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??

Disk ffs DICK. DICK!!

Well done op

Collaborative, most definitely.

I don’t really want to scorch earth (however tempting!) at this point, it’s definately a strategy if this doesn’t work but I need the evidence that says I’ve had a good try at resolving it first if that makes sense?

Good you're sending an email - if he disagrees with anything you will have it in worrying and evidence if he starts overstepping the line again.

Suttree IME silly things like "mutinies" only tend to happen when a team is weakly or ineffectively led in the first place

Therefore, providing OP and her own managers are confident of her abilities, I'd suggest this is exactly why the issue needs to be addressed purposefully before it gets any more out of hand

Sounds absolutely perfect OP. Factual, professional and getting your point across. That should put a stop to his gallop.

I think that's a great email op.

A poster above made the point that this may just be his management style and so from his POV you're under-delivering. I think there may be a lot of truth in that. Is he aware of how much more profitable the business is now it's moved on from that model?

contessa yeah he’s actively aware he was over delivering and forcing the rest of the team to do the same. Unfortunately, he has a mindset that ‘hard work’ is a virtue and therefore you can’t possible criticise him for doing too much. He put a lot of pressure on the team before I arrived forcing them to try and work to his ‘standard’. The problem is, the work he was doing was fine but nothing special, but all his time was taken up communicating in minute detail to the client, or putting together insanely detailed implementation plans which took longer to establish than the task itself.

He was forcing the team to work that way too which is how we ended up with an 80 hour deficit. It was literally 80 hours of useless meetings, updating 3 separate plans for the same task etc.

I’ve stripped all of that back, taught the team strategies to work smarter so things take less time and implemented a central tracker, so everyone can see where things are up to and the facilitators don’t need to call us to chat through progress all the time.

I’ve been very publicly and embarrassingly praised by much senior management because we’re now over delivering on target at a much reduced cost to the business. When this happened, they talked about the things I changed and within that, the things that were wrong before and that was all stuff he is insisting we continue to do.

You are awesome. I think you handles this beautifully, and it sounds like the company is incredibly lucky to have you.

Good, so you should be able to say 'Dave, what you're asking us to do is what we're trying NOT to do. Hard work is good but not if it costs us more to do it!' or similar without him pushing back too hard (N.B. this may need rephrasing for non-Daves).

Thank you

I don’t feel very awesome at the moment, I feel attacked and little and a bit frightened of the world. You know when you just want to curl up in a corner with a cup of tea and growl at anyone who comes near you? That.

I really need to build my resilience, it’s a bloody nightmare

op I'd be bloody DREADFUL at your job and am a bit in awe of you. You're doing very very well!

I think your update about how fab you are should been at the top of your thread. Not because it’s a drip feed but because you need to understand he’s an annoying buzzy little fly.

The reason why your manager told you to deal with the stupid little shit is because they know how capable you are! And perhaps more capable than some of them by the sound of it - the company should have dealt with him a long time ago.

He’s seriously threatened by you and you have been gratious in triumph. You can go scorched earth later if necessary.

Has he sent the email yet?

You sound like a wonderful manager and a true asset to your company.

While OD sounds like a shart goblin who hopefully has learned his place now.

Bless you. I’m similar. It feels very exposing. And yet, you have objective proof you are doing a great job.

Your colleague’s ego must have taken a massive hit that the whole business has rejected his way of doing things, with humiliatingly spectacular success. Remember his actions aren’t about you, they’re about him.

Brilliant email, Wife! It’s extremely professional but boy, does it put him in his place, nice one!

If he isn’t reeling from that, I’d be amazed. He needed telling you and that email absolutely did the job. Well done.

Unfortunately, he has a mindset that ‘hard work’ is a virtue

Oh god, these people are a bane. Yes, in the old days of manual labour, there was a fairly easy relationship between effort and useful output. Most tertiary sector work hasn't been like that for years, though.

(There's an apocryphal story of how an army classifies its recruits that comes to mind here.)

I’ve been very publicly and embarrassingly praised by much senior management because we’re now over delivering on target at a much reduced cost to the business. When this happened, they talked about the things I changed and within that, the things that were wrong before and that was all stuff he is insisting we continue to do.

This is his problem, he's trying to pull you down. Your email seems fab to me.

Wow OP - you sound awesome.
You've done an amazing job in turning it all around in a very short space of time.
Now stand your ground.
Remember how fabulous you are. Remember what management have said about you.
And..... kick ass!!!
You got this!

I'm cheering for you, here.

Well done OP

TheWifeOfRequirement I am sure you are not a shit manager! Please don't doubt yourself and feel bad on that score. Many managers (including myself) have mainly an easy life because people in their team are not arseholes and also care about doing a good job.
It's a shame you haven't got this luxury.

If you find it hard to assert yourself in face-to-face conversations then do some of the communicating by email. I've only read half the thread (up to where you had your initial face-to-face with Officious Dickhead) but if you need to see him again I'd suggest sending him a pre-email with the points you want to discuss. That way you can get your thoughts in order, set them down without being derailed, and it acts as an agenda for the meeting to bolster you up when you actually meet.

All the management manuals etc say face-to-face is better but I have recently realised that it's ok for me to use my preferred communication style (written) for some parts of a difficult interaction - just in the way I've mentioned above, they can't ever replace an actual conversation though. At the end of the day the way for the meeting to be most effective FOR THE COMPANY is for me to be able to communicate effectively, and trying to do it all totally out of my comfort zone isn't going to achieve that.

I hope that made a bit of sense!
Power to you OP

I like your email, well done.

I've had the misfortune to work with a couple of people like this over (over 30 ears of working, so not too bad). I was far too junior really to do much about either of them, but watched my team implode due to the first little shit (male, hated having to work with women who were at least as good as him, if not better) but didn't have the heart to watch again so was the first to leave the second time, same thing happened anyway.

Little scrotes with big egos.

If you're lucky he'll leave when he finds he can't play you, or - has been known to happen, but don't hold out for it - actually pull his socks up, grow up and become a good employee.

"A poster above made the point that this may just be his management style and so from his POV you're under-delivering. I think there may be a lot of truth in that. Is he aware of how much more profitable the business is now it's moved on from that model?"

The fact is that it matters not a jot whether he does or does not approve of the Op's style: it's not his responsibility.

If he doesn't behave himself, I'd be fighting back with "I'm concerned that your attempts to do my job is impacting on your own!"

Your e mail is great!