A reader writes:
A few months ago, we gained a new departmental manager (Kelly). Some background: Kelly is about 10 years younger than the two most senior people in our department, of which I am one, and comes from another industry so there’s a steep learning curve.
My colleague (Alex) and I are finding conversations and meetings with Kelly increasingly difficult, as Kelly calls us out for acting/feeling/looking frustrated, hostile, or defensive. It’s not an exaggeration to say this occurs every other meeting.
A typical scenario: Kelly asks a question, I start answering, Kelly interrupts me to ask another question, and when I try to finish answering, she asks why I’m “frustrated.” If I try to explain, truthfully, that I’m not frustrated, I’m just trying to explain the answer or the context, Kelly responds with “There’s no need to be defensive.”
Last week this happened in a meeting with Alex, where Kelly asked me “Why are you so defensive?” when I was having to explain something for the third time that meeting. Alex came to talk to me afterward and volunteered that I had done nothing wrong, and any frustration was from Kelly asking the same questions and not listening.
Kelly is constantly taking notes but never seems to remember what we say, so we end up answering the same questions over and over: We don’t need to do anything with the TPS reports because they were submitted two weeks ago; we can’t exactly replicate the number of chocolate teapots reported finished last year because some departments are late reporting their numbers to us and we have to manually update the official PDF to incorporate those; this dataset lives in the Teaset Database not the Chocolate Database; I’ve already requested access but you need to give your approval.
It’s now at the point where I will choose to walk the long way round to get to the bathrooms or the break room rather than walk past Kelly’s office, in case I get called in for an impromptu meeting/Q&A. I know Kelly means well and is trying to build rapport, but being repeatedly asked if I’m frustrated or if it’s something personal with Kelly (previous conversations included variants of “let’s work it out”) is causing me frustration and annoyance.
I even recorded my last meeting with Kelly to let someone else listen later and give me impartial feedback as to whether my words or tone were implying something I did not intend, whether the feedback was reasonable, and if any other nuggets could be gleaned. (For the record, I live in a one-party consent state, and do not intend to share the existence of the recording with anyone else.)
I’m taking on board the advice I received from the third party, which included feedback that I did sound a little frustrated but that it didn’t seem unreasonable, and confirmed that we seem to have very different communication styles. In short, Kelly is constantly using a lot of management speak like “Let’s get on the same page,” “Believe me, I’m on your side,” and “We can work this out.” I plan to listen again, and try to pull out some specific examples that I hear again and again, and try to figure out why they annoy me and how I can ignore them. However, we still have an ongoing problem which needs to be addressed before it causes real issues.
Alex and I both have a great working relationship with the CEO, and there have never been communication problems like this in our department before. The CEO is very empathic and approachable, values Alex and me as long-time employees, and knows that bringing in someone from another industry was a bit risky, but Kelly does have some technical skills we will find useful in the longer term.
Although I would prefer to talk directly to Kelly, I don’t feel that either of us can talk to Kelly about these problems without it causing more difficulties. I think we should broach it with the CEO, who has asked me about tension in the department. I said that we were just a little stressed with our busy period and were working through some things, hoping that Kelly would be able to read our body language better as we all got to know each other more, but instead the situation is worsening. How should we approach this?
Good lord. What Kelly’s doing doesn’t sound like “management speak.” It sounds like someone who’s inappropriately focused on imaginary personal dynamics while everyone else is trying to have a business conversation.
Would you be comfortable sitting down with her and saying something like this: “When we’re talking about work matters, you frequently put the focus on personal emotions that you’re concerned we might be having. For example, when I’m trying to explain a work situation or give context for an answer, you’ll frequently tell me I seem frustrated or defensive. To be honest, the only thing I find frustrating in our conversations is being told that I seem frustrated! I’m trying to keep the focus on the work topic we’re there to discuss, and it’s strange to be told I’m feeling an emotion that I’m not feeling. I’m hoping we can agree to keep those assessments out of our conversations, and just focus on the work we’re discussing.” You could add, “It’s the same thing with being told a lot that you’re on our side or that we can work something out — I take both of those things as a given, and saying them so often makes our conversations feel more personally-focused than they’d normally need to be. I think things would go more smoothly if we didn’t focus so much on emotions and instead kept our focus to the work topic.”
But whether or not you have this conversation with Kelly, I agree that you should be talking with the CEO, who has already asked you about the tension in the department. That’s opening enough; don’t wait for an engraved invitation. Go back to her and now and say, “You asked about this earlier, and I mistakenly downplayed what was going on, hoping that it was just transition pains. But the situation is getting worse, and it hasn’t been something we’ve been able to solve on our own.” Then tell her what’s happening, including the part about Kelly not retaining anything you say. Don’t pull your punches here; tell the truth about what’s going on. Kelly may be the wrong hire, and if that’s the case, the sooner your CEO figures that out, the better for everyone.
Meanwhile though: Try to catch yourself before that frustration shows up in your voice. Your frustration makes a ton of sense here, but you don’t want a situation where your CEO can legitimately think that you’re part of the problem — and that could happen if she starts hearing that you regularly sound annoyed when you talk to Kelly.
So if you feel yourself starting to get frustrated with Kelly for asking the same questions over and over again, you’re better off saying something like, “I’ve noticed you’ve asked that a few different times in this meeting. Is there something about the way I’m explaining it that isn’t making sense?” And with the interrupting — well, to some extent it’s her prerogative as the boss to interrupt, especially if someone is (for example) going on a long tangent or otherwise getting off course (which is what it may genuinely seem like to her), but if it’s happening constantly, it’s reasonable for you to politely say, “Actually, could I go back to what I was saying when you jumped in? I think it’ll answer your question.”
But talk to your CEO. She asked what’s happening, and you should tell her.
new manager keeps telling us we’re frustrated and defensive was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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