Discussion on:

A subordinate refuses an assignment

First off, if I had been the subordinate and really didn't want to accept the assignment, I would have requested that we discuss this assignment privately after the meeting.

As a supervisor, I would have adjourned the meeting immediately and dismissed the rest of the team. After they had left, I would have given the employee an ultimatum: apologize in tomorrow's meeting and accept the assignment so that I could retain management control of the team, or don't come back at all.

Public insubordination cannot be tolerated if a manager is going to have any credible control of his/her team.

Maybe it was just a bad day for the employee.
The employees form was way off but maybe that was the purpose of it.

Personally I don't use such meetings for handing out assignments.

Take the person aside in a non threatening way and explore the reasons why the assignment was felt to be unneeded. Explain your position and if after the discussion you feel the task still needs to be done explain the that the task really does need to be done and that the best person for the job was given the task.

Life is not always easy.

Every one has a unique personality which a manager in this age has to discover, exploit manage and control.

In a gathering, such as this meeting, as manager, in my opinion, you are to know and predict to a large extent, the response and attitude to such assignment from this 'productive profile staff' as you have described.

I feel you should have call him before the meeting for the assignment, making it more official than a 'public' show of your hang on the team. Then you will know his opinion from an unbiased premise as there will be no need for any case of showing off among the staff. in doing this, you will get the needed evaluation from the given task since he is the best suited for that assignment according to you.

i think he got the wrong 'vibes' from your action. You are to find out this, and if you discover that his response was not out of personality clash, i suggest you take appropriate action on an erring subordinate. However, if your 'appropriate' action is going to affect his productivity which may likely affect your team performance and productivity, then you find an informal approach to put such attitude in check against any repeat in near future.

"Personally I don't use such meetings for handing out assignments."

Agreed. I always try to hand out things on a one to one bases. For a couple reasons:

1) As happened the answer might be "I'd rather not", or worst "that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard and here's why". I want a completely open discussion to be able to state the objectives of the task and see what the other person needs/wants.

2) A lot of the details of how the project was going to go (this might have been a very simple one, but say it was something more complex) the other team members don't need to worry about. They don't need to know that you'll be having daily meetings for progress reporting, yatta yatta. Until there is a good chance that the change will be implemented it is just a waste of time for other people to sit through the "task list" level of detail that the person responsible for the project gets.

The employee was out of line in this scenario, a discussion after the meeting about the project would have been the best time for him to bring up his issues.

I heard once that there is 3 types of authority:

relational: eg. family, friend
organisational: boss, team lead (you have to trust them because they can fire you)
expert: doctor, lawyer (you trust them because they know more than you)

You want to have to rely on organisational authority as a last resort. If you have to "defend your control over the team" you've probably lost all ready. People will do what their friends suggests willingly, they'll follow a doctor's advice (sometimes:)), but their boss? A lot of poeple will only do as much as they have to for him.

An IT manager has to have a little bit of the relational authority (I do what he says because he's a nice guy) and a lot of the expert authority IMHO otherwise:

a) he won't be listened to by his staff (I know more than he does scenerio)

b) he'll be ignored in management meetings (that clown doesn't know what he's talking about scenerio)

In this case, all the PEOPLE in the room were affected by the incident.
We have the advantage of time as we weigh in, but the manager in this situation did not. In such a crisis, we, as managers draw on fundamental beliefs and experiences alone.
The real concern here is not the manager or the confrontational employee, but the team. They can identify with both the manager and the employee on some level. The confidence in leadership is, for the moment, at stake. What do they really want to see? What ?sells? (what the team will buy into) to hell. A real leader instills and inspires vision. The team is not necessarily looking for what they themselves would say, but something (someone!) they can respect.

A positive word of rebuke towards the rebel is in order. He should be told that innovation always begins in part with revolt. But ?mavericks? like us, need not be negative to be passionate. In fact, negativity can be destructive if we don?t take our gifts to the next level. -Status quo, never! But we cannot afford or tolerate the luxury of anger, it impedes change. Let?s work together to find the best solution. Maverick#1, you have until 5pm (not 2:30pm) to come up with a better solution. Moving on to the next order of business?

If as a subordinate, I felt I was in the right, I'd just say FU and goodbye.

If I felt I was was in the wrong, well,
I really, really don't like ultimatums.

I agree with your last sentence with the proviso, that you can't control anything if you don't know which buttons to press.

As new experienced mangers join IT large staff, If they knew some subordinate
are working longer than you, for the company
but he might be junior, we should first talk to him and feel that we gave him some space than others. we should always make him think you can be good mentor for him.

In future we call those guys before the pubilc metting and give some news about the assingment, as he thinks we give piority but for us the work should be done and he should only do it.

Saying no in front of other IT guys will not help his carrer but just went emotional!!!!

will not back down. These are the people who inadvertantly get belligerant or cocky when asked to do things that they think are beyond them. People who hoard all the documents and don't leave anything for the next person who could possibly "take their job" when they are fired, God forbid. I have heard techs talk about "job security; or I have done things that no one else will be able to figure out once I'm gone." This attitude needs to be prevented from the very beginning. It does nothing for teamwork, which is what IT support is all about. As managers we do need to know our people a little better in order to work productively with the team.

Kim, you're right on the money!

Sheesh.

it's hard to know where to start.

Did you say job security?
Are you kidding, even funnier when you read the follow on to this post by the way.

I know the techs you are talking about, and I don't like 'em. I do understand them though, they used to have job security.

Now teams
No one will understand it when I'm gone.
So no one else understands it now.
So he was working by himself.
So he had no interaction with the other members of his 'team'
So he isn't a good team member, because there is no team.

You want to prevent this ,set up a team. That doesn't mean call them a team.

It means you make them accountable as a group, for certain business goals, and then you provide your task management and leadership experience / people management skills to facilitate ownership.

When the group owns the goals, takes pride in meeting them, holds themselves responsible for them.

When it's as strong as it's weakest member and seeks to improve them.

When it resists or ameliorates changes that would stop the goals being met.

Then you have a team, course you aren't having that are you, you'd see it as a threat to your job security.

Try again, this time harder.

Too easy.

that's it.

With obvious justification as well.

I agree with your assessment. People need to come together to work out goals, and be able to take pride in what they can accomplish. No one knows everything. Why not keep it simple? What job?

Very well said. Unfortunately, many managers encourage this attitude, since some might owe their professional longevity to the cockiness of some staff. Many IT people sdon't like documentation! Don't even ask them to document how they solved an incident. Yet, some practices have obvious business value.

(1). They facilitate in-training of new hires
(2). They prevent a team from being "stranded" simply because one team member is out temporary or has left the company. When procedures and so on are documented, team members can support processes/projects even if the main primary contact, or the person who developed the solution is absent
(3). Solutions to incident can be easily replicated, since the team has a documented history of the incident (e.g., what caused it? how was the incient identified? how was it resolved? and so on)
(4). Shared knowledge, which benefits the team and organization as a whole becomes reality.

This culture will not self-establish. There needs to be clear leadership and direction.

I still don't agree with the idea that management is reduced to a show of one's authority. That macho style is probably obsolete. Effective management is also--and probably more, about negotiating. The ability to convince your team that the culture you want to build will not just benefit them individually, but the organization at large, is a rare skill/asset.

The old style IT pros think that the more information they hold, the longer they will keep their job. The 21st (call it renaissance) IT pros believe that the more know how they share with teammates, colleagues, the more successful they are (because if the team is successful, they too are, but if the team fails, they too will fail).

Erick

I would have spoken to this guy one-on-one, employees deserve the chance to give feedback on assignments without co-workers input,and their two-cents. Maybe, the guy felt ambushed?

We have a couple of neurotic types where I work - everybody knows who they are and chances are that the other workers, in your place, also knew that he would probably react that way. Some folks just want to be left alone and truly HATE change. We have to forget about egos and concentrate on what actions will get the job done.

A subordinate refuses assignment in front of the team is implying either he became a big headed or he is preparing to start problems to the leader to drag him into area where he can get his boss caught with a misatake to show that the new boss is lacking of leadership skills. If I'm the supervisor I would be cool enough and teach him a lesson to show him and the rest of the team who's the boss here!!

It is important to clarify to him that if this assignment has not been implemented by a specific date and time then discplinary action will be taken.

if you follow your own advice you will be hated and will never manage a good quality team.
teach him a lesson? disciplinary action?

With that kind of attitude, if you were my boss I would walk out..having said that, I probably would have left long before then because this type of attitude would surface pretty quickly.

Not saying the subordinate was correct in his actions, but i don't think the manager was correct either.

There has to be a basic set of rules that people follow. Repsect must come from both sides. I have a large IT staff with very low attrition. My door is open for frank conversations, but refusing to accept an assignment and rejecting it in a rude manner will cut someone's career short in my organization. Certainly people have bad days, which need to be taken into consideration. I think this problem started when the manager let the team member set his own hours and allowed poor turnover of issues.

Heard a fair few say disagreeing is rude, though.

Never heard anyone say he set his own hours either.

Heard a few saying he was leaving early.

Do managers have bad days or are they not people?

Here are some quotes from the article. Perhaps your comments might have taken a different slant had you actually read and comprehended it.

Second Paragraph, last sentence "Because he was so responsive to the employees I allowed him to set his own hours." Sorry, Tony - it says he set his own hours.

Fourth Paragraph, 2nd to last sentence "?Absolutely not!? he exploded when I gave him the assignment." sorry again, Tony - Rude!

"No thank you" or "I'd rather not" are polite refusals. EXPLODING "Absolutely not!" is completely impolite, at least here in the US.

and your condescending attitude won't get you far here.

I allowed him to set his own hours.
Allowed. So if he said I'll work beteen 10 and half past on the first Wednesday of the month, that would have been allowed would it?

Can't think what you take as rude about Absolutely Not, or even an explosion. When I'm going to be rude to someone , I can assure you the only interpretation required will be for words such as git.

No thank you, or I'd rather not could be rendered unacceptably rude with tone and expression.

I still believe that many posting here would have considered any refusal no matter how worded or presented as rude.

You included.

We all get assignments from upper management that must be delegated down to staff. I do not always have the choice of turning those assignments down.

So if I do not have the choice, I have to remind my staff that they do not also. They may hate it, or disagree with it, or feel that it is stupid but it still needs to get done.

to this specific post..
Irregardless of who was right and wrong..it was the attitude displayed by moamen i was disagreeing with:
"teach him a lesson to show him and the rest of the team who's the boss here!! It is important to clarify to him that if this assignment has not been implemented by a specific date and time then discplinary action will be taken. "

Thats fine if you manage children.
Don't think there's much employee protection in the states, but if my boss tried to "teach me a lesson" (in the negative sense) I would drag the company through a pile of dung so big....
"Teaching lessons" and issuing ultimatums is not professional.

If this employee was so good to start with, why did he refuse..must be a reason.
Had it been done in the proper way this issue probably would not have arisen, and the employee would most likely have done the job..or a compromise would have been worked out.

Here is a nice example: My boss recently asked me to use a certain program to do soemthing. Ok..so I did, I told him i didn't like the program..i wasn't happy about using it..but i couldn't give him a really good reason why..lets just call it intuition..so I had to do it anyways
The next morning i discovered this program had affected our live server and everything went to ****..

If the assignment had been offered and refused in private, it would be a different story. As I read the post, there was no notice to the tech that this assignment was coming. In this case, the manager put himself on the spot. I'm not excusing the tech's reaction by any means; he was wrong to react in that fashion.

You state that refusing an assignment in a rude manner will essentially result in termination. Do you make these assignments and hash out any differences in private, then make public announcements? Or do you have so little respect for your subordinates that you too will blindside them in public like this?

I've been on both sides of the fence. You just don't treat your people this way and expect good results.

Since when is it OK for an employee to refuse an assignement from his/her manager? If it is not illegal or immoral, then it just needs to be done. As managers we have to make decisons quickly sometimes. Now, we all know managers who are jerks and play favorites, but aside from that issue, I have not worked at a place where I could just refuse assigned work.

This happened quite often to me during my active duty years and I did exactly as you say--salute smartly and say "Yes, sir!"

I'm not excusing the tech's reaction by any means, but corporate offices are usually much more collaborative than military shops; it's the nature of the beast. You are also losing sight of the environment during the announcement: a staff management meeting, which implies this was not a "decide now" situation.

The manager could have headed the whole thing off by taking one of two different paths: presenting it as a request (I'd like you to...), rather than as an order, or having some preliminary discussion (What do you think of...). We even did this in the military for things like shop or crew reorganizations.

If you constantly have to prove you're in charge, you probably shouldn't be in charge. Or you need to change your people.

Edit: clarify

???

Although I am only a student (2nd year), its clear to me that time management is the key to running any sucessful IT department. Leaving open assignments is can only delay the completion of other more or less pressing assignments. Someone, will be held accountable. One guess. thats right the manager, say hello to the unemployment line its nice to meet you.

So, Shelbot, the Manager has no control here, according to you? Poppycock. I agree "teach him a lesson" indicates that perhaps the poster is taking it too personally. But disciplinary action? Absolutely.

You wrote "but i don't think the manager was correct either." How do you know? The manager hasn't told us what he did yet. Or are you refereing to the poster?

The manager in this scenario wasn't throwing his weight around and being an ******. He nicely asked this person to do something - quite within his purview as manager I would think.

The guy had the option to wait until a later moment and decline. But he chose confrontation in an open meeting instead. HES the one being the ******. This leaves it up to the Manager to reestablish control.

If you see it as OK that this person confronts his manager in an open meeting and then the manager is somehow wrong for setting him straight, you and I should both be glad you don't work for me. You'd be in the weeds in a hot tick. I don't care what kind of technical genius someone fancies themselves to be, corporate IT, as they say, isn't "Rocket Science."

These types of techno prima dona's ruin team esprit de corp and make life miserable for everybody. This is a classic example from Org. Management 400 - 2 good people with great attitudes are better in the long run than than 1 great person with an attitude problem. Look it up.

Again, as I said in another response, despite ones personal illusions, there is no indispensable man or woman and anyone who thinks that they can act anyway they feel and the manager is at fault for calling them on it is seriously whacked.

Are you serious?

It's one of his most valuable people according to him.
He's new to the job according to him.
He's hving one of his first meetings, making his first decisions.

And it all went west on him. What do you a need, a diagram?

As for being indispenable, I know Shell isn't that stupid and I'm reasonably confident about myself, so that leaves you Mr Employer.....

Exactly Tony..

Now, as for diciplinary measures..hey don't get me wrong..I'm used to working in management/team lead. I've had to dish it out to several times..but by the way the manager wrote the post, it sounds like this is a good employee and he is happy with his work, untill this. Could be 100 reasons for it to happen..
So what are we gonna do, fire this guy on the spot because the manager was inexperienced enough to bring up the new software and hand it out to someone in a team meeting? Are we going to take away his blankey and bottle?
Now if this was an ongoing issue,providing the manager took the right steps, then yes..disciplin away to your hearts content..

Don't mistake me for a big ole softy who thinks employees are always right...in fact I was percieved as a hard @ssed b!tch a couple years ago..i expected a lot from my team..in turn i respected them, thier opinions and rewarded them for thier good work with fighting to get them larger bonuses and flexibility..and the horror of it..i even "forgot" to let HR know sometimes when they had to leave early for an appointment or such..

And if you can't take time to delve deeper into the issue, then lets amicably agree that we will never work with each other ok bspallino.. we'd probably clash right away..or hey ya never know..maybe if you bothered to investigate you'd find out I'm a hard working perfectionist who expects the same from others as i give to them..

Who do you want in charge of your data..someone who documents thouroughly, thinks forward 2 years, and is borderline obsesive compulsive about keeping the data safe and secure, likes to negotiate her own working time and has the b@lls to question authority if i percieve a possible problem..OR someone who shows up 9-5 makes a mess and is a yes man who does everything you say?

Its not all so black and white mate
Have a Happy Joyous day...

To be honest I think this is very much a case of ?give them an inch and they?ll take a mile?. While this guy is clearly very capable and valuable to the organisation, he?s been allowed to realise this a little too much. Fundamentally, as much as you want to treat people well, you always have to have some control over an employee. The minute they feel they are indispensable or free to do as they wish, they become a liability.

I have worked in similar situations before, albeit in a different work environment where I have had to reassert managerial control. Best thing to do is pull him into the office and say to him that while you value him as an employee, and a very capable one at that, you won?t tolerate insubordination as it undermines the very structure of the team, and how would he feel if everyone around him started acting the same way? A 3 prong attack ? flattery, assertion, then reason. Kind of like a naughty lid playing up and hid mum saying ?you?re normally such a good boy, but if you do that again I?ll smack you. Can you see why I wouldn?t want you to do that??

Now why would a manager want to hide one of their people's value to the business from them.

Let me see...

To claim it as their own
To increase their own value by devaluing his.
To keep their salary down.
To make sure they don't get uppity and take your job.

Which one is you?

I'm really interested in how you put best face on this one.

While this guy is clearly very capable
and valuable to the organisation, he’s been
allowed to realise this a little too much.


No, somebody else had been allowed to
realise this much too little.

right in the beginning when you take over a team you need to set 'expectations'. One of them is the kind of decipline and behaviour you expect from each member. If you had let it be known that during staff meetings what ever assignment given is not optional but you are open to discussions later this probably would not have happened.
Under the circumstance best thing would be to tell that gentleman to meet you after the meeting and carry on with the rest of the agenda. Later have a discussion with that gentleman and try and convince him. If he has good enough reasons associate another person with him and assign both of them same assignment.

This employee had the nerve to refuse an assignment in a public setting. So in that very same setting and at the same time I would have told hiim he had two options. Do what I asked, or leave right now and do not come back tomorrow! The only person to be dismissed from that meeting would have been the guy who refused an assignment, and I'd have had him escorted off the properity.

Sure, he is a great worker and the team will suffer with his loss. However, if you let one person get away with this then how long before the rest of the less motivated team members pull the same stunt?

The old saw is true.

Managing IT folks is like herding cats. You can not publicly humiliate an employee and maintain morale.

...is ok? Sorry, I agree with the cat herder analogy, but I don't keep cats that claw me deliberately either.

As long as the assignment is within the job description the technician agreed to, and does not violate company or personal ethical standards, the technician really has no choice; the manager's raison d' etre is to decide (within the context of his/her authority) what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, who is going to do it, and make sure it gets done.

My personal decision would have been to say " Technician X, we'll discuss this after the meeting. Now, (on to next topic and work very hard not to let the behavior derail you)...

If the tech started in again on how he was not going to do the job after an attempt to move on in the meeting, I would end the meeting and immediately move into a coaching/counseling mode. At the end of the day, the situation needs to be addressed, and frankly, the technician needs to be brought around to doing the job.

Especially the remark about not being derailed. Good to be cool and unruffled- or others may have a go.

you cut the employee off, politely then take it offline.

As a manager, you have to keep the end goal in mind.

If you humiliate an employee, you send the message of fear. People will be afraid to speak up in meetings and start to tell you what they THINK you want to hear. not a good thing.

No one, no...one...has the right to humiliate others and no one...no...one...should be expected to accept humiliation as part of their job, period. Not the associate, not the manager, not the CEO, not the janitor, no one.

It is never, in my not at all humble opinion, part of my job to accept humiliation at anyone's hands.

Now...having ranted all of that; if being given a task that falls within someone's job description is something they find humiliating, there are larger issues to be dealt with.

them humiliating, has a real problem.

Humiliating to me would be my people letting me make crass mistakes, that would indicate no respect at all.

I never said that someone saying "No, I'm not going to do that." to me was humiliating...I'm not the one who snagged that word out of thin air. I was simply responding to it.

However, I'm not sure the "crass mistakes" part fits the OP's issue at all.

Having software tested/piloted/evaluated, by a member of his team who he believes to be one of his best, to see if it fits with the business need is pretty much the opposite of making a crass mistake, yeah?

For all my forthrightness, I disagree with more knowse than that.

I can't shake the impression that Mr Basking in how cleverly I handled this, isn't exactly coming out with the full story, though.

Mistakes tend to cascade, and I have no doubt who made the first one. Whether it was in this meeting is open to debate.

Sure, you can rip is backside a new one in front of all his coworkers. It does wonders for morale... at their future companies.

When someone acts up in a meeting, you take it private.

Praise in public, reprimand in private.

Now here is where it's different when you are a manager.

When you are a manager, you have authority. You can go with your first reaction, and humiliate him, or you can take him aside privately and discuss it as a proper manager/coach would.

...who said anything about ripping anybody's anything? It certainly wasn't me, LL. And nowhere did I say to chew the individual out...at all. Go pick on whoever said something that set you off, ok?