Interview Question -- Manager Conflict
The question
You have two managers reporting to you, Sam and Joe. Sam is a more senior manager who has ~6-8 people reporting to her; Joe is a more junior manager with ~3-4 direct reports.
In a 1:1, Sam is pretty frustrated. One of her direct reports is currently unable to finish his project because one of Joe’s direct reports is a couple of weeks behind on their task. Sam pinged Joe about this several times last week (including right before the 1:1) and Joe still hasn’t held his direct report accountable.
What do you do?
Immediate Response: Listening and Empowering
When my direct expresses strong emotions to me, the first thing I try to do is listen to her. Sam is probably worried about her ability to meet her goals and frustrated by her lack of control of the situation. She needs to know that I support her and probably wants to feel in more control of her own destiny. If she hasn’t already brought up her concerns about her own commitments, I’ll probably bring them up myself and ask her what she thinks is the best way to mitigate any risks there.
I’ll also ask Sam for her advice on how to help coach Joe. She has different information than I do and a conversation about coaching a manager will be a good exercise for her as a senior manager. In addition, she may take more responsibility for helping her teammate or improving their relationship.
After the 1:1 with Sam, I’ll make a point of talking with Joe in the next couple of days to understand more about what is going on. I might not tell him Sam talked to me, but I want to dig into the issue from his perspective.
Digging into the Escalation
That said, I think the more interesting thing to explore than the blocked project is the actual escalation itself.
First, I recognize some good things about how Sam escalated:
- She brought it to me attention early.
- She trusts me enough to reveal her “frustrated” emotions to me.
- She’s talking with me about the issue in a personal medium (a 1:1, not a Slack message).
But I also have some concerns about how she escalated that I want to learn more about:
- Since she communicated with Joe directly, I worry that she might (accidentally?) have taken away an opportunity for her direct to learn and grow. Especially as a more senior manager, I expect that to be her instinct.
- Since she “pinged” Joe, I worry that she might (accidentally?) have used an impersonal medium (Slack, email, etc.) to talk about a conflict.
- Since she talked to Joe immediately before talking to me, I worry that she might (accidentally?) not have given him the time to resolve the issue before causing him to lose face by reporting a mistake to his manager.Manager Tools calls this Dropping Dimes.
- Since she asked for Joe’s direct report to be held “accountable” but provided no additional information, I worry that she might (accidentally) have taken a punitive approach rather than a constructive/curious one.
I don’t know what happened yet, but this situation sets off my ‘spidey senses.’ A junior manager isn’t meeting internal team commitments, which will require coaching at the very least. There may be a growing tension between two of my direct reports. Potentially worst of all, a senior manager may be (accidentally?) acting in ways that hurt relationships on the team, which would seriously damage the culture of the team. I need to better understand the situation.
I have some questions I want to answer about the escalation:
- How did Sam attempt to coach her direct report on this? What steps did they take to try to resolve the issue before escalating?
- How did Sam talk with Joe about this earlier? Via what channels? What did she actually say? When she didn’t get the result she wanted the first time, what did she do different the second time?
- What is the source of her frustration? Is it indicative of deeper problems than this issue? Is she (accidentally?) using tactical anger to force “accountability?”