I need to have a difficult conversation with a colleague today.

[TheWifeofRequirement]

I’m 6 months into a role where I’m an expert in charge of a team of slightly junior experts.

My colleague used to be a junior expert under another ‘head of’ who had the role before me, but before I was given the job my colleague took a sideways step into a facilitation role which, although requires him to have some knowledge of my area, no longer requires him to get involved in the day to day.

Anyway, since I started, this colleague has struggled to maintain distance from the specialism and is dictating to me how to do said specialism on a daily basis.

It all came to a head over the last 2 days. He asked me to proof read an email and give feedback before it went to a client. I read it, and asked him to make a minor change because he was promising something in the email I’m not prepared to deliver. It was a minor thing: basically he promised to report to them daily which would be untenable from a commercial perspective and would put pressure on my team for no additional benefit. I asked him to change this to weekly reports and adhoc check ins with the client, he argued back and I clarified that as it’s my team delivering this, it will be weekly not daily.

He sent the email promising daily reporting.

I feel patronised, undermined and really bloody cross.

His role is to facilitate, not to dictate to me how to do my job and I’m now going to have to phrase this in a way that’s diplomatic and I’m struggling.

WIBU to basically tell him to back the fuck off and let me do my job? If so, how on earth do I phrase this??

@Thewifeofrequirement, HundredMilesAnHour's advice is spot on. Call his actions out in writing, making him responsible for explaining himself - keep it professional, objective and draw your boundaries.

Oh, and email the client correcting what he said.

I agree with 100miles at 08:44. Get it all in writing.
However I wouldn't say "Clearly state the impact on your team i.e. that they are now doing extra work for absolutely no value add". Don't make it about you or your team. Make it about the company. It gives you the moral high ground.

Also, make the position clear with your reports. Give them a heads-up before OD asks them to do the impossible task. Let them know that you will support them when they refuse.
Be a better manager than your manager!

Well what I wouldn't do is let this little twerp increase my stress or workload directly or otherwise.

Cut to the chase.
Email him ( people like him are slippery so cover cover cover.)
Dear .......
with reference to the email you sent to client x date inserted

Further to your approaching me for proofing and agreement on the content of the outgoing correspondence, I was expressly clear that daily reporting was something there is no business requirement or client benefit to undertake for currently. I made that decision in my official capacity to protect our reputation, team and individual workloads as well as manage client expectation. I have subsequently read the correspondence and see that in direct contradiction to my instructions, daily reporting has been promised.

In the interests of working together more effectively and flourishing as a high performing team, as Senior Manager I would like to offer you the opportunity to outline succinctly for me what your enduring reasons and motivation for this pledge were, and how you propose to deliver it. I must add at this point that this must be assessed and undertaken directly and solely by you without it infringing on any other existing client commitments which must be equitably managed. I will leave it to your judgement as to whether you still consider this possible. As you have suggested it you must so I look forward to receiving your proposal for review and my final decision by X. If you decide, in hindsight, that it isn't feasible then please feel free to send a draft client email outlining why for my perusal by the same time.

Hope this email presents you with adequate opportunity to move forward in a way that is mutually beneficial to all working and client relationship concerned. If my instructions were disregarded in such a manner again I would consider this a Learning and Development need which I would feel necessary to discuss with your Line Manager so that we can best support you in moving forward positively.

In anticipation of your considered response

Cheese 😏

Yes, I'd force him to be the one to backtrack with the client. He promised something that isn't going to be delivered, when he was told not to. His mess to sort out. Pull him up every single time he encroaches on your territory. It's what a man would do.

Oops sent too soon. I meant to add of course you're not going to let him do it even if he wants to. Prick that he is

You said clearly you wouldn’t do daily reporting, it’s now up to him to square that with what he told client

Yep. And I agree you can back this up with saying daily reporting adds no value, costs the business money (and if I know most clients they don't want it anyway!). Also emphasise to him that a major part of your role is to cut client servicing costs and he is undermining the company strategy.

Good luck!

I think you need to brief and to the point. As in "I clearly told you that we would not deliver this to the client, but you disregarded this to do your own thing. That is not acceptable. I do not have the time to start checking out what you are sending to clients but if I have to, I will do so and will be reporting to Management". Make it clear he's gone over the line. Wanker.

Mywhat
I really like that!

Good luck with the Wanker.

Absolutely pull him up on going against you and he has to fix it with the client. Cc the manager. This guy's an arse. You don't have to humour him.

Eatmycheese
That’s far too long! Something short along the lines of Mywhat or snipsnip said. Any lengthy emails will be seen as a sign of weakness.

And yes Chhese's email is far too long and seethingly emotional for me.

Do it face to face and follow up with a "Thanks for your time today OD. I look forward to hearing from you about your proposed resolution to the client reporting issue, since, as I stated, daily reporting is not feasible or in line with company strategy".

Kind regards ie I hope you are dead by teatime

TheWife

Yes, I'd force him to be the one to backtrack with the client

^^ Totally agree with this too. Email him and tell him the promise he's made to the client cannot be fulfilled as per your discussion.

Ask him to email the client by X date to explain that the reports will not be daily and ask to be cc'd into this response.

Tell him if he doesn't do it by X date you will escalate to his manager and contact the client directly yourself to explain that he has misled them.

Hopefully that will put the frighteners on him if he cares about his reputation. He needs to learn there are consequences for not following instructions. Don't be nice - I know it's hard as I am a people pleaser but sometimes you have to be tough with people overwise he will continue to walk all over you.

Don't drag other stuff in to this conversation - what he says in a bar outside work has nothing to do with the email.

Before the meeting, decide whether you want to contact the client and say the information is wrong or if you want him to do it. Tbh, I think you contacting them (or their lead) would get the message across more reliably than him!

Call him in, say there seems to be a deliberate error in the email because you will only be doing weekly reports with ad hoc check ins. Tell him who will be contacting the client to give them the correct information (you or him). Errors of this kind make both him and the company look bad to the client, and also inside your own company. No repeats of this. He leaves the room.

Keep it short, focused and don't get into a discussion about this. It's not about why he did it, it's about how you get it back to what it should be. Tell him.

Just spoken to him and now I’m in a meeting room and don’t want to come out

He’s a total and utter shit.

I was brave and I’ve made him roll back with the client, he’s emailing them to clarify it’s weekly not daily.

I went with ‘I’d like to clarify our roles and responsibilities, any decisions on delivery are mine, strategic and facilitation decisions are yours. You are not responsible for the delivery or expectations of my channel, I am and I can make decisions on how and why we deliver to clients any way I feel is best for the business, team and channel. If you don’t agree, I’d like to hear what you believe our roles to be as we have a disconnect in our thinking on this somewhere’

He said he thinks I’m being ‘massively unfair’ to him and I’m ‘making it difficult’ for him to step away because although he insists he has confidence in me and the team, he’s ‘noticed things’ that make him feel like things ‘might’ start to slide.

Fuck the fuck off you patronising shit.

I didn’t say that

What the fuck do I do now??

We left it positively, I said ‘well thanks for your time and it’s good we’ve had a chat about it’ so we can work together still, but I don’t feel like it’s achieved anything at all

Have you ever discussed this with your boss? If you did, what was the response?

Cheese's email is far too long, involved and too emotive. Youre going to have to cut this guy dead in his tracks, not write him a love story.

YOU are the manager, you manage team, what you say has to go, not some guy who cant seem to let go of past reponsibilities. You decide how often feedback is needed. Is this your client? If so, then you can email the client and tell him that you colleague misunderstood, and that daily reporting is not needed -it should be X instead. The copy your colleague in.

God luck.

Hmm, well I know we cross-posted but really if you get into a discussion with him what do you expect? He's not going to roll over easily, he's going to justify his position.

Ignore and continue. If it happens again, no discussion just the facts and out of the door.

Politely ask him to deal with this. Make it clear that you are not impressed by his actions as well. This is not appropriate. Also tell him that you are prepared to involve management if this gets out of hand in the future.
This is up to him to sort out. Not only is this affecting the reputation of the company your relationship is suffering. State that part of the job description is to try to reduce client service expenses as much as possible.
See what his response is. Remind him about the importance of teamwork and commitment. Can you email the customer or not? Also copy the manager into the email that is sent. That way you have sent a clear message. Hopefully he’ll learn a lesson from this.

@puzzledlady funny because it's more or less a carbon copy of one I wrote to a similar little shit and it did the trick

But hey ho 😉

When people say "difficult conversation" in a work context they actually mean "attempt to shit on from a great height". I bet you're trying this because you feel threatened by his superior knowledge of the job and don't want him to show you up as lacking.

NO apologising, NO ‘on board’ crap, NO ‘realigning roles’ BS.

Your Manager has just given you free reign to treat this OD Twat as your Junior, do it. Treat him like any of the others who report to you (as you would if they had behaved like he has for the past 8 weeks).

I’d make HIM send an email to the client apologising for HIS error and changing it to weekly (cc’ing me in on it).

Then I’d tell him nothing leaves this office before but I’ve seen it & he changes anything as directed and brings it back to me with said change. Then he copies me in on it when sending it to the client.

Remind him, very firmly, that his job is to facilitate. Very firmly.

If he steps out of line again, put him on a verbal warning and tell him to act within the role’s boundaries, not above them.

Honestly, pull you big girl pants up, think of us there with you and get the knob told.

(But what he said while you were out, meh, you don’t have to like his opinion of other staff or turn of phrase. I’m in my 40’s, sadly I don’t think I would socialise with (especially younger) colleagues now because too many people are far too easily offended and it’s not relaxing or fun.

But of course this being Mumsnet we're all full of our own good ideas aren't we!

Back off to cluster feeds and a baby bronchiolitis. I think I'd rather be @TheWifeofRequirement

What the fuck do I do now??

Send an e-mail to provide 'minutes of the meeting', to confirm your the agreed action plan. And cc manager

Cross posted with you!