Re: Challenging and oppressive SME situation

["Marilyn Baldwin (mlbb -at- capgroup -dot- com)" <Marilyn_Baldwin -at- CAPGROUP -dot- COM>]

To the Anonymous Poster -

Clearly, from the caring and compassionate advice you're receiving from
many others on this list, there are too many of us who've "been there, done
that," and have horror stories - and lessons learned - of our own to share.
Since many of those lessons have already been shared, I only have a couple
of things to add.

As you gain a little distance from this problem, you may see as you look
back that you made some fairly serious errors in your relationship with
your manager:
   1)  You perhaps let the casual dress environment influence your
non-dress behavior.  It was probably a relief to find a place where you
could apparently be judged by your work, without the appearance factor
mattering much.  But you describe your interchanges with your boss as
mostly "shucking and jiving in the hall," "telling puerile jokes and being
goofy."  If that's the way he mostly interacts with you, you need to
understand that it may be a hard switch for him when you (following the
good advice you've been given here) suddenly appear before him acting
polite, professional, and slightly impersonal to relate the (news to him!)
awful situation you've been dealing with.  If you haven't been giving him
weekly or monthly status reports, so that he at least has some awareness of
how the project's been going/issues you've encountered, you will probably
be handing him an unhappy surprise.  EVEN IF you come in with a problem
description and several possible alternative solutions, he will still
probably feel caught by surprise.  He may exerperience a kind of executive
cognitive dissonance, suddenly being asked to "assume the managerial
position" by someone who's until that moment mostly been a funny passerby
in the hall.
   2)  You hate office politics (me, too) and don't want to "pander to the
politicians among us."  But work is essentially a political act - SOMEbody
has power over SOMEbody else - not always based on hierarchy and org
charts, mind you.  Some people have been around the company so long that
they "know where all the bones are buried" and are repositories of ancient
knowledge and company history.  These folks are usually left in place, or
shuffled around, in some kind of strange and atavistic keeping of the
elders, even if they do little - or even if they do harm.  Go figure.  But
they have power beyond whatever their job title is.  Other people may,
contrary to the corporate culture in general, stick out like sore thumbs -
where others are aggressive and impassioned, they are soft-spoken and
unflappable; or in a collegial and consensus-seeking organization, they are
the ones known for their explosive tempers and foul mouths. Somehow, some
way, they are tolerated.  Not knowing these sorts of things - and, in fact,
not making it your duty to yourself to find out these sorts of things -
does you a disservice.  It means that where others may know to tread with
care, you blunder.  Where others may know to keep a careful paper trail,
you just proceed with trust because that's the way you believe
professionals should treat each other.  This is all about "knowing the lay
of the land."  Before you ever met with this SME, it would probably have
been a good idea to have a brief meeting with your manager to see what HE
knew about her, either by direct experience or word around the place.  This
isn't because you'd have suspected anything bad about her - but just
because it's good for everyone if you know things like: what's her current
workload, and where might my project fit into it, does she like to keep
right on top of things or kind of hustle near the end of the timeframe for
deliverables due, what exactly is required of her and what of me, etc.  If
your boss didn't know this stuff, you might have asked with whom you could
speak as you gathered background info for the project.  If, as you say,
several people on the project have actually been hospitalized, you should
have seen red flags all over the place.  And proceeded with great care and
much forethought.
   3)  It may be convenient for your boss to assume that "no news is good
news" and to present himself as basically a problem-solver when needed -
but that means he's pretty much out of the loop when things are going well,
and only interacts with you professionally when something negative occurs.
Even if regular status reports aren't required, it's a good idea to
initiate them yourself just so the boss has a heads up when needed.  My
manager requires only three kinds of info on our weekly status reports:
Accomplishments, Issues or Obstacles,  Next Steps - all in bulleted format.
For anything that requires depth, his door is always wide open, he's always
walking around, he is available.  You've been advised by several folks on
this list to never again be "too busy to address all of these issues as
they come up" - that's excellent advice.

There may well be factors here that you will never become aware of and can
have NO control over.  You said that the SME is about a decade younger than
you - and yet you look like a teenager (younger than SHE looks) - so maybe
there's a kind of unconscious resentment on her part.   Maybe you remind
the SME of someone in her non-work life whom she can't stand, or who has
brought much pain into her life.  Maybe her non-work life is nothing but
stress and strain.  It's been my experience that happy people tend to
spread happiness in life, and miserable people spread misery.

But maybe there are factors over which you DO have control.  You said that
even your boss "still sees me as sort of a kid."  If you look much younger
than your years, dress ultra-casually, stand in the hallway telling dumb
jokes, and "don't take your work THAT seriously" - even if you've "done
lots of stuff and (are) good" - perhaps there's a reason why you aren't
being accorded the professional respect you seek.  After all, you describe
this project as "completely out of my realm of expertise" - so you haven't
earned your stripes with this SME and have no shared experience to give you
credibility with her at all.  She may indeed be The SME from Hell - but
perhaps you've unwittingly handed her a lot of ammo to fire back your way.
I know that you are feeling pretty victimized right now - and your
situation does sound awful - but you need to take ownership (even if you
own only 5% of the situation, as one lister hypothesized) and to empower
yourself to make it different.

Whichever way you decide to cope with the situation - and immediate
proactivity seems definitely in order - be sure to follow up the project
with a "lessons learned" meeting (okay, your word: an autopsy) - your boss,
you, her boss, her, perhaps a couple of other key players.  This is just
like the post-implementation reviews that systems teams do.  Hand out/email
a simple questionnaire a few days in advance of the meeting and ask
everyone to fill it out and bring enough copies for all attendees so you
can discuss your way through together.  The questionnaire should include
only a few general topics: what went well, what didn't, why, how can we do
it better next time.  Emphasize that the whole purpose of this learning
tool to to help all of you to better organize and conduct the next project
- it is NOT an opening for finger-pointing, blaming, or glory-seeking.  I
am guessing that in your current situation, your own manager will show a
fairly woeful lack of knowledge about the project - Lesson Learned:
establish and adhere to a project participant communication plan at the
beginning of the project - regularly-scheduled status meetings and reports,
"red flags" for issues and obstacles encountered, timeframes for all
deliverables (drafts of text, screen shots, edits, whatever), and bulleted
write-ups after all meetings (distributed to all participants).  You get
the idea.

Think before you act, and have a plan of action.  To be taken as a
professional, you really do need to act like one in this scenario.
Absolute best of luck to you - but remember the old definition of luck:
when preparation meets opportunity.

- Marilyn Baldwin (mlbb -at- capgroup -dot- com)


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