The Awkward Requests
Not every Manager task is what you would expect
Hey, fellow Leader 🚀,
I am Artur and welcome to my weekly newsletter. I am focusing on topics like Project Management, Innovation, Leadership, and a bit of Entrepreneurship. I am always open to suggestions for new topics. Feel free to reach me on Substack and share my newsletter if it helps you in any way.
If a Project Manager is lucky enough to manage both the project and the team, he or she will receive all kinds of feedback and requests, and not all of them will be entirely project-related. This article will cover a couple of awkward request examples I have received over the last few years and some tips on handling them.
For context, I have always worked in a highly international context, where people from almost all continents were sharing the same workplace. Different cultures have different thresholds of hygiene, personal space, habits, and what is acceptable or not in the office environment. Trying to align everything and everyone can be challenging.
That Smell is Disturbing the Team
And that smell is a colleague with a severe lack of personal hygiene. Many years ago I got feedback from some colleagues that a particular individual had an odor that invaded the open space. My advice when handling more personal topics is to check with HR or other Managers what is the legal framework. Why? The goal is not to send the poor colleague to jail. However, in this example, a lack of hygiene might reflect carelessness of self or mental illness. Plus, it might be particularly relevant depending on the type of contractual obligation the company has with the individual. I know a case in France where the HR needed to be called upon in a similar situation, and the guy was almost making a legal complaint against the company while putting in motion his sick leave.
When handling more personal related aspects, is highly unlikely a manager can fix a situation by 100%. So I would be happy if, at least, I managed to mitigate the situation. In this particular scenario, I had a good relationship with this colleague. We can consider him like a “Beer buddy”. Since the communication was very open, I was trying to share with him that he needed a "f$ki%g” bath. Of course, in a polite and corporate and beer-friendly language. He had personal issues, as everyone did, and a more tolerant threshold from personal hygiene than people typically living in the southern part of Europe. As a joke, since he was single, the hope was for the day he got finally a new girlfriend who could (hopefully) take charge of this particular hygiene problem.
For these situations, the trick is to convey the message in a way you feel is appropriate depending on the level of personal connection, context, and how serious the problem is. Every Leader has a different style of management. Some leaders prefer to distance themselves from others at a personal level, others might even build a close connection with every person on their teams.
In my example, the problem was mitigated after a brief and informal conversation. For a while he made an effort; until he changed teams. After some months on the new team, the new PM came to talk with me, asking me, since I had a very good relationship with Mr. X if I could speak with him because the entire team was complaining about the odor that can become evident on an open space.
This problem was severely impacting his relationship with the rest of the team. Worst, the guy was still single and had no girlfriend in sight to delegate this critical piece of deliverable. Because he changed to another team, we never got another opportunity for an informal setting (beers) to casually talk about it. But if I see him again will be worth mentioning, because he is a good person and a solid professional. He might not even realize how this can hurt his connection with his peers.
The AC Wars
Do you feel that Mr. Trump will have a challenging job as US president? Try to intermediate the Air Conditioning settings on a floor of more than 100 people. Especially when the settings display is within the reach of anyone who dares to dictate the settings for the entire floor. Here we can see how human interactions work in small groups versus big groups. When the office is more or less empty, people reach out to different teams, they ask for opinions and advice on how to regulate the AC better and accommodate everyone. When the floor is full it becomes a war zone, where we can witness a ravage Developer standing up and walking towards the settings display, only to set the AC at 18 degrees for everyone to understand how is to live inside a fridge.
Leadership positions are typically the ones to intermediate conflicts, no matter their nature. I am happy to intermediate a series of project-related conflicts. However, sometimes the company puts everyone in a situation where an experienced Project Manager needs to intervene to find out the best temperature for the ambiance. What about wasting the company’s money and someone’s time…
The AC case can provide insight into the different leadership styles of different Managers. Some dictate the temperature settings and advise people who feel the temperature is cold to put on a jacket and who feel the temperature is hot to remove layers. Others avoid the AC Wars altogether as if the plague is coming to get them. Some prefer to dialogue across the floor and try to put common sense on this topic, especially on the edge cases who regularly put the AC on the fridge or tropical modes. If I were the Head of the Department, I would settle the dispute in a Laser Tag match and the victors would determine the AC temperature, between 22 and 23 degrees.
That’s it. If you find this post useful please share it with your friends or colleagues who might be interested in this topic. If you would like to see a different angle, suggest in the comments or send me a message on Substack.
Cheers,
Artur