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New Bosses

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by elwoos

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I have a new boss as of the last few months. I've just discovered that she has been persistently undermining me and some of my colleagues. In the past these people have all worked seperately with few if any issues. She is now saying that she has always seen us as a team. In fact, she is now trying to appear to be bringing this team together. So having completely undermined and demoralised these people she is now being seen to build this team up. From the point of view of these people, we have only been a team for a couple of weeks. How do we deal with these issues without giving her the satisfaction of going around and telling everyone what she has 'acheived'?

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by oldefar

I am not sure what your real issue is. The new boss wants a team rather than a group of individual performers. Some of individuals, yourself for example, do not want to see this happen. Why? Is there an underlying business reason that makes such a move a poor decision? Are you losing personal security or prestige?

It seems from your post that the prestige issue is the real problem. In particular, you are concerned with her getting credit for "building a team" when it is the team members, doing their jobs, that really should get credit.

There may also be an issue with fairness. A recent article in the NY Times (http://tinyurl.com/ob9e) talks about a study of how primates react to unfair situations. Maybe this applies to people as well.

If the issue is a poor business decision, you need to help the decision makers see the better decision without costing them prestige. You do this by helping them "discover" the better approach on their own. If the issue is your prestige or fairness, you need to do what feels right to you. This may mean leaving your current job, or may mean adapting to the new situation.

Good luck.

by elwoos

Perhaps I haven't explained it very well. The issue is that we were just starting to work as a team. We were doing all the right things. I don't think I personally have an issue with prestige as it's my team and they all appear to be happy with that.

She has tried to impose a structure on it that we don't feel we need or want or can be justified in business terms.

Since then it's become clear that one of the problems is management expectations. They have never been clarified. We've given them our interpretation of a remit, which they haven't objected too until specific issues arise which they try to pin on us.

Just to add to this I have just learned that there is to be a new team member who I know of old. In the past he has bee a 'rogue element' who has undermined individuals in the team, verbally and by running to this manager at every opportunity. In fact he has then gone off to do his own thing without the knowledge or agreement of the team, this has then caused then serious problems when he went off to work elsewhere for a while as he must have known it would.

Where are the jobs pages again :-(

by oldefar

Sounds like the management team where you work has lost sight of their business objectives and business requirements. A direct link between objectives and requirements insures a focus on the right elements. The business requirements then drive processes, policies, and technical solutions from an IT perspective.

The two ways to get back to these is to show the business values (higher revenue, lower cost) and to assist the managers in discovering this. The second piece is important because it feeds their prestige and security, the two places employees can have the most direct impact on their bosses.

A fix for the problem of the rogue employee is to implement a peer revue in addition to management revue. It is a lot harder to fool the whole team about one's contributions than it is to fool one manager.

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