Competitive employee - would value any advice!

all your conversations with this person. And when he says that "it's the way he is and you have to deal with it". I would suggest that you tell him that he does not have a firm grip on the nature of your relationship.

It's not a sign of weakness to bring it to your boss that you are having issues with this employee. Arm yourself with documentation. Lay it out without rancor, just present the facts. Depending on your policy, I'd tell your boss that you would like to begin some sort of disciplinary action.

If you don't do SOMETHING you're going to lose the respect of your entire team. You're the boss, you can't allow one of your employees to bully you.

I speak from experience, and I know how difficult this can be. While I know all people are not the same, it has been my experience that when you firmly deal with a bully, they show their true colors and they back down.

Good luck!

Document, document, and then document some more.

This jerk WILL end up knocking you out of the box. If he's allowed to continue, he WILL make you, and everyone who confronts him look like it is out of professional jealousy.

If someone else does the work, document it, and what they did, how long they spent on it, and then (before the work is completed) send out a very nice congratulatory email, with higher ups CCed, thanking the employee who did the REAL work.

That will send a message to ALL concerned without looking petty or vindictive.

This problem is not going away by itself.

Its also not isolated to you and the employee - it affects your whole team. Not dealing with it will raise morale issues with the other team members.

I hate to use the phrase in case it offends, but we have a term called the "come to jesus" meeting. You need to confront them, this employee needs to confess and acknowledge their "sins" and promise to work with you on improvement. You have to outline the consequences of an unsuccessful resolution - termination.

But before you do this, you need to get buy in from your boss and perhaps HR. You need to discuss the problem with them, and outline your proposed course of action. You need their support and their buy in, in case the worst happens. The worst being this employee decides to deny everything and fight you at every turn. If that happens you have to terminate.

I've been councelled to terminate employees before, and have managed to work through the issues and avoid termination. In other cases, the employee saw that they could not have their way and quit(they thought the grass was greener, but it wasn't).

There may be external factors - stress at home for example. There may be some issue that is really bigging this employee and this is there way to cope. Build a plan of action, get your boss to sign off, and have the one on one discussion.

You should also talk to your boss about not goign around you when assigning work - that undercuts your authority.

Good luck, this is not easy stuff.

James

The first thing you need to do is to re-establish your authority. Upper management should not be bypassing you nor should your report be tasking his peers with work. This creates confusion on who is in charge, leading to some of the other issues.

Go talk to whoever is tasking this individual outside of your chain of command. Politely request that either all work requests go through you or the staff member be transferred to the higher ups direct control.

Inform the staff member of the agreement with upper management and request him to refer all work requests to you for assignment. Explicitly tell him to reply, "I must refer this request to my supervisor," and then tell you of the request.

Inform the staff member that he does not have the authority to task his peers. If he needs assistance to complete any task that you assign him, he is to request it from you.

Make a regular practice of reporting your team's accomplishments to upper management. It is your responsibility to ensure that credit is fairly and officially reported. Conflicting information should be enough of a key for higher ups to dig into the details.

Bypassing the chain of command is one of the more destructive things that upper management can do. It creates confusion over who is responsible for what and what range of authority individuals may have. My feeling is that upper management is more responsible for this problem than the staff member (who took advantage of the situation), and the upper management must be reminded of their responsibilities to you as a supervisor.

As you mentioned, he takes tasks from your boss and then it is another team member that completes it. This a major concern for every guy that works and needs to see his work recognized.
My advice on this matter is to clearly identify and structure the global task in several work packages. In each work package you have the objectives/goals where you should include the members that contributed to it. For this matter, please include also some kind of work measure, like MM (man month) just to make it really clear for the guys (e.g., your boss) that are going to receive the completed task.
The work done must be evaluated on a personal basis and he shouldn't take credit for what he hasn't done.
Besides that, in respect to its competitive nature, you should be very careful because if you are the team leader, he might be wanting your place!! So, beware and keep your boss update (in a weekly basis) about the work that all team members (include you) have been performing.
If there's something that a boss values is loyalty and will be doing your job, that is, being a team leader!
Good luck :)

want to look at the impact of him not being 100% on your team.

While he's off trying to find solutions for problems given to him on high, he's not doing the work that YOU, as his manager, have specified to him.

That has to have an impact on team performance. Management need to see any applicable stats on that. If they need him that badly - hey, that's your way out. Offer to "permanently lend him" to the "others", and get another (new) member of staff for your own team.

As said many times above, document, document, document. It's the only way to cover your own back if he goes into blatant denial mode.

Best of luck. If you need any help from the UK legal side of this issue, peer mail me - - - - - after all, I live where you work, but work in Durham!

GG

It's hard, I've had to sack one person and it's not fun.

1. Face it head on and professionally as it won't go away on its own.
2. Document everything.
3. Follow any HR policy on performance management/discplinary to the letter. Tell the person you intend to follow this path.
4. Involve your boss so he/she is aware and supports you.

Good Luck.

.
One problem you have is that your boss is stepping over you. In a happy healthy team, this would not be a problem. I seriously doubt your boss is completely unaware of this situation. That is, he knows your troublesome employee is giving you trouble, and he knows he is making it worse by giving him assignments directly. Gasoline on the fire. He knows! Don't forget that!

If I were in your situation, I would go directly into my boss' office and ask him to stop giving your troublesome employee assignments. He'll either support you or not.

Regardless, you're the boss. Assert your authority. Don't accept any nonsense. Be firm and calm. Don't argue. Don't just "deal with him". Your little hotshot needs more work to do. A lot more work, with pressing deadlines that don't leave time to argue. You have a hostile team. You don't have the happy family you would like. You have to deal with it accordingly. Yeah. YOU have to change. It's OK to be angry about it. It's actually preferable that you are. Use your anger as fuel to help you take care of business. When you're a manager, sometimes you have to re-earn the position. I think this is one of those times. If you can do that well, you'll earn more respect from your superiors, and your employees as well.

Good luck...manager!

P.S. Frankly, I would nail that cocky little SOB to the friggin' wall, in a professional way of course! Remember: Old age and treachery will always win over youth and skill. Be old. Be treacherous.

Hi! I find the way to deal with this is to bring your other co-workers to your side. YES - you need to do this as a manager. You need to stop completing his tasks and you need to keep the others from doing so also. This sounds petty - but trust me that if you do not - this gent may end up with your position. He is making you his "victim" and this is not the image you want to project to your co-workers or higher ups. Fm your post I can sense the annoyance but also the "victim" (I have proof...). YOU are in control - freeze him out. If you feel the need to complete HIS tasks - assign them to his fellow co-workers and allow them to complain enough to you for YOU to step in as a manager and point out to higher ups his deceptions. The ball really is in your court.
I hope this helps a bit.

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Another thing I noticed from your post is that you appear to be "Pete Rose" (a playing manager in American baseball in case you might not know). You're the manager, but you also take on a bunch of the detail tasks yourself. Small team. As they say, "Familiarity breeds contempt". It's absolutely true.

I think you need to devote a little more time to manager-type tasks. Not overkill. You have a very small team and you're "Pete Rose". But, some more.

You should have chart of every task being done by every team member (including yourself since you do them also). In particular, your cocky little troublemaker should be told, in writing (don't hesitate...he's at war with you), that he is required to inform you of any assignment given to him (or taken by him) by your boss (or anyone else) BEFORE he begins working on it. Each task goes on the chart. He doesn't have to lose one moment of time (say so, explicitly, in the memo directing him) but you are NEVER to be left out of the loop. Every time he fails to adhere to this requirement, he gets a written memo noting his failure to do his job as he has been instructed.

The point is, you really need to establish a little more formality. Some more stuff in writing. Some more professional formal conduct on his part. You don't have to, and cannot afford to, weigh down your small team with it. But, I think you must do it. There is probably a lot of other little formalities and little professionalisms you should implement. But, I cannot say what they are without knowing a lot more about your situation.

Reassert authority and control over your team! Good luck!

Greetings Guitarist,

First, let me introduce myself. I'm a young system consultant entrepreneur, plus I occupy a job of teacher in a private college well know in my region.

One of my students told me, at my first class this year, and was trying to say that my teaching was not enough "take-me-by-the-hand", if you see what I mean. In his point of view, I had to precisely tell him what was the objective of a programming laboratory before he begins, so that he might decide if whether he needed to perform it or not. All this to say that he was trying to be interesting arguing with me. Meanwhile, the other students had completed the laboratory. Then, when this student decided to do the labs, he met some difficulties with the first one. Now, he listens a little more to what I say, not being dictatorial neither.

Second example, with an employee of mine within my business. The man is 27, and claims to have more than 10 years of experience into professional system programming. After a period of trial, I met some difficulties with him. According to him, he was worthy more than what I paid him. But he had yet made no proofs of his value. Furthermore, he refused to take the responsibilities I wanted to give him in order to make me see whether he was that worthy. He was always arguing and arguing, even being rough with me in his speaking. He too discussed about the fact that I didn't take his ideas, when I had in fact accepted to go his way on more than 45% of the project. But because I didn't take 100%, I was not trusting him, and I needed to go back to school, see?...

All this to try to tell you that you cannot satisfy everyone and everything. I agree with your point when you say that you discuss much things with the team, that's the way to come out successful in your projects. As for this guy of your team, he might be very competitive, but when competition comes accross relationship and team work, we might also consider a lack of confidence within himself. He tries to proove he's the best, when in fact he might not be. You're the team supervisor, let him know your rules diplomatically, and if he doesn't listen, meet in team all three together. And if this does not work, you'll have no choice to report him to your superior. But when doing, be prepared. Write down his kind of replicas when you try to have a discussion with him. Remember his attitude and make your other team partner notice it. Try to fortify the team between you and the other who is "correct". Then, when your file is done and you feel ready, meet with your boss discretely and explain him the situation. Don't be afraid to look like a bad manager because you can't settle everything down, nobody can do everything. Furthermore, you do not seem to be the "big boss" of the place, so it is normal that you some times need to get a hand from ups. And explain to your boss that you would appreciate that when he has work to do, he has to go through you in order to better structure the team. Because when your boss goes over you, this gives the sensation to your ostile team partner to be more important than you.

In conclusion, most of our fears are just not realistics. Anticipation is your worse enemy. And according to my experience and knowledge, you might be a better supervisor than you might yourself think. As for my student, he finally complies with what I require. As for my employee, I fired him because he lacked of diplomacy and didn't want to understand my point, he was stuburned. Some times, we have no choice but to get through the roughest.

I do hope this helps somehow. I wish you good success!

I think I recognize the type you are nice until you get pushed too far. Stay very nice its much more effective...
Don't worry to much about your boss sort it out yourself you can do this ! it will empower you for ever.
Never raise your voice. Keep very calm when something happens that you cant sort out in the heat of the moment, retire saying I will have to think about that. If you want to dominate say "I may have to see you later about this". Now talk to your staff tell them about the problem. Ask them to help you with it as a matter of loyalty to you because you have always taken their input as important.
That you intend that they should benefit from all this because you will show the world the work they do and it will be totally transparent.
I like the idea of giving the difficult one work to do with deadlines. I think you do want to fill this persons time up 101%. 101% is OK its normal practice. State priorities that will ( not "must" use the word "will", will is legal must is not.)
This dictates the order of work to be done. Its a form of micro management it can be very nasty but if you are only doing it to get your work done before any work that he may have from above then this is more than OK.
He will be told that he "will" tell you if there is anything preventing him from undertaking your list of priorities and he will tell you if anything interfears with it.
You "will" them be told about requests from above and you "will" dictate the priorities.
I would of course take one of the things that your boss gave the trouble maker to do get it done by one of your other staff and get them to take it to your boss from you saying that you told him to do it as a matter of priority .
You dictate who does what when. anything the boss gives to one of your staff...get it done faster than anything else on your list. Drop everything and do that first. If you want to use the trouble maker to get it done, do it.
One rule ...You rule.. work is not a democracy its a dictatorship. Team working is OK its a management tool to get things done but its not a matter of equal voting you always have one more vote than all your staff.
Ps I have removed over 1/2 a million off the pay role when they tried this sort of thing with me I learn't a lot. Always be nice an always do it your way.
Say things like "I dont want to do that"
"I would like you to do this"
they can say "but" and you say "well that may be the case but I want you to do this".
Its very difficult to argue against this all you have to do is say you don't want him to do whatever you want him to do what you tell him to do. If he says no. Explain its not a case of yes and no he "will" not do X he will do Y. just wait a bit after that its very rare that you have to wait long.
Silence is brilliant try it ....Dont talk Tell and wait dont explain if there is a silence just wait after I while you can just say well thats Ok them and go.
I hope it helps even if it doesn't think of it as moral support

Sometimes, it is our own self-importance from which our sense of ?duty? arises. As an example, imagine the night watch security guard, who perhaps is overzealous. His supervisors smirk, but tolerate him, because he is so very conscientious and reliable. Let?s call him Sparky. I would bet that Sparky believes himself to be a man of great honor and integrity, always seeking wisdom and other noble pursuits. The problem is that Sparky is prone to his emotions at times, and can get swept up by the trash that blows by at times (now think of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, 1976). He imagines conspiracies and gets carried away in his own mind, with how to deal with them, and how he (being a person who ?cares?) would like to make his own dent in the wall.

There are two paths for you at this point. Pursue your own happiness, or pursue your duty. If you really want to pursue your own happiness, then it might be a good thing for a fanatical jerk to gain the advantage and become team leader --- like letting someone go full throttle without restraint, and thus hang their self. You could do that by going to your boss with an ultimatum disguised as concern for the company. Either the jerk needs to be told by YOUR BOSS that he will shut up and do what you ask and will no longer come to the top bosses for more brownie point jobs, or you feel that you need to step down, since your silly appointment as head McDonalds cashier is nothing more than a scam by the top bosses to create competition among the slave labour and a religion espousing company values. You could also simply leave the company for one which had good top managers, who do not do stupid evil things such as this, who engender an atmosphere of warmth, good humor, and sincere good character in members.

Your second path, that of pursuing your duty within the confines of your current environment, would entail stepping out of your little bubble, and getting honest about human nature. There are endless throngs and hordes of talk-machines walking around with a passion and hunger for conflict. By slight of mind and emotional IQ, you have constant opportunities surprising these beasts with magic which releases their tension and puts them at ease. Tailoring a daily joke or humorous insight gained from the media to THEIR personality (not yours) is a tremendous help. Often, sadly, those who thirst after a little power and control, are those who may not be best suited to such authority. Leading doesn?t always mean disciplining. The top boss probably doesn?t really care if Clinton puffed or had ?relations? with the girl. He may only care about effectiveness at one?s core responsibilities (which as alluded to earlier, have nothing to do with management, and everything to do with productivity and pain-free results).

Your duty, and this is especially true with such a small group, might be best understood as team leader (not manager), in the sense that people often naturally want to chum it up with the fastest swimmer on the team, or the homerun hitter on the team, unless of course they have an unpleasant manner, and can?t seem to get along well with others. Being official is pointless, as this often happens naturally. People will want to learn the secrets, and hear the stories of experience and advise about failures, from those who have gone before. You can help those who may lack your skills or knowledge. That is your duty, if you are a real leader.

Now, if you want to be a manager, and not just a leader, then you might want to ask yourself why? Trust me when I say that it can be a real chore, and if you enjoy the work in your field, distancing yourself from that work, and suddenly spending all your time dealing with administrative and human resource issues can become very stressful and boring. It can spoil a positive outlook, not only in general, but especially in regards to your view of people in general. So very few come with good reports, and so many come to you with one complaint after the next. Put yourself in the shoes of your big boss. After some years, he may not really care about the politics and image management. If he?s stupid (a good possibility, if they got there through seniority, connections, or even treachery over skills), then they may be clueless about who is a wolf in sheep?s clothing. Made to confess, they will grudgingly take the side of ?what?s right?, but will not take action against any wolfs in the flock, particularly if the wolf is perceived as keeping those freag?in sheep in line, and brings more bacon to the table, never comes to their office with ill report or problems, and even makes them laugh occasionally.

As team leader you should request that higher up route all work requests thru you. This is called "chain of command"

You could ask other team members not to be sucked in by this guy.

Get up in the morning and pratice saying NO in the mirror. Remember there are lots of diffrent ways to say NO.

Lead of follow, your choice.

You could set him up for a fall, have the solution in hand and look like the saviour in a time of need. With that kind of attention in the forefront you could state that this is not the first time you had to bail him out for one track thinking. Request that he be terminated in writing and have other team members back you up.

Sounds like you need to do something soon...

Sit him down and TELL him that he works for you. Document the 3 cases of him taking/getting credit for work he did not complete. Tell him that his nit picking every little point is counter productive.
Tell upper management that all his 'projects' have to be approved and assigned by you, let them follow the chain of command. monitor the situation and document everything.

If he doesn't want to be a team player then replace him with someone who would be a better fit for the team.

Its business, not kindergarden !

Talk to your boss. Why is he assigning work to someone you are responsible for. Professionalism from his end demands that he clear tasks to your department with you not go behind your back. I would find out why you are being side-stepped in this manner. If you are the one responsible for the department then it is not up to you to deal with him beyond guiding him to fit in better. If he is not willing to meet you half way then it may be time to let him find other opportunities. You cannot be the nice guy when you are the one holding the bag.

Also, every time he comes to you for a solution, document it. When it comes time for appraisals (assuming you get them at your company) present your boss with a copy of this journal so that he can prepare your assessment correctly. Suggest that the "third member of the away-team" keep one as well.

If you didn't have proof of your claim, I would suggest gathering such proof; however, since you say you have "proof of this happenning on 3 separate occasions," I would bring enough documentation (not all) to objectively substantiate that this person is acting unprofessionally and assert that he needs to change this behavior as it is unacceptable to claim credit for others' work.

Personally, I would issue this person a written warning. Clearly and objectively make your point in writing; then sit down with this person and review the written warning and have them sign it. Provide an space for him to add any comments he may have on the issue. I would then put this into his personnel file. You then have what you need to take the next step (notifying the higher ups/HR) IF the behavior doesn't change. In providing the written warning and a place for his response, you will let him know that this is noticed and documented in his file. If it continues, appropriate steps may be taken to remedy the situation. I wouldn't notify the higher ups/HR if he changes his attitude/behavior... after all, that is what you really are after.

We'd just, non-violently and dispassionately show him exactly how it would feel if we were to hurt him hurt him and then we'd toss him a few ice-packs and revert back to the professional management crap you described.

We could sell tickets and wagers on the side to cover any immediate expenses for coagulants etc. I'm non-violent. REMEMBER that when we have to talk to the police about his self-inflicted injuries and attempt to frame us. Thank you Mr. Pacifist.

Who would the cops believe. Two of the most gentle people that the office people say they have ever seen or a twit who was screwing over the offices people. We'd have to look for the episode on Unsolved Mysteries or sumthin'.

I've always "heard" that phonebooks placed in significant areas prevent bruising while conveying an unmistakeable message to child molesters, cop killers and err... office twits. As far as you know I have NO experience in that area and you can't prove anything without a bruise or so I've heard.

Edit: I kept getting DNS lookup errors everywhere else in this discussion BUT here so I'll post here and hope it is read.

Seriously TechExec, you and others have good ways to deal with the twit and of course you know I was half-kidding when I said I'd throttle the dood back a bit. My point is that there comes a time when office "politics" can sink the boat and somebody like the dood in question need to be informed in no uncertain terms that people know what he's doing and his ass is on the line. Politics and correctness be damned. He can shape up or ship out. I haven't ever loved any job so much that I'll allow my personal integrity to become demolished or watch others take credit for things they weren't due credit. I speak up and have spoken up when my voice is the last anyone wants to hear because when I talk people know it's going to be the truth as I know it to be, no ifs, ands, buts or maybes.

Maybe that's why I'm still out of work. ?!? :^0 :0 :^0

Why make dealing with a twit any tougher than it has to be. Use the truth on him. If you want to hurt someone you lie. If you really want to mess them up you tell them the truth about themselves. Truth works. It's simple and simple is often best.

However, you seem to be unwilling to be the low man on the pecking order. If you aren't willing to pay your dues, your manager will staff projects with less talented, but more socially apt people. You may be technically superior and self taught, a deadly combination that will get resistance from other personnel, including your boss.

Remember, the tech end is only 30% of the IT pro's job. 70% or more is dealing with other people, or training others, or being mentored...

Your exposure to higher ups may be either positive or negative. Don't be afraid to say "that won't work", but only if you have the right answer. Else, you might as well try any other suggestion. (That dang white button does help, cause you are doing Windows.)

Until I was 30, I wouldn't mentor anyone else. Now, I am willing to mentor others because after they leave, they have occasionally been my contacts for more lucrative contracts elsewhere. If you aren't able to be a team player, you can not hope for your boss to be even a good reference, get another job that better fits your skills, needs and wants.

but I get the point. Yes, there are people whose expertise is very narrow. That's true in any field. And it's not unusual for your boss to know less about technical things than you do, after all your boss' job is no longer actually troubleshooting, it's managing people. Some bosses hate giving up that technical piece, and fight to stay in it. He may feel in competition with you. Which is not to excuse it.

If you feel you're underpaid for the work you're performing, get some facts together. Put together a job description of the job you do, not the one you were hired to do, compare with online job descriptions. Do some market research. FInd out how much you should be making for the work you're doing and your experience level in your area. If they can't come close to it, you need to decide if working there is worth the pay cut.

Where I work consistently pays at least 10% less than the market in general for where I live, however the environment is good enough that even as a single, self-supporting mother the "pay cut" is worth staying for. Having made that decision, I know I have no right to complain that I could be getting paid more. I could also be working longer hours for jerks who don't recognize what I do as valuable.

Definitely take to heart the comments above about having (or projecting) self-confidence. That will serve you well in life, not just work.

And if you have to play politics, you have to play politics. They are in every work environment, sadly enough. Personally, I hate them. But my boss shields me from most of it, because he knows it's the thing most likely to get me fired up at work... or perhaps that's just fired... ^_^;;

If the politics mean that you have to tell these guys asking you to do the work to go through your boss (nicely!), then that's what you need to do. From your description it sounds like they're circumventing him to actually get work done, but the problem won't go away unless you let it be painful for other people too. And, if you can frame it calmly and with supporting points, it might not hurt (depending on the personalities and politics) to talk to his boss about feeling undermined. I assume any suggestions for redesign that you make are made through email? Keep those. If you write a word doc, or spreadsheet or something to present your ideas, use the header/footer functions with your name and date on it. Password protect it. Keep a copy. If it shows up later with someone else taking credit, it shows that there was WILLFUL stealing of your ideas/plans. It's not petty, it's making sure people know your value.

And if none of it works, and you hate it there; don't settle. We spend too much time at work to be miserable there. Work these independant contracting contacts you have. Get referrals. Get written recommendations. Market yourself.

We are only as miserable as we allow ourselves to be.

Thanks so much for all of your help folks - all of the replys have been really interesting! I really appreciate the help. Now I just need to decide where to go from here. It's nice to know I'm not alone out there at least! There are some difficult things to face up to - namely confronting the boss, it's all stuff that I've mentioned to him before i.e. that I need to be prioritising the tasks that come in, but must admit I haven't spoken to him specifically about delegating directly to the IT admin that reports to me.

Careful wording required there I think - I almost wish it were something I could do over E-mail as I'm not sure I trust my mouth to do it :) - but best done face to face I think.

and have voted for Dean.

^_^

Well, I've just spoken to my boss about this - he's advised to me to have a one to one with the guy and let him know "you're not happy with the nature of your relationship" with either my boss or HR present if I feel it necessary. He thinks I should take the weekend to consider the next step. He has said he's going to be keeping an eye out for signs of this behaviour in future, although as he says he's not often present in situations with the two of us. He also clarified that my position is head of that dept. and the perception from himself and the board is that the guy does a good job but as my assistant not as the person running the dept. and he has no intention of any other staffing arrangements (I didn't ask - but it's nice to know all the same!). No mention of whether he's going to be assigning any other tasks directly to him, but I'm hopeful. He was most displeased with the guy taking credit where it wasn't due. All in all I think a discussion that was uncomfortable but well worth it!

Thanks again for all of your great advice people!

Solutions need to be based aroud a range of criteria, set by business practices from within an organsiation (the culture of how things are done) and the operating/business environment.
Organsiations/businesses develop systems and protocols to manage work flows.
Ask that your team member email all requests so that it may be prioritised against all the work that the team is doing.
If/when a request is sent through for work to be done that is inappropriate load shifting you can track and action, to ensure that it is dealt with firmly and fairly.
You need to be firm but fair as you are the team leader. Take control of the cirmcumstance or get out of the way.

Someone has probably already said this, but you have a multitude of problems.

First, ask yourself if you really want to be a manager.
If yes -

There?s no easy way to get back on track.

Your IT is out of control.
All projects must go through you.
Find out why this person is getting projects that you aren?t aware of.
You can?t manage what you can?t control.

Let this person know that this is not a democracy. Some people view people who ask for advice as weak and uncertain. Arguing with you after the decision has been made is insubordination.

The team should know what projects have come down through you and those are the only ones they are authorized to work on. Knowingly spending company time on tasks for anything else is an actionable offense.

Be open but firm.