Have you ever had problems meeting a schedule because of the nonresponsiveness of people outside your department, outside your division, or outside your company? When your priorities differ from the priorities of the people you depend on, your work and your projects can suffer. Sometimes this can feel like a trap.
When your priorities differ
from the priorities
of collaborators,
projects can sufferI've felt trapped many times. And I've learned that it isn't really a trap, though it can feel like one. Here are some tips for finding your way out of the trap of the recalcitrant collaborator.
- Find out what's happening
- Have a conversation with the noncollaborator, and explain the situation as you see it. Try to find out three things: what's preventing cooperation, when the problem might end, and what it would take to make it happen earlier.
Sometimes the answers aren't forthcoming, but when they are, the information can be useful and it might even be a basis for joint problem solving.
- Gather intelligence about patterns
- Find out what you can about recent history. Is there a pattern of difficulty between your team and theirs? Or is the pattern more widespread, affecting many others who work with them?
- If some organizational elements get preferential attention, the resolution of the problem will likely involve politics. On the other hand, if your experience is universal, a more mechanical issue might be the cause.
- Give your noncollaborator a last chance
- Have a conversation with the noncollaborator before you inform your boss. Explain that because of the schedule impact, you're compelled to inform your boss of the situation as you understand it.
- Sometimes this helps to persuade the noncollaborator to collaborate. And sometimes, it's seen as a threat, gravely damaging your relationship. If you don't tell the noncollaborator beforehand, though, you also risk damaging the relationship. Be judicious about this tactic.
- Keep you boss informed
- If your boss expects progress, and you're falling behind, keep him or her informed. Without asking for help or advice, explain what you know about the problem in a "heads up" conversation or a series of such conversations.
- When you explain the problem, your boss might offer advice or assistance. Usually, you're free to accept or decline, but unless you have some plan to resolve the problem, accept.
- Ask for advice
- Ask colleagues for advice first, and then ask your boss. Some will have bad advice, some no advice, and some great advice. Caveat emptor.
- Be circumspect about asking your boss for advice — you'll have to follow it.
When everything you know how to do has failed, ask your boss for help, especially if you sense that the problem resides somewhere above you in the org chart. Your boss might decline, or might be unable to help, but if the problem isn't yours, pretending that it is probably won't work. Top
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
Trying to Do It Right the First Time Isn't Always Best
- You've probably heard the slogan, "Do it right the first time." It makes sense for some kinds
of work, but not for all. For more and more of the work done in modern organizations, doing it right
the first time — or even trying to — might be the wrong way to go.
A Review of Performance Reviews: Blindsiding
- Ever learn of a complaint about you for the first time at your performance review? If so, you were blindsided.
Reviews can be painful. Here are some guidelines for making them a little fairer.
Communication Refactoring in Organizations
- Inadequate communication between units of large organizations is one factor that maintains the dysfunction
of "silo" structures in large organizations, limiting their ability to act coherently. Communication
refactoring can help large organizations to see themselves as wholes.
Red Flags: I
- When we finally admit to ourselves that a collaborative effort is in serious trouble, we sometimes recall
that we had noticed several "red flags" early enough to take action. Toxic conflict and voluntary
turnover are two examples.
Subject Lines for Intra-Team Messages
- When teams communicate internally using messaging systems like email, poorly formed subject lines of
messages can limit the effectiveness of the exchanges. Subject lines therefore provide a powerful means
of increasing real-time productivity of the team.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Conflict Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming July 3: Additive bias…or Not: II
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And on July 10: On Delegating Accountability: I
- As the saying goes, "You can't delegate your own accountability." Despite wide knowledge of this aphorism, people try it from time to time, especially when overcome by the temptation of a high-risk decision. What can you delegate, and how can you do it? Available here and by RSS on July 10.
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