But I’m a Good Person, Why Don’t You Trust Me?

The “not-so-innocent” by-stander is a topic covered in our courses, but not often enough, in my opinion. I just had this experience with an organization I work with. They had promised to meet some deadlines — and didn’t. I spoke to one of their managers, Fred, who said, basically,

“You are absolutely right, but it’s not our fault. You needed to talk to Joe, not me. Just speak to Joe and fill out forms A, B & C and we’ll get our part of this project done.”

So, I speak to Joe and he says,

“You shouldn’t have waited on Fred. Next time come to me personally. I’ll get this done right away.”

A month goes by. I email Joe. No answer. I call Joe. No answer. I meet with Fred again. He says,

“The problem is we have procedures that need to be followed, you did not involve me in your meeting with Joe. You should have included me. What you need to do is call Sam.”

I am not a particularly tactful person, so I tell Fred,

“That is b.s. I did EXACTLY what you told me to do and our project is no closer to being done that it was a month ago. How can you possibly say it wasn’t your fault when I did exactly what you told me now you are telling me something else?”

[Incidentally, what I think is going on here is that Fred is afraid to make a decision. He is afraid if he fires Joe for not following through, or if he assigns someone else to the project, or really if he does…