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Ask Fiona

Fiona answers your project related questions submitted via our contact form.

 

No one's taking my project seriously..
I’ve been asked by my bosses’ boss to lead a high profile project to look at the work of our division. When she took over 6 months ago, she was pretty unimpressed with our ‘silo mentality’. She wants me to get people thinking about how to improve teamwork across the different units. I sent out a memo to everyone asking for their views and I’ve heard nothing back. I’ve tried to organise meetings with people and they keep getting rearranged.  I’m not making any progress and it looks like I’m going to mess up on my big chance. What shall I do?

First of all, relax.  You’re clearly talented and capable otherwise your new leader wouldn’t have picked you to do the project. Focus less on proving yourself, and more on what the project requires.

 

First of all, get your role clear. Your leader is seeing things that your colleagues haven’t been able to see or act upon before.  When someone comes in and challenges the way people work, they don’t usually get greeted with a sigh of relief and an ‘of course, let’s do it differently!’  It’s natural for people to feel a little defensive or criticised.  Your leader is the one who needs to make the case for change and it’s her project, not yours.

 

Schedule some time with your leader to talk through her impressions of the division in more detail.  At the moment you’ve got a brief based on a generalised problem: ‘silo mentality’ and a generalised solution: ‘improve teamwork’.  Who needs to work more closely with whom in order to do what more effectively? What specific opportunities are there to achieve better results through improved teamwork?  You can help her identify who should be involved in exploring these specific questions. You can offer to talk to them about these questions. You can draft a communication from her to those people to request that they make time for you. But you need her authority behind you.

 

When you have these conversations, approach them as genuine, open-minded explorations. Don’t see it as your job to convince your colleagues to improve teamwork. Instead, ask them for their views on the specific opportunities she has identified.  How does it look from their perspective? Given the results she wants, how would they go about developing the work? What’s getting in the way?  If they were in her shoes, what would they do?  What do they need her to do more of, or differently to help these changes happen?  If you simply listen, enquire and suspend judgement, you will get reams of useful information. Go back with your findings and talk through some options with her, and take it from there. 

 

Position yourself as your leader’s trusted advisor, not her lackey, and you will ensure that ownership of this project stays where it belongs. Leaders need support, access to ‘intelligence’ (after all very few people tell them directly how it is) and practical ways to get what they want done. You can offer all this more effectively by staying neutral and using the goodwill you build up to broker a solution. And keep your own boss in the picture too. Show them you still need and want their support, while you enjoy your time in the limelight. Good luck!