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How to Scold Professionals Effectively

By crooky | August 21, 2008

Outside of the school system, calling a peer or a superior on their faults is generally not socially acceptable. For example, you can’t tell a co-worker that their work is not up to the standards of your employer. That’s your boss’ job. Despite the saying “sh*t rolls downhill”, there are some circumstances when it is appropriate to dish out criticism laterally or even up the foodchain. This posting tells you how to do this without getting fired/ostracized/burnt at the stake.

1. Don’t get baited into an emotional confrontation

I’m in the middle of managing an RFP process for one of my clients at the moment. We had dozens of bidders - only eight of whom met the submission guidelines for the project. Some of them submitted their bids through eLance.com - a site which gives you the ability to accept or decline proposals with a click of a button.

I went through the bids I received on eLance and “declined” all bids that did not meet the very explicit requirements of our RFP. In our RFP, we stated that we had the right to outright reject any bids that did not meet the submission requirements of the RFP. One of the vendors that I rejected for not sending us what we asked for completely flipped his lid and sent me a scathing e-mail calling me “unprofessional”, etc… because his bid was rejected.

I was pissed when I got this note because he didn’t miss our requirements by a little… he missed them by a lot. Because the client that I am doing this work for is sensitive to bad publicity, I made sure I responded to his e-mail with the highest of decorum and addressed his failings to meet the requirements of the RFP. That’s all I can do without getting into trouble.

You can’t let someone who pushes your buttons provoke you into saying something regretable - especially in writing. I’ve made this mistake in the past and I think I’ve learned from it. Remember - anyone who is willing to stick their neck out and send you a scathing e-mail is probably not above calling your superiors/client to tear a strip off of them.

2. Make it about you

If you have a boss or a client that is making your life hell and you want to give them an earful - don’t. It’s never a good idea. I hate to recommend to anyone that they be passive-aggressive about anything but that’s almost the only thing you can do in this kind of situation.

Make the problems about you, not them. Talk about the work environment or the working relationship as though its independent of the two of you. For example, if your boss is creating a toxic work environment, tell them that you find the office environment to be very tense, stressful and non-productive and that it’s hampering your ability to do your job.

If they try to nail you down to say who is making the environment stressful and toxic, don’t tell them. Say “I’m not really sure where its coming from. Office politics is one of those things that everyone contributes to. Maybe we should have a facilitator come in and help us through this.” Then you let the facilitator tell your boss that they’re Ghengis Khan, not you.

3. Talk it out

This only works with people that you already have a good working relationship with or at least an amicable one. The last thing you want to do is escalate the situation by going over their head to their supervisor or something like that. The ideal situation is one in which you talk it out with the person - face to face, not via e-mail or over the phone.

Most often what you’ll find is that the root of the problem you’re having with someone is mis-communication. They might not have been aware that you were expecting a certain outcome or they might have something else going on in their life that has been preventing them from moving forward.

In any case, having the conversation face to face, outside of the office, makes it a lot less confrontational than it would if you lodged a formal complaint with their supervisor, etc…

Some of this stuff might seem like common sense but I’ve made mistakes myself and know other people who consistently dish out criticism in the wrong way and get burnt for their troubles.

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Topics: Business of Consulting, social issues |

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