Do you ever annoy people at work?

[Yogipineapple123]

I am a senior manager.

I try to be diplomatic and am very careful when I give feedback to my team, manage upwards or push back on requests from other departments. However, I don’t know if I get it right.

Am I right to think that no matter how careful you are, you sometimes annoy people?

I have had to decline a request from another department and decided to flag problems I could see with their project to a senior manager. It was directly impacting my team and could have an overall negative effect on our company. I raised the problems with the team first but they didn’t make changes, so I raised them with my boss who heads up both departments.

I’ve, unsurprisingly, had a very negative reaction from their team lead. I am waiting to hear the verdict of the boss.

I feel my concerns are valid but now I am worried I have created some sort of diplomatic incident. I have only recently become a senior manager and now I’m
worried that my way of handling this situation was too “junior”.

On the plus side, I am pleased my concerns are now documented.

How would you deal with this situation?

Hi op. I am an experienced senior manager and to be honest i dont care who i annoy. When i make decisions its what i believe is best for either 1- my people or 2-the company.
Im at work to do a job not make friends.

You are right though its how you go about it so my structure is always stick to facts and deliver figures or data when I can to back up my claim. When giving and delivering feedback dont tell. Ask open questions to get to the point ," why did you do it that way...is there another way to action that...what was the impact,"

So now to your other issue.

Reading your post I would have done the same. I woud have met with ny colleagues and explained the impact on my team. I would also have highlighted the potential risks youve pointed out and then followed up with an email. Is your colleague the project manager or is there any ither stakeholders that should be involved of yes i would have included them too.

If they disregarded your points I would probably first instance challenge them again on the risks however if its impacting ny team negatively and my colleague hasnt stopped or paused the project to rethink i would discuss with my boss.

Could also be your boss thought this was a good idea. Gave your colleague the go ahead and now they need to manage how to review.

Remember as long as you are doing whats best for commercial customer and people outcomes then you are on the right lines!

Thank you for taking the time to share that - that’s very helpful and reassuring

For my team I think I'm firm but fair which most people appreciate. I find the good staff, especially, like that but sometimes I annoy the lazy ones. I can live with that.

I know I annoy my boss with being too quick to see problems. Sometimes she'll bring an idea to me and my first response is that won't work. In my head, I'm working out away we can make something work to achieve the aim, but I know it winds her up.

As long as I am professional I don’t really care about being annoying to be honest.
I do my part properly and if people get annoyed it’s probably because they know they are in the wrong

I really hope that’s not part of your Marketing strategy edwardkring because it’s pretty bad