I'm on secondment and I hate it

[TheBlueRobin]

I've worked in HE for nearly 10 years.

In January, I started a secondment with a team as their senior manager (grade 8). Ready to embrace it as a learning opportunity and to get more strategic experience. I had worked with this team before and knew there were some dynamics to be aware of. In my interview I was asked about how I would manage a challenging team, red flag right there.

What I wasn't anticipating was ongoing issues with staff absence, roles not being backfilled, listening to feedback and making improvements for next year and still have more complaints. Just ran a monthly team meeting and the constant questions, challenges to my views and nit picking. I am trying to reflect on my own communication style and ways of working, but I genuinely feel like they smell blood and jump on you. A very hardworking and competent team but what I would describe as very negative. My old team would not dream of having this attitude and approach.

Just emotionally drained and currently counting down until my old role (7 months down, 5 to go). Thanks for listening to the rant.

Start every meeting by setting the boundaries “we are going to spend 5 minutes updating each other on the positive of the last month” and make everyone do a slide on their ‘wins’ and how they plan to move forward.
send out a simple template for them to fill in.
tell them you are changing the team meetings to have a focus on the positive so you can all celebrate each other.

It’s hard OP but this is exactly the sort of experience you will benefit from. I always said I learnt more from my scars than my gold stars!

This sounds pretty classic university crappicity and not helped by it being hot and August. Anyone new coming in will get off-loaded on. I would acknowledge but set out a team agenda and get on with it and perhaps also report upwards/ more likely sideways what the feedback is and try to tackle at least one of the concerns which might mean the team gets onside with you. They would probably not be minded to be on side with anyone coming in but if you are shaping what they are faced with it does benefit them to work with you not against.

Unfortunately, negativity in a team gets formed a lot more easily than it gets shifted. Did you know their 'usual' manager and do you think they fed this dynamic? Are there particular ringleaders in it? Is it a group dynamic, but ok in one-to-ones, or constant? Do you think it's apparent in how they interact with people outside the team? All of that would impact on how and really whether I tackled it.

Thanks all, I suspect it's years of negativity and general grumpiness. Everyone is very good at their jobs, everyone has exceeded KPIs and delivered brilliant work. I get positive feedback from other teams as well. Their old manager struggled with it a bit too. There were a few dynamics between team members too, they've all been in the team over 5 years.

In my first two weeks in post, they came to me asking to restructure our team! As no one wanted to line manage the support coordinators anymore.

There is just a lot of negativity, usually about how anything new will affect processes or anything that is seen as extra work.

I've tried to demonstrate how I've shared their feedback with highers up and listened to their needs. I.e. said that we will do less of X this year because they said they never had enough time to do Y.

I think if they moan but then go on to do what is asked and do it well then I'd call out really egregious carping in group meetings but otherwise let it slide. But I can understand why you're not enjoying it!

It's wearing and you have my sympathy... How do they perceive the tone of the meetings and attitude of the team? Have you reflected how you experience them back to them at all?