Indirect report is all elbows. Looking for resources.

April 27, 2023 11:45 AM

Any suggestions for books or trainings that might help?

I have a star-performer indirect report that lacks tact in communication with peers and subordinates, particularly when stressed. We have discussed this issue previously and they seem sincere intent to do better. Though somewhat improved over time, this behavior still is hard on the team.

Specifically, they often forget the social niceties and omit the parentheticals:

(Hi, how are you doing? I could use some help, do you have a moment?)
(Depending on your availability and feedback...)

I'd like this done my way now.

(Does this seem possible? I respect your expertise and would be open to suggestions that might improve the process.)
(Thank you so much for dropping what you were doing to help with my emergency. I really appreciate you and your help.)

They sit in the highest non-management position and I'm looking for them to provide leadership and enhance team cohesion, not the opposite.

Any suggestions for books or trainings that might help?

posted by elmonobonobo to Work & Money (10 answers total)

Are you talking about in-person communication, or email? Because if it's email, then possibly the best training might be asking them to always bullet-point communications and get ChatGPT to "rewrite this list as a polite, tactful, professional email." Acting as a substance-to-conventional-civility translator is one of the things GPT-3.5 is absolutely the best at, and after seeing a bunch of examples of their content reframed politely, it's likely the person would get the hang of how to do it themselves.
posted by Bardolph at 12:21 PM on April 27, 2023

I totally agree about having them try ChatGPT or even Bing Chat for suggestions on how to write more tactful/confident/assertive/friendly/formal/casual-whatever emails - whatever the case calls for. If they know that they're coming across as rude without meaning to, they might really find it helpful.

Some of its suggestions can feel over the top, especially for someone who doesn't naturally communicate that way at all, but they can evaluate a few different scripts from the bot and pick and choose the phrasing they feel most comfortable with.
posted by wondermouse at 1:39 PM on April 27, 2023

i have been your employee. what would have helped were EXAMPLES of what was appropriate to my boss/team. perhaps take a couple of their emails and rewrite them in the way you/your team would have preferred them. "be nicer in your emails" is not super helpful, at least to me. show me some examples that i can base myself off of, and i'll do a lot better.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:47 PM on April 27, 2023

Educate yourself and your team on the neurodiversity paradigm and how to accommodate the communication style of autistic employees.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:28 PM on April 27, 2023

Unless the person in question has a diagnosis that they are open about, I would refrain from treating this as a clear cut case of neurodivergence.

The employee may very well be neurodivergent and educating yourself is a good idea in general, but "I have decided that my employee has different brain functions and therefore cannot be expected to treat their coworkers in the common manner" seems like it would be potentially extremely insulting to all parties involved.
posted by kingdead at 3:28 PM on April 27, 2023

I have a work friend who, by all accounts, used to be this kind of person, maybe even worse (actively, though unintentionally, abrasive instead of just blunt, which is what I'm getting from your description). He said that when he first joined our company, he and his manager debriefed after every. single. meeting to talk about how it went and how it could have gone better, and what effect that would have on the outcome of the work he was doing. To him, it was significant that there was an actual person in his corner who genuinely believed that he could improve, and who was willing to give him honest, personalized feedback on how his actions affected others, instead of just letting him get fired every couple years for being annoying (his own words).
posted by btfreek at 5:35 PM on April 27, 2023

You mention that your indirect report's communication is more blunt when they are stressed. Given that you believe that they are sincerely trying to be less blunt, this would seem to indicate an issue of cognitive load allocation -- when your report is devoting all available cognitive resources to the problem at hand, they just don't have the capacity to spare to embroider their communications.

A direct way to address this is to dig into why your report is getting so stressed, and adjust their workflow so that their stress level remains more manageable. Star performers are often also perfectionists who take instruction very literally and don't know when it is or isn't ok to submit work that's merely "good enough", or when they're allowed say no to a new task because their plate is already full.

Lowering your report's stress level will mean that they will have more cognitive resources to devote to tactful communication, and also reduce your risk of losing your star performer to burnout.
posted by heatherlogan at 6:58 PM on April 27, 2023

It may help to explain the notion of task-oriented vs. people-oriented styles and that though the added pleasantries may seem like irrelevant fluff, they are actually needed to accomplish a task when others with people-oriented styles are involved.
posted by meijusa at 3:19 AM on April 28, 2023

Seconding to maybe consider that your indirect report is neurodivergent. If this is a style issue and not a substance issue, could you address this from both directions instead of this being a "them problem"?
posted by dazedandconfused at 4:46 AM on April 28, 2023

It is astonishing that you are getting "use an AI to simulate social tact" and "educate yourself on neurodivergence". This indicates to me that MetaFilter may not be the place to ask this question. You might have better luck on linkedin (ugh).

I have worked in environments that favored astonishingly blunt communication. However even this blunt and clipped communication came with an appropriate sense of "who could ask for what" and "facts first". It was never "Do it my way" - there was no "My way" but there were "This way" and "That way", both based on facts and logic and described in procedural terms. I have also worked at places where tact came before facts. I strongly prefer the former but, with some mentorship, learned to operate in the latter.

This person needs to learn to function in their working environment. This includes behaving gracefully under stress and keeping the mental well being of their peers and team in mind. You call them a star performer, but the truth is that they are not a star performer if they're fucking up the team dynamics.

The hard fact is that you, as their manager, may need to meet them at their level - repeatedly and firmly. Be extraordinarily blunt and ask directly for what you expect. And if they cannot meet this low bar of "not being unnecessarily abrasive" you may need to implement corrective action or insulate the team from them by insisting all communications go to you for approval first. If they're smart and capable, they can learn tone.
posted by fake at 8:31 AM on April 28, 2023