Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Dominating colleague

Many a times it happens when you work too hard, do all the dirty work and when it comes to reaping the benefits, someone else, junior or at par to you, will come and start throwing his clout.

This is what happening with me at the moment. I am working on a project and there is an account manager for this project. Ofcourse, he is an important person as he brought this account and he knows the key decision makers for a longer time than I do. There are commercial decisions he can take, which I cannot take. But, that doesn't mean I have to be sidelined. I go to customer site every day driving 200 kms one way, sit with customer project team and ensure the vendor team is working. In between this gentleman will jump in, at his own will and start showing as if he is running the show. I cannot take it for too long. But at the same time, I want to handle it in a professional way.

I have two objectives. 

  1. Finish the project successfully and on time
  2. Don't let anyone overshadow my work
To meet the first objective, I would do following - 
  1. Keep adequate pressure on the vendor and make sure he finishes the work on time and with quality
  2. Make sure all the issues are discussed regularly
Well, I have been doing it so far and I will continue to do it in future.

For the second objective, I would do following - 
  1. I will reveal bare minimum information with this gentleman. As he is using my information and showing it as his own information. Or at times, he finds what is missing in my information builds his case to take all the credit
  2. All my communication will be in written so that everyone knows the source of it.


Is there any better way to do it? Advise.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This happens every where... even it happened to me also... and after 2 yrs stress,, I have to talk to my seniors... I know nothing ll happen but atleast everybody must know your role in perticular task... how much u worked hard for this, it sud come in notice..

better go to that person and talk to him....

Hemanshu said...

Thanks for the comments Bhavana.

I need not go to this person and talk to him. As this post is three months old and I followed my strategy of keeping low profile, revealing bare minimum information and communicating only through emails. As a result, this person didnt have too much of information to act on his own. He had to mend his ways and ask for my support.

Also, due to his behavior he alienated the customer and vendor as well. They informed the same to my management and management had to ask him to change his ways.