, setting goals and deadlines.

Hi OP it’s because you said “technically I manage him” and you mention that last. So it gives me the impression you don’t actually manage him in practice and maybe you don’t want to? I may be wrong of course. I would suggest you try and establish some new working practices. Once a month catch up sounds not enough, though obviously I don’t know anything about your work and it’s norms.

I would suggest once a fortnight one to one if you have wider team catch up meetings, once a week if you don’t. You aren’t going to overcome difficult issues if you meet once a month.