Taking it to the Next Level
I took over a trouble project where the project manager, in a misguided attempt to stay on top of everything, had flattened the hierarchy and had all 26 employees reporting directly to him. It was chaos, with a single person acting as the communication conduit. No one can succeed in this set up; decisions are delayed, critical information is not conveyed, and bad assumptions are made (I intended to rhyme).
Some of the team was new and had no idea what to expect, others had been on successful telecom projects before and understood this was not typical. These people were the managers and used to some authority, and they resented what they lacked on this project.
When I arrived, the team knew change was coming, and I met with resistance. The “management” team, thankfully listened to what I had to say and appreciated the the changes I proposed. I was still the new person, and had no history with this team that had existed for over a year prior to my arrival. The rest of the team was not so confident, and a few tried to undermine my turnaround efforts.
I held a team meeting and laid out the new organization. The first few weeks were chaoic as people adjusted to answering to new players. Some tried to mantain the status quo by coming to me with their issues. As much as I like to have an open door policy, I told them I did not want to hear anything that their immediate supervisor had not heard first, and in fact preferred to hear it from them. Yup, I stepped on some toes.
Did I say those first few weeks were rough? That walk to my car at the end of the day felt like it went on forever. We went through all of those stages of team development, when I was thrown into the mix, and spent a lot of time on storming before finally moving to norming.
I let a few people go; not something I relish doing. But when someone continues to undermine your leadership, and spread false rumors – this affects everyone, and brings a team down. When this happens, I’ve found the best way to deal with the situation is to act fast. People that respond negatively, as in this case, are not team players and are better suited elsewhere.
We saw results, and especially the customer recognized the changes. Morale improved, as the team finally received recognition for its hard work. We were responsive; issues were addressed, all parties with an interest in knowing were informed. People felt ownership for their work. It was a beautiful thing when it finally came together, but it was a heck of a struggle to get there.
