Us and them

We are pretty aware that, while most of our team are happy and non-bitchy, there are 2 (maybe 3) who get a kick out of criticising everyone in their path.  They banded together long ago as part of the Dispute Resolution team’s reaction to their terrible manager, and they have developed a paranoid, ultra-bitchy outlook on life.

Of course, they put on a happy face whenever a manager is around and their “official” position is that they are happier and looking forward to the new start.  However, for one reason or another, they don’t seem able to break from their own poor behaviours.  Now, I’m not talking kids here, either.  The youngest of this crowd is 39!

Two of the group are from the DR Team.  One, Anne, re-joined the Legal team on contract in 2007 after she left, having had enough of their terrible manager.  She has been a fan of mine, but I know she is under pressure from her friends to criticise and cajole.  When I made her permanent just before Christmas, she tellingly exclaimed “I’ve been vindicated!  The others said you wouldn’t make me permanent.”  That told me a lot, not the least of which was that other members of the DR Team (including those who had left) had been creating their own versions of reality based solely on their construction of a view of the world, + putting their own spin on what they see.

Lisa is another story.  Technically a strong lawyer, she has no idea how poorly she comes across.  She thrives on drama (if it’s not there, she creates it) and her clients think she gives them uncommercial legal advice.  She is a follower and, always seeking approval from others, tends to reflect whatever mood or attitude prevails.

The third is Dee.  Now, she’s a different case altogether.  Dee isn’t in the DR Team, and comes across as hating the world.  She is intelligent, and has been a lawyer for over 20 years.  However, she has a serious chip on her shoulder and is terribly unpleasant to work with.  Everything bothers her.  Everything.  For a long time, she was protected by a senior manager, who was her main client.  However, shortly after I started, I spoke to him and said that her behaviour in our dept was harming the team, and I would need to do something about it.  He agreed to support me, especially after his own team started complaining about her.  So, we talked to her in July last year and said that she needed to turn around her attitude.  We all braced for her reaction, fully prepared for her to walk.

To our surprise (and her credit) she actually responded.  She confessed that she struggled with depression, and didn’t realise that she came across so poorly with her colleagues.  She actually picked up her behaviour from then on, which is an impressive feat.  Her supporter left the company, and was replaced with someone who Dee had regarded as an idiot, and had, thinking he was on contract, decided to bully!  He is a terrifically nice guy, and has been prepared to give Dee a second chance, at our request. 

The trick is that we are left with a dilemma:  her behaviour is better than it was, but by no means good enough yet.  People in the team (well, apart from Lisa and Anne) still keep their distance.  She still never volunteers for anything, and works as little as possible in order to deliver her work.  Plus, she isn’t open with her work.  She won’t let anyone else see it or, if something goes wrong, she resists revisiting it and just takes a difficult immovable stance.  She uses her experience as an excuse to gloss over things – to do them too quickly, and not exercise enough discipline.  Everyone stays away from her, if they can.

Something interesting has happened over the past few weeks.  Anne, Lisa and Dee, having been “friends” of sort for some time, have banded together.  Part of this is because they’d always done so; also, we have started to raise some behavioural issues with each of them, where they genuinely need to improve on, as part of our usual development and performance discussions.

However, they act like the “us” in the “us and them”.  A new girl, Margaret, started with us 3 months ago.  We asked her to learn IT law…something we knew would be a challenge, because she would need to learn it from Dee.  We crossed our fingers and hoped that Dee’s improvement would continue, and that the coaching relationship would work.

It seemed to start out OK, although Margaret did start to say that Dee often snapped at her, and Dee reported that Margaret was too “uncommercial” (which we worked out to mean that she asked a lot of questions). 

About 3 weeks ago, Dee asked Margaret out to lunch with her, Anne and Lisa.  Margaret, who had thought the other 2 were bitchy, but wanting to fit in, agreed to go.  Margaret had been having a bad emotional week and over-reacted to something that was said to her by one of the Managers, causing a real outpouring of emotion.  The situation was resolved, but it appears that the other girls had picked up on it.

My management team became aware of this lunch, and knew that Margaret had told the other girls how she had been upset.  This was because Lisa, who seems to have no idea of how she comes across, asked her manager if a particular communication that was sent went “because of Margaret”.  She was told to mind her own business.

As a Leadership Team, we immediately reacted cynically to this lunch.  One or two of my managers even referred to the girls as “vipers”.  We figured that they had picked on Margaret in a weak moment, and sucked her into their bitchy, critical, nasty vortex. 

However, at our offsite two weeks later, I put it on the agenda for us to discuss.  What if the lunch had been innocent?  What if they were just trying to welcome Margaret?  What if Lisa’s unwise burst was just her being dumb?

We did some soul-searching, and agreed that we need to not make assumptions about what their motivations or actions are.  As much bad behaviour as we have seen from them in the past, we need to be 100% open in order to bring them along with what we are doing.  We couldn’t give them any reason to think they were anything other than supported by us.  Sure, they and their friends almost certainly make sport of us and our perceived slights or errors.  But we were the leadership of this team; we needed to act different, to BE different.  We agreed that we hadn’t been this – although we had only made our criticisms behind closed doors, it wasn’t good enough.  And it was likely to come across in our attitude outside management meetings.

We agreed to change our Code of Conduct to include “Be role models, all the time.”  When we rated our performance against the Code, many in the team expressed being disappointed in our assumptions about this lunch, and the motives of the girls.  We agreed we would turn over a new leaf, to make an effort with the girls, and to look only at the facts in reaching our views.  A fresh start.

I was really proud of the team (and of me).  I was glad we did this, as it gave us the best possible way of bringing the team forward – ALL of the team.

Something interesting happened this week.  Margaret came to me and her manager, and told us about the lunch she’d had with the girls.  She confessed to having said some things and she has realised that they are destructive, bitchy and full of malicious gossip.  She wished she’d never gone to the lunch and thinks the girls will turn on her and tell us what she said, but not what they did.  Apparently, when they saw she was upset they said “Ahhhh!  You’re one of US!”

They proceeded to criticise me, and one of the other managers, as well as a number of others in the team.  Their story included how I had driven out these two, very talented admin girls.  Margaret, feeling emotional, said some things she regretted.  Afterwards, she spoke to some others she trusted in the team.  They set her straight: the admin girls were nasty bullies, stay away from those 3.  She also spoke to her mentor, who used to work for me.  He told her that I wasn’t nasty, and to come talk to me.

Margaret did confirm something: that Anne has a loyalty to her friends, but that she is torn; she wants to be part of the team and what we are doing, and doesn’t agree with Dee and Lisa.  That’s a relief to hear.

Poor Margaret was torturing herself.  She’s worked out that those girls have placed themselves on the outer, not us.  I told her not to worry; that it was good that she’s sorted out where things stand; that we want those girls to come along with us as a team, but whether they do or not is up to them.  They can either stay trapped in their old behaviour, or come forward with us.  She said she’s not one of “them”.  She also said she couldn’t be coached another day by Dee, who she said wouldn’t answer her questions, but just snapped instead of taught her.

I am contemplating how to fill my management team in on this.  There is one thing for sure: we will stay on our course of not demonising them; we will deal only in the facts.  However, I’m fast realising that Dee probably needs to go.  Although her behaviour has come from a 2 to a 6 out of 10, it still isn’t good enough.  And she seems to be playing a lead role in the dramas in this group; without her, Anne’s balanced viewpoint will become more important – right now, she’s outnumbered.  Plus, there is no-one else in the team who does IT law, creating a succession problem for us.  Since she can’t teach someone else to do this, we’ll have to hire someone new who knows this area. 

You know what?  Margaret’s mentor is an IT lawyer, a quiet, and lovely guy.   When they spoke, he asked her to pass on a message to me: was I interested in someone like him?