A reader writes:
I’m serving to a colleague, Lucinda, with a mission – one thing we have to do, however it’s tedious and by no means pressing so it’s dragged on. Lucinda is shiny and does nice work, however now we have completely different types. She talks rather a lot with out saying a lot, whereas I favor a brief, direct e-mail. I’ve heard that Lucinda will be possessive of her work, and that is very a lot her mission.
She’s very busy and I’m in a little bit of a lull, so it will be simple for me to maneuver this mission ahead besides that she needs dialogue and consensus on each little factor. I’m tempted to only determine that if it will get slowed down as a result of she needs to be concerned in each determination, that’s as much as her, and if conferences sometimes run lengthy as a result of Lucinda’s chatty, nicely typically you make chitchat so your coworkers such as you. However on the identical time, Lucinda appears to be appearing like she thinks she’s managing me, and she or he’s doing it actually ineffectively.
The components of the mission she asks me to do are actually fundamental. After I end these easy duties, she opinions my work and books hour-long conferences to debate it – per week after our final hour-long assembly about the identical easy job. She’s repeatedly urged that we do the identical work in parallel, then examine our outcomes afterwards, regardless of me explaining that that’s not an ideal use of our time. She appears to have a robust desire for a way we method the work (there are a number of methods and no proper reply), however she received’t say what it’s and I can’t inform. She needs us to work up a number of completely different approaches and seek the advice of the remainder of our staff, who’ve already been consulted and aren’t affected in any respect by this. I simply need somebody to decide so we are able to begin the precise work we have to do.
Actually, it’s no pores and skin off my again if she needs to maintain the mission and it by no means will get accomplished. However it’s pores and skin off my again to have weekly hour-long conferences with a peer to debate variations of the identical work, or to be compelled into limitless consultations and conferences the place nothing will get determined.
I attempted to ebook a shorter slot for our subsequent assembly however she re-booked it for an hour, and I’ve tried asking her immediately if we’d like that lengthy and explaining why I don’t suppose we do however she appears to have ignored that e-mail. Assist!
I reply this query over at Inc. at the moment, the place I’m revisiting letters which have been buried within the archives right here from years in the past (and typically updating/increasing my solutions to them). You can learn it right here.
