Q & A Table of Contents
She Came, She Intervened, Now She Won’t Leave
From: Teresa, Hayward, California
Question: I need advice regarding a situation in my workplace. I am an assistant manager in my department. My manager and I were requested by the General Manager to allow the Operations Manager to come to our department and set it up to operate as a processing center.
Normally, in our business (Real Estate (property) Closing Agent) the work flow is handled differently, however due to a high volume of closings it was necessary to make the change.
The operations manager completed her task of re-organization a year ago. However, she will not "let go" and allow the manager and me to properly train our staff and oversee our department. How can we tactfully and skillfully tell the operations manager to "let go"? She is sensitive, overbearing, and feels like she must have control.
Response: One wonders whether the General Manager wants things to stay the way they are — did s/he assign the Operations Manager to work with your department to get her out of his/her hair? You and your department manager ought to do some research on the General Manager’s short- and long-term objectives regarding both your department and the Operations Manager. If the Operations Manager hasn’t got anything better to do than interfere in your department’s work, does that indicate that there’s no other work for her to do in the company?
Since the General Manager got you into this situation, s/he has an obligation to help you design and implement an exit strategy.
If you and your department manager want to handle the relationship with the Operations Manager on your own, it could make a great deal of sense to figure out who the stakeholders are in the situation: owners, customers, members of the administrative hierarchy, the individuals directly involved (including yourselves) -- and whoever else you think should be considered. Then try to figure out what the interests are of each party — not just ‘what’ they want as an outcome, but ‘why’ a given solution would be a good choice to achieve that outcome.
Prior to your face-to-face communication with the Operations Manager, if you have done a good job looking at the stakeholders and their interests, you should be able to come up with some creative alternatives to the existing situation that save the Operations Manager’s face without making you and your manager feel like idiots/victims/bad guys. Before you communicate with the Operations Manager, you need to know what information will help you influence her decision. Once you have a sense of what information you need you can develop a series of questions to ask her that will help lead her to understand your feelings — as well as your departmental needs. If you ask questions it is far more respectful than simply telling someone ‘this is the way it is, take it or leave it.’
You may want to find out whether the Operations Manager feels you and your departmental manager are demonstrating competence in the modified procedure she designed. Perhaps if you feel she’s done a good job you can offer to ‘sell’ her services to other units of your organization that may also benefit from procedural redesign. That’s one of the things you should find out from the General Manager before dealing with the Operations Manager.
It may also be possible to ask the Operations Manager how she would feel if someone were behaving towards her as she is behaving towards you. Obviously, this must be handled diplomatically.
You need to understand how far you can go without upsetting the General Manager, without turning the Operations Manager into an active enemy, and without looking like cry-babies. Good preparation should arm you for virtually whatever may arise in the process.
Good luck,
Steve
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