Don’t rock the boat. Do not do things which will cause trouble at work. Say nothing.
Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem! (Do your work and do positive things.)
Because she has to work with her on a daily basis, and that involves talking about things that are relevant to their jobs in way. Ideally this communication should proceed fluidly and transparently, but the exclusivity that is occurring is preventing that. If monstro feels she can’t talk openly about certain things without reinforcing feelings of alienation, distrust, and low morale in her coworker, then this presents a dilemma that most empathetic people can appreciate.
I don’t get this coworker is monstro friend per se; merely someone who monstro wants to maintain good working relationship with. It is not easy to do that when you’re a witness to behaviors you know are hurtful to someone but are still considered within the bounds of fair play in the workplace.
monstro, if this is bothering you, the best course of action is to go to the meeting organizer and ask whether they have considered inviting your coworker to these meetings. If they express problems with her, you can validate their feelings while still letting them know the difficult position it puts you in because of the nature of your interactions with her. It’s possible the organizer hasn’t considered the full ramifications of their exclusiveness (or has told themselves it’s not a big deal), and might not mind the reminder that their quest for expediency might later blow up in their face.
If the organizer doesn’t follow your suggestion, then let it drop. I wouldn’t go out of my way to tell the coworker about any back room meetings, but I also wouldnt lie about if confronted.
Like others, I’m a fan of keeping teamwork small and simple because the more voices you add to a discussion, the longer if often takes to reach a consensus, the more digressions have the potential to eat up time and attention, and the more work you have to do to manage the flow of ideas (and few leaders seemed skilled at doing that). That said, I do feel it is more gratifying when I’m able to accomplish something while being very inclusive, because if you do it right, quality tends to be better and there is greater buy-in for the end product.
So I can see both sides of the exclusive vs inclusive approach to getting things done.
Which is why I suggested just telling the coworker, “Hey there’s a meeting coming up that is relevant to your interests.” and then leave it up to her to attend or not.
This isn’t a secret birthday party where it’s rude to talk about it with the uninvited. This is a work conference about work related subjects and ongoing work. She’s the person who actually does the work therefore she’s already involved. If she wants to be at this meeting, then she can sort it out. OTOH, If guy who called the meeting doesn’t want her there, then he can say so.
Hell, she should probably schedule her own meeting so that everyone involved can share work related information. Not as a competing meeting. It should be a totally neutral and above board work related meeting between people who have a working relationship.
It’s not monsto’s job to protect the inviolability of this event. Put the onus on these two to sort out their working relationship.
This last is a good solution also. It puts it in terms of a business need for her to be in a meeting and away from a personal need.
And complaining co-workers who get too annoying should be told to take it up with their management, since the person being complained to can’t do anything about it. Yeah, the manager might see them as whiners - but that’s the point.
But you can suggest that she talk to the organizer asking to be included next time. If he or she refuses, then she can ask why not.
You just said the best response to give her:
And if she knows who called the meeting, you can add:
I should have set up a poll. It seems like half the posters are saying I should have said something to either the meeting organizer or the coworker. The other half is saying I shouldn’t say anything unless prompted because it is not monkey, not my circus.
I prefer the second option because it seems like the “drama free” (albeit spineless) choice.
This is how I would handle it: if I felt like my team member’s skills/knowledge were necessary for the meeting, I’d recommend to the organizer that they be included. If I didn’t think they added anything particularly significant, then I wouldn’t mention it.
Either way, though, you have nothing to feel bad about, IMO.
Now that the meeting is in the past, how did it go? Was it productive? Was it too long, or the right length of time to cover what needed to be covered?* Were any issues left unresolved that this coworker would have had JUST the expertise to resolve there and then?
Do you have the sense that her presence would have made the meeting go better (or worse)?
*'cos from the fact that it kept you away from the breakroom at lunch, I’m inclined to think that it was probably plenty long enough.
My experience, from long years and large company politics, leads me to make the following suggestion. Your co-worker is the SME. You receive the invitation. You use the forward button on Outlook to forward it to the SME, and add a note to the organizer. Something like, “Suzy is the SME on this. I’m happy to join if you see me adding value.” You may polish it further with words like “exciting project” and “looking forward to the results.” The meeting organizer can then explain, for example, that they just forgot “Suzy” or that they are having separate meeting streams and Suzy will be added to one of those. Usually, the meeting organizer will just add her to the meeting and remove you or not, depending on what role they saw you playing.
You’re not the SME. You also don’t need to dance around trying to figure out who knows what and why they did or didn’t do something, nor do you need to escalate. Add your co-worker to the meeting and move ahead as though everyone is a grown-up. If she’s the best person to be there, I would just say that and move on. I imagine that you would prefer your co-workers extend you this courtesy as well.
I’m speaking for me. But I assume most other people here don’t have any more information about your workplace than I do. And I like getting more information about a problem before I provide my advice (probably why I keep getting invited to so many damn meetings).
But as you said, it’s not a “secret” meeting. It’s just a meeting that didn’t involve your coworker. If I were you, I’d just say you had to meet with Organizer about some project and if she has any questions, just go ask Organizer. I might also give Organizer a heads up that Coworker was asking about the project. But other than that, I’d not spend too much time worrying about something which, to me seems pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It sounds like you’re being asked to be a SME / stakeholder from which requirements will be gathered for a project. I didn’t see where you would be the project manager. And in my experience, no one cares about the people who provide the requirements unless they are also providing the budget or formal signoff. Heck, no one cares about the project manager until the project goes over budget or misses a deadline.
I can see why someone might not want to involve her in their project.
The meeting was a success. It didn’t go over too long, we were able to relay our needs to the contractors, and we were able to answer their questions. I’m not sure we wouldn’t have had the same success if my coworker had joined us, but I think the meeting organizer made the right call.
That said, they could have excluded me too and I think it would have gone just as smoothly.
I can only see myself using this approach if my boss is NOT the meeting organizer. Typically, it’s either my boss or her boss that is the meeting organizer. The project in the OP is a little unusual in that it isn’t being managed by anyone with authority over me. I think that’s why I’m feeling a bit more guilt than I normally would.
If one of my bosses sends me an invitation, I’m gonna figure she/he knows exactly what they are doing and not question their invitation list.
I must work at an unusual workplace, because in our group it’s bog standard to forward Outlook meeting invitations to parties who would be interested without blinking an eye. It would never have occurred to me that a particular person was left out on purpose (unless that person has some kind of really nasty reputation in the organization).
See, I hate it when my meeting invites get forwarded without the person asking me before forwarding. I’d say maybe 25% of the time, it’s my oversight and the rest of the time I was spot on in my invite list. A phone call or an email before you forward my invite is greatly appreciated. The exception to this is a c-level person delegating the meeting to someone who works for them. And even then, if I invite the SVP to a meeting, it’s gotta be a pretty important project and I’d like some input into who they delegate to (within reason). There’s a project I’m working on right now that demands C-suite input as they are major stakeholders and delegating that one out would be tricky.
Meetings happen all the time, and not everyone can be in every meeting. Here’s how I would want this handled in my office (I’m a mid-level manager in an education institution, if that gives you some context).
To the person who organized the meeting: keep it lean if that is helpful to you. It can be useful l to frame the meeting to the participants with things like “Monstro is here representing Team A.” Be clear what the next steps are as relates to updating other colleagues. Don’t exclude people because you find them annoying, or more importantly, IF YOU DO (okay, because I have done this), mask it as you are including a single rep in order to keep your meeting streamlined. Win-win!
To Monstro (or anyone in the position of being a lone attendee from a particular area): if the organizer doesn’t make it clear, pipe up in the meeting that you are representing Team A, and that you plan to share a general update to your other team members (depending on the seniority or structure of the group, you could phrase this as a suggestion or a declaration, whatever seems appropriate). Depending on the topic, connect with the organizer ahead of time to ask what issues you should collect feedback on ahead of time so you can share the views of the team at the meeting (instead of only your own personal views). Following the meeting, share with team members in some way (a quick email, two minutes at a staff meeting) updates on things that are already decided (A, B, and C will happen) and anything that is still open for feedback (if folks have any thoughts on D, please share by [date]). Keep your boss in the loop to the extent that that person wants to be involved – could be a little, could be a lot, could depend upon the issue. “I am going to a meeting on Monday about New Widgets, anything you want me to bring up? I’d like to report back to the team at Wednesday’s staff meeting.” (you don’t have to do this if everyone involved has the same boss – in that case, if the boss is concerned about who does or doesn’t get invited to meetings, the boss can address it with the organizer)
For dealing with an excluded person: keep shifting the focus to the issue, and away from “wah wah wah I wasn’t invited to a meeting.” You ARE being a good team player if you set it up that you can recommend a path to provide feedback on the ISSUE, and that doesn’t have to be “demand to attend the meeting.” It can be “give me your thoughts prior to the meeting and I will raise them in the conversation” or “email the organizer prior to the meeting and they will be added to the agenda” or “I will give an update following the meeting.” Ignoring the person if they cannot shift toward the issue and away from the whining is also an okay path.
Short version: everyone should keep using “represent” as a key descriptor for how things are happening – a person will represent the team, and share information as needed.
That’s some good stuff, delphica!
Spineless in what sense? It’s only spineless if you want to help the coworker and you chicken out. But it sounds you do not want to help her. You just want to maintain a civil work relationship with her, and you’ll only help her to the extent necessary to keep things civil. You just want to avoid her getting angry at you for some reason or another, which would make your work life more difficult than you’d like.
A lot of people will tell you that you should say something because that’s what a person who wants to help the coworker or the organization would do. But you are free to have a different goal. You do not have to help this coworker or your employer if you do not want to.
If you want to avoid drama, I would do exactly what you did. Go to the meeting, and then when asked about it, say you went to a meeting. If somehow the coworker finds out she was excluded, then you can just tell her you did not think the meeting was something she would have wanted to attend and say sorry. Then next time you would have to tell her about a meeting occurring without her.
The guilt you are feeling is most likely coming from how you are viewing your behavior. To use one example, you described it as “spineless,” which is a very negative characterization.
In my case, if a meeting like that were scheduled, I would ask my boss if she intended for me to be the representative person from our area, and/or if anyone else should go. That way I’ve covered myself and I know if she wants me to collect any info in particular. Other areas have a pesky way of leaving out the leads on essential functions so I would want her to know about it.
You’re right that the comments have been all over the map, and I think part of that is that it’s hard to give advice without knowing the organizational culture and having a better feel for the specific faults of your co-worker. But as a very general observation that’s probably true everywhere, friendly informal conversations and relationships are far preferable to formal notices like emails to bosses that often accomplish nothing more than precipitating drama and ill will. As a matter of fact informal networking within organizations is often the lifeblood of how things get done.
With that principle in mind, I’d ask myself if from a practical standpoint there was value in having your co-worker attend. I would consider “practical” to mean not just her technical value, but the value of being inclusive and non-alienating if she had a justifiable expectation of being invited, because otherwise the implication is that her knowledge and input are not valued. I would make my own judgment on it and if I felt she should attend, I’d informally run it by the meeting organizer, preferably by phone or in person and not by email. In highly political organizations emails might be suspect as political machinations, while a casual question is more innocuous.
If the answer was “no”, at least you understand why, and I’d go with delphica’s suggestion to get from your co-worker(s) any points they want brought up at the meeting, and share the results with them afterwards. I think trying to keep the meeting “secret” is a bad idea because it seems underhanded and they’re bound to find out if you need to share the outcomes. They may come to accept that you’re the designated rep for these kinds of meetings and that would be great, and that’s a good way to keep the information flowing, but if they’re not happy with the situation it’s not really within your power to remedy that – some workers are always going to bitch and whine about anyone they perceive as being in a more privileged position.