Senior Manager comments sent to me by mistake

[Melanieee]

Need to share as I’m unsure if I’m just feeling a bit ‘hurt’ as it was something I perceived as negative, or if it wasn’t actually a big deal and I’ve worked myself up.

I’m in a project role in a big corporate, working with a new department at the moment. There’s a number of issues with stakeholders I am working with so my manager suggested I emailed the senior manager of that department with a summary and suggest we hold a call to discuss a way forward. I did this as suggested.

I then had a notification where the email simply said ‘will do’ so was a follow on from an earlier email.

The earlier email was the senior manager forwarding my email to someone on his team and he said ‘Put some time in with her will you so she feels listened to. Needs reining in.’

The colleague had (I assume) included me as they likely typed my name in the subject to see my job/department details etc.

I feel really shit, I haven’t replied or told my manager as it happened late on today.

I would respond along the lines with: To align expectations in preparation for our meeting, please clarify the meaning of 'reining in' and how it pertains to my outlined summary. Thank you.

Forward it on to your manager. “This may explain the issues we are having with this department”

This!!

I would reply saying “I’m assuming I wasn’t supposed to see that email however it is helpful to know we’re not aligned. I’m keen to understand where our visions are mismatched so l can set the scope of the work. Please can we get some time in the diary before the weekend? Many thanks op”

i would cc my direct manager.

It’s just office politics. If you’re in a PM role chances are you are implementing something the either don’t want or it’s moving too slowly. As you are new in role perhaps you don’t fully understand all the stakeholder dynamics?

I used that term recently for some external advisors who I felt were over stepping their scope of work and asking irrelevant questions. It’s not personal at all.

Just show your manager.

Don’t overreact or start escalating this. It’ll make you look unhinged. I think n they’re talking about the situation.

I get why this feels diminishing, but another spin on it is that it’s not about you or your performance. Based on similar situations I’d say the Senior Manager isn’t that close to the project and either thinks it’s a bit of a waste of time and/or is trying to have their team’s backs, but making out that it’s the other team that are the problem, hence the “yeah, just listen to her, but we won’t change anything” type response.
My suggestion would be to let your manager know about the message, but reassure them you have it in hand.
Meet with the person bug don’t mention the message. Lay out what the challenges are, what your suggestions are to resolve them and what the benefits are for them if this approach. Try to get that person on board with your ideas, because then they can do the hard work of winning their boss around, so you don’t need to.

I’d reply and copy in everyone from
the original email, remove his ‘will do’ email so the last one on the chain is the senior manager response (less likely to be missed by those on cc) my email would read.
“Thank you for prompt response. It would indeed to be good to get this reined in. Xxx and I will align at their earliest convenience as suggested”!

I think this is really good advice actually.

It does sound incredibly sexist, you can bet he wouldn’t say that if you were a man emailing him!

That’s great! Fabulous email to pass on to your manager.

I had something like this once at work. But the email was really slagging me off and very unfairly too making very incorrect assumptions. I just replied to it with one word:
“Oops”
and waited…

So you are saying she should just get back in the saddle?

reply all highlighting she needs reigning in big bold red letters and paste this picture in

Not sure it means you need reining in tbh. But I’d appreciate the first sentence.

it was a picture of a cowboy on a horse throwing a lasso but I can't get it to post so that did not go as planned

I think it would have been far worse if her request had been ignored. And she has some useful info now about the attitude of other staff members. So yes just get on with it. Rather than sending a huffy email use it to her advantage.

I'd have read it as the situation. OP is new to that particular department and there are probably various sensitivities she needs to be aware of, which hopefully will be explained.

There's zero point in sending a smart response, or going nuclear, or involving HR in situations like this. (Despite how it may feel).

It will just feed into his thoughts that you need reigning it etc.

It's far better to use the position to your advantage.

Showing your manager is wise because it gives them an insight into what you are dealing with any the level of pushback/resistence you are dealing with.

Agreed. Fun though it is it to come up with pithy put-downs to use against senior managers that you'd definitely use if you were in the OP's position (aye right), in reality if you've just discovered that a senior manager thinks you're being a bit of a pain in the arse, the best course of action is not to be more of a pain in the arse.

I’d take no notice of this, TBH.

Senior Manager is batting this over.

It’s “not his problem” as he’s senior.

I would think it’s fairly normal.

He doesn’t share your concerns…

But, it does sting, nonetheless!

This!!

False innocence all the way.

I like this one.

@Melanieee id keep quite because if they add any further emails to the chain then id guess you would get the copy too ? a good way to spy ?