I know how to deal with difficult people, but what i’m unclear on is how to handle snakey people. I have two coworkers who are constantly battling each other. Most of the time I stay out of it because it’s not my business but starting now we’re going to be working together so it will impact me. (We’ve just been put on a team together.) When I say “call out” the behavior, I mean either privately, publicly in the moment, or as a formal complaint to his manager, whichever is appropriate for the moment. So feel free to suggest any or all of them.
The woman is a smart, experienced professional and I’ve worked closely with her. We work well together and I don’t have any issues with her, except that she can’t seem to stay away from the other guy, so they end up in arguments all the time.
The guy is young, has some experience but not as much as he thinks he does. He’s a bit arrogant and argumentative. In meetings, someone will start to talk or answer a question, and he’ll interrupt with his thoughts. A lot of the time, he’ll ask me a question and before I can get two words of my answer out, will interrupt to answer his own question the way he thinks it should be. This is the source of many arguments between him and the woman, when he does it to her. I don’t engage with him in arguments but it does annoy me. Even if he shuts up to hear the other person’s answer, he has a skeptical look on his face, like he doesn’t think you know what you’re talking about but whatever.
He’s always “upstaging” the woman worker, very deftly making it look like he knows more about a topic than she does when their manager is around. Even if the opposite is true. The manager either believes him or ignores the situation, I’m not sure which. Whenever the woman sets up a meeting with me so I can share knowledge or answer her questions, he inserts himself into the meeting. When he sets up meetings, he excludes the woman even if she really is a required participant. Or he’ll schedule it with no regard to her schedule.
None of these things are by themselves bad enough to complain about. But all of them together are kind of boiling up to a really conflict-full working environment. But I’m not sure how to bring it up to his manager without sounding petty. It’s really his manager’s place to see and correct this stuff, but she’s not. She seems to treat them like they’re siamese twins, making them work together on every tiny task. Thoughts?
If it’s two other coworkers not getting along, you said it in your first paragraph: “it’s not my business.” But obviously it can impact you. So that’s the way (the ONLY way) you can bring this up to them or a manager. Focus on what impact their behavior has on you. To the extent possible, leave out anything about their relationship with each other.
It’s none of your business if the manager treats them like siamese twins. It is your business if he won’t let you speak, so raise that issue, not the other stuff.
How much actual influence do you officially have in this situation? Can you walk out of a failed meeting without getting into trouble?
That’s probably where I would start. If there’s a meeting where it’s just the three of you, and they start their bullshit, I’d just calmly say “Look, this isn’t productive. When you’ve settled this disagreement between the two of you, feel free to reschedule this meeting”, smile and walk out.
Or something like that - if they’re really going at it, maybe “You two fight - I’ll talk to the winner”.
If taking any action yourself will land you in trouble, then it’s probably a case of keeping quiet and tolerating it, or escalating to your manager - if you do the latter, frame it as you wanting to help; “our productivity seems to keep taking a hit when these two characters collide - is there anything I can do to help?”
I think you should talk to your manager about interactions between you and him, as you describe above, don’t bring the other lady into it (yet). I would bring it up as a “have you ever noticed how…watch him in meetings sometime…” not a heavy formal complaint, but an observation. If the manager doesn’t respond, well then that tells you what you need to know about the manager. I would be a little careful in calling him out directly, as this kind of behavior is designed to get noticed by bosses (that Stimpson is a take-charge kinda guy!), and it usually works. He might end up as your boss and you don’t want to have a history of antagonism.
If I scheduled a meeting with one of them and the other decided they’d just show up, I’d likely inform them that this was a private 1:1 meeting and their presence isn’t needed or wanted.
If I had to complain to my manager, that is what I’d complain about. “Hey, I’m having a problem speaking to (name) 1:1, since (other person) insists on showing up even when he’s not invited. I’m getting some unwelcome pushback on this from him.”
Who is running this meeting? The person doing so should interrupt him to say “let her answer, please.” If the meeting owner does not, it is fine if you do it. The speaker should be able to control the meeting. If he looks bad when you do this - that’s fine.
If he does manage to put his 2 cents in, and it is incorrect (and I’m betting it is) tell him, in the meeting, sorry, that’s wrong, or you don’t understand the problem, and offer to explain it to him after the meeting. In other words, you are the teacher and he is the obnoxious student.
Chimera is right in that you should not let him insert himself in places he does not belong. If worst comes to worst, have the meeting in the ladies room.
If he schedules a meeting such that an important person cannot attend, at the beginning of it ask where she is, and then state that you are sorry but the meeting can’t be useful without her, and offer to organize a meeting when all can attend.
Always be positive, and always phrase it in terms of what is good for the company.
And keep notes. If he escalates, than get a manager involved.
Conflict is not necessarily bad. When I was at Intel, everyone had to take a class about how to manage conflict in meetings. A basic concept there was disagree and commit, in other words when the decision maker makes a decision, those who disagree with it can say so, but also commit to supporting the action decided on for the good of the company. If he is in a minority in his views, you might ask him to disagree and commit. If he won’t, that is worth kicking upstairs.
I think there are some problems with these suggestions. A manager wants to hear some things right away. Meeting dynamics is not one of them.
Stepping on someone interrupting you (politely, of course) is fine. Doing it when a person is interrupting a coworker makes that person look weak, and can get a “who made you the boss” reaction. This isn’t true if it is your meeting - then you are the boss.
At a conference I’m involved with we gave session chairs guidelines about obnoxious questions to speakers. If the speaker is a grad student, cut off discussion. If it is a professor, let it continue (for a reasonable time) since a professor should be able to fend for his or her self.
In the work environment you want to be seen as a professor. The person you are defending - and treating as a grad student - might not appreciate it.
Thanks, good feedback so far, people. I was in a rush when I originally posted, and didn’t add a couple of pertinent details.
My position up to now (and continuing until it impacts me more directly) has been to stay out of it. I agree, it’s not my business. It’s going to impact me directly soon, though, as we’re forming self-managed teams. So this conflict is going to become toxic to the whole team. But until then, I’m just taking notes but staying out of it.
When the guy inserts himself into the meetings between me and the woman, he also usurps the agenda. We spend the whole time discussing what he wants to know but she presents questions as if they’re hers, which is how I didn’t cotton to what was going on. Then after the meeting she texts me to say that she never got a chance to ask what she wanted to. She defers to him way too much, until she’s fed up and they blow up in a fight. (I like the idea of meeting with her in the bathroom!) When this happened yesterday, I told her she needs to tell him that he can’t join the meeting and she replied that she was too tired to argue with him.
He tries to delegate his work to coworkers. I’ve seen him do this to the woman coworker, but this morning another coworker told me he tried it on her too, and she called him out on it, cc’ed to their manager. Yes, it’s very much a “that Stimpson is a take-charge kinda guy!” situation.
Coming back to the unhealthy level of deference the woman coworker shows to him, I wonder if it’s a cultural thing. They are both east Indian. I’ve worked with Indians a fair amount and have never noticed the women deferring to their male coworkers. Is this a thing, or is it just something about these two individuals?
Yes, it is a cultural thing, and you need to step up your game and possibly go over your manager’s head if he continues to insist, in an American or Canadian company and work site, that women defer to men. That’s a sure path to discrimination suits for the company. Of course, you’d have to have lots of documentation before you ever took that step and it could still be dangerous.
Here’s the big question: Who is scheduling these meetings and how does he invite himself? I’ve scheduled and held a ton of meetings in my IT life and there’s no way in hell I’d allow a third party to walk in and take over the meeting, especially one that I specifically did not invite. If that is happening, document the hell out of it and how it is disrupting your ability to gather information and wasting your time (although you can’t exactly phrase it that way - document how you’re spending additional time due to his uninvited presence).
You also have to consider that Manager may be grooming this man for a management position and be telling him to do these things. He’s clearly supportive of it. In which case, you may want to consider updating your resume and quietly looking for another job.
No, I want to be seen as a professional, and treat my co-workers as professionals. I am also unlikely to defer to newer and less experienced co-workers, especially when they are being rude.
Some people find it very easy to interrupt others; others do not. While I respect the manners and upbringing of those who are reluctant to interrupt, someone does have to step on the little toads. Politely, of course.
To me that sounds that your Manager is bad at Managing. If Young guy is doing this behaviour to woman in front of Manager, and Manager doesn’t act, then Manager is tacitly endorsing this behaviour (which is a form of bullying to call it clearly). You don’t say if the woman has complained herself or not (elsewhere?) but obviously nothing has happened so far, so it’s unlikely it will improve.
Yes - how Close in behaviour or character type is the (male?) Manager to rude male coworker? If he (even subconsciously) thinks that type of behaviour is ok, and the female coworker doesn’t complain, rude coworker will not only Keep getting away with his behaviour = re-inforcing and escalating that as “acceptable” behaviour towards women, he might also get promoted for being “forceful” or such buzzwords.
This might be the most important point of all. What does this guy’s manager think of his behavior? Does he think the guy is an all star and encourages him to pipe up whenever a thought enters his mind? Or does he quietly agree with you that the guy is a bowhard, but it’s not his management style to confront him about it? It’s important to know that because it could dictate how you proceed. If management loves the guy, you’re stuck with him and his abrasive style. If management doesn’t like him, but they just ignore the situation for the time being, they should be persuaded to insert themselves somehow.
They are small, casual meetings where the female coworker wants to learn more about one of our products. I’m always happy to share knowledge but like to whiteboard things if need be, so I tell her to throw something on our calendars and get us a room. When I show up, there he is, and she tells me that he wanted to come too. I think from now on I will book the meetings, so that I can control the situation. (Just the meetings between she and I. I can’t block him from larger meetings, nor do I want to.)
Their manager is female and I suspect there’s a gender dynamic there. This guy seems to think he’s gorgeous and seems used to being adored. (Just my impression.) I’ve had a feeling that the manager gets sucked into that. My feeling was confirmed by another coworker who told me that she seems to have a “thing” for the Indian men. (The manager is not Indian.)
The manager above their manager seems to be doing the “let’s just all get along and don’t assume bad intentions” kumbaya thing. I haven’t been complaining but I know several other coworkers have. There is another coworker, this one female, who is also a strong personality who blatantly takes credit for things and makes it sound like she was behind everything successful. Team do good work? She facilitated that! This person doesn’t bother me, even though I do see her doing that. The reason I mention her at all, is because I see the managers completely falling for these assertive, take-credit personalities. And I think that’s the dynamic between this jerk dude and the managers.
Sounds as if the whole Management culture in your Company is wrong. Managers not stepping up when bullying/ Manipulation occurs = bad Manager. That is part of what Managers are for, stopping bad behaviour to get a productive enviroment. But if the whole chain/ culture is “lets adore those loud braggarts” I fear there’s not much you can do, except maybe look elsewhere.
Braggarts taking credit and therefore getting promoted is sadly an on-going chain and majority culture currently in Management.
A lot of advice for women on how to rise in career is bascally to act more “male” = braggart, by loudly claiming credit, because otherwise, they won’t get ahead (this also hurts shy People of both genders, who also get overlooked by this style).
In Addition, a lot of braggarts - as you mention of this example - don’t do as good work as they say: they are better at bragging or stealing credit than at working, so promoting and applauding this culture hurts the Company Overall. But because it’s established as “good” nobody Looks closer.
Many good responses here … but this one I quoted above really stands out as the mature, profession way to handle this …
My first thought was that the manager isn’t intervening because JcWoman isn’t bother by it … “If she can ignore it, so can I” … or some such …
I would talk to the manager in private about this right away … I would even suggest going past Mangetout’s suggestions and present the manager with ways you could help … ask to be set in change of the little group … look at this as an opportunity to start bucking for promotion …
Managers like it when underlings bring them solutions, not more problems …
