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I doubt the wisdom that a manager senior to a teams
manager should manage team members directly. While
it is certainly useful to have some direct contact with
team members, and some authority with them, such
interactions should serve only to gain knowledge that
will serve in discussing issues with the team manager
(so that he would not dish You with inadequate/biased
info that suites him). A senior manager should manage
the team managers because otherwise he would be
overstepping them and undermining their authority with
the team and that in itself could be even more
deleterious.
In the case presented, in my opinion, the author could
have not done anything to prevent what happened
without breaking the above rule - it was the team
manager?s task anyway. But I concur absolutely that the
first and essential action in starting any project of the
kind described is to meet and come to know personally
all the staff involved; electronic communication is there
just to help afterwards.