i got nothing for this… help me deal with uncooperative collaborator

[delurking85]

I work for a small company. Will try to keep this brief. We are leading on a collaborative project with organisations from other sectors - we have worked with them before successfully. I am administrating. For reasons beyond our control the project had to begin at a bad time for everybody, lots of stressful juggling for all. I have been trying to complete the very technical contracts, which I have little experience with. I have made mistakes but done my best. We are trying to meet funding deadlines - signed contracts is one. One key collaborator is a freelancer, who is suddenly like a ticking bomb. They blame me/my company for every issue. We've had several ranting emails, a final one today has left me in tears. It's all my fault, i'm a time-waster, making the others jump ridiculous hoops, constantly making mistakes. They suggest the other collaborators feel the same way as them. Honestly, i don't know where to go from here, there is nothing I can say that won't be wrong, I have no idea how to respond to this in a way that will make a difference. A strong request has been made to them already by my boss who is on 'their level' to stay professional, clearly no impact made. My boss doesn't know what's got into them. I've never risen to the bait before but want to tell them to f*ck off and/or that I refuse to work with them. The latter sadly isn't possible [sigh]. There's going to be another year of this. Can anybody offer me better strategies? I'm at a loss

Hmm on rereading this my attempts at pithiness sound a bit confusing... The phrase ' It's all my fault, i'm a time-waster, making the others jump ridiculous hoops, constantly making mistakes.' is what the collaborator has said about me btw

I'd refer blindingly each time to the contract, and that I was attempting to get back on track, and to offer a resolution meeting to agree milestones, deadlines, key tasks etc so that I could report back to the funding body on time. I'd state that regardless of internal issues, we as a consortium needed to get x and y done by z (give yourself 10% more time than your deadline to funders) and in order to resolve it to everyone's satisfaction you need the meeting and state what you need them to have done to get it resolved and that you would hate anyone to miss out on funding because of contract issues.

Have you got your bit done now? Are you still struggling with the contracts? Does this impact on the project and the collaborators at all?

One tip which I strongly recommend. Never ever descend in your emails into anything which is not professional in manner and content. So, despite the temptation, and through gritted teeth, make sure your replies stay right at the top of the politeness scale. In the background, go and see your boss again and explain to him that you are expecting him - as at person at their "level" as you put it - to intervene and have serious words with them. It's up to him now. He knows that you are doing your best. He needs to do his job now. Or maybe.....you should be promoted into his job.

Funky and Lacashire that is helpful, thank you.
Re a resolution meeting - A similar thing has taken place already (I wasn't there) but this particular collaborator pretty much refused to be tied to deadlines 'because it's all our fault it's running late anyway for taking so long with unimportant things like contracts'. That's almost verbatim by the way! Their last outburst came because i asked 'if we can't make the actual deadline can you give me a date that you think we will make so i can advise the funder'.
They are a key player - this project can't happen without them. They are holding us over a barrel without saying as much. Do we just repeat your (very brilliant words) on the broken record strategy?
I can't build in time to the deadlines because we all know them unfortunately.
The contracts are 90% there, I think we are going to have to leave out the final issue because they are right as far as they are concerned and our lawyers are wrong . I will have ongoing communication with all collaborators, including around deadlines, for the rest of the project and have to be in a big pooba welcome meeting 'aren't we great' with lots of other project staff and them in a few weeks.

I would say 'yes, we've agreed it is all my fault. Now, we still need to agree x AND y, otherwise we run the risk of the funder reclaiming the money. We need to focus on resolution, or we will just go round in circles.

I had one 32 party consortium who I needed to agree on something they really didn't want to do (report in number to me by email - emails were still pretty new to them -with their starts and completions and leavers (contract for training, each had low numbers but I needed the info to be accurate)) so I devised a really complicated proposal which involved long winded faxes, sign offs, updates and made it sound far too traumatic and one person said 'why don't we just email starts, completions and leavers to you by the 25th of each month. Job done.

I call it 'ask for a horse, get a dog'. I use it regularly.

Can you suggest bringing in someone else to cover their part of the contract if they are having trouble fixing deadlines at this stage?

More great advice Funky. sadly they are literally the only person going who can do this job.
Maybe as you say I just need to say, 'yes we've agreed it is all my fault'. I just have a sinking feeling this will be a crowbar to beat me with for a year. Also that there seems to be some weird kind of status game going on and that this will impact badly on my company too. There are already small signs of the other collaborators sort of ganging up and going off reservation to prioritise personal goals rather the primary mission.

I am afraid that project management is one of those roles where sometimes you do need to have creative ideas coming from all orifices, take the blame just to get back on track, treat people like royalty but have more tricks up your sleeve to rein people in than you ever thought possible. At the end of the day though, the funder is king and if there is any hint that there could be reclaim you need to play that card and make sure people don't think they are indispensable.

I have in the past gone and done exactly that, found another player that would take allocation if one major player isn't playing ball.

You shouldn't be scared of them. You are holding it together. They should be scared of you.

Funky you sound great. Sadly, this freelancer is neither more nor less indispensable than the other collaborators, but the funding deal is that it's for all of us as a group, and currently they're the only one pulling rank.

Lots of good things to think about though and thank you for answering, you've really helped me tonight x

I second the suggestion of keeping things impersonal. Refer to contracts, award letters, the proposal you all made which was clearly brilliant and no doubt contains targets, milestones, dates etc against which the project team now has to deliver. Refer to 'the consortium', 'we', or refer to each collaborator by role, eg 'the lead collaborator', 'partner A', partner B' etc. Also, refer to the processes rather than the people who carry them out: it's harder to argue with a process than with a person. I'm sure I'm teaching my Granny to suck eggs here!

If they are the only ones pulling rank, can you use peer pressure to persuade them to sort themselves out? What are the consequences if they don't do what you need them to do?

I don't have anything useful to say, but I wanted to show my sympathy. I'm public sector, but I've been involved with projects involving collaboration between public, private and charity sections; research institutes, universities and politicians... What. A. Nightmare. All those stakeholders, all those agendas, all those different modes of operation.

Can you engage the other partners to support you. Copy them into email exchanges where possible. Can you set out an absolutely clear statement of your resource, your timescales and so on: demonstrate exactly where your limitations are, and ask them for constructive suggestions on how to change it (ie: a polite version of "you do better if you're so bloody clever.")

I guess the bottom line is that you do what you can do, and you keep reminding yourself that that's enough. Your boss thinks so, and the other partners think so... I think it's clear who's being unreasonable/unrealistic here. And I think you need to prepare some stock phrases to excuse yourself from meetings/phonecalls if these guys get nasty... You absolutely don't have to listen to abuse, and you shouldn't be afraid to tell them so.