how to oversee a remote team’s work

by Alison Green on May 7, 2015

When your team is spread out and working remotely rather than all sharing the same space, how can you track everyone’s work and make sure you know where projects stand and whether you’re hitting your goals?

1. Ensure that you and your team are tightly aligned on what successful work looks like for the year – as well as for the month and the quarter. If you create clear goals with measurable milestones along the way, everyone will know what they’re working toward and what progress markers they need to be hitting at any given time. Make sure that each member of your staff has a set of key success indicators, and check in regularly on where they are in meeting their goals.

You might even set aside a portion of one check-in meeting each month to assess how well your staff member is doing against the measures you’ve laid out, and you might think of data that you can review that will help illustrate that progress. That way, you’ll quickly be able to spot it when work is off track – and hopefully course correct.

2. Put the onus for tracking and reporting on work on your staff members, not on yourself. If the tracking all falls on you, you’re going to have to juggle that along with everything else already on your plate, and it’s likely to get short shrift when other priorities are more pressing. Instead, put your staff members in charge of tracking their progress and reporting to you on regular intervals. For example, you might say ask a staff member to ensure that you receive specific types of data showing progress toward monthly goals and that they should schedule meetings with you quarterly to assess that progress. In addition…

3. Set clear expectations for when and how you want to be kept in the loop. Managers will often ask their teams to keep them in the loop about important developments or significant changes to timelines. But if you don’t talk explicitly about specifically what sorts of things you want to be in the loop about – and how quickly – it can turn out you and your staff member each envision that differently. That can lead to situations like you only hearing about an angry client a week later, if your employee figures it can wait for your next weekly check-in, when you would have preferred to be alerted immediately. Or you might never hear about developments you consider significant simply because your staff member has a different understanding of what falls in that category. This is true even when you’re not managing remote staff, of course, but it’s more of an issue when you are – because you won’t have the same opportunities for ad hoc conversation in the hallways or during other informal interaction. So be really sure to talk through what kinds of things you want to be alerted to, and on what kind of timeline.

4. Take advantage of technology — don’t reinvent the wheel! When you’re tracking the work of a geographically distributed team, you need a system that helps you track your team’s work in one centralized place. When you need to centrally organize documents and conversations; track progress, deadlines, and outstanding tasks; and store shared materials, relying on email or spreadsheets almost certainly won’t cut it. And of course, once you select this kind of system, make sure your whole team actually uses it, or you’ll defeat the whole purpose of having it!

I originally published this at Intuit QuickBase’s Fast Track blog.

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ask the readers: how can I avoid making friends at work?

by Alison Green on May 7, 2015

I throwing this one out to readers to weigh in on. A reader writes:

In a couple of weeks, I’m transferring to another office within the same company where I currently work. I was hoping you could give me some advice on how to politely not make friends in my new office. Here’s the thing: I am friendly and people tend to like me. I don’t want to change that. I just don’t want to get personally involved with any more coworkers because I think it will save me a lot of heartache. I often end up knowing too much about these people, disliking them once I get to know them, and then I’m stuck working with them and disliking them. If I had just remained professionally cordial, I may never have learned enough to dislike them, and my professional life would be so much more drama free.

At the same time, I don’t want to be that jerk who sits in the corner with noise cancelling earphones and refuses to go out to lunch with the group (I don’t think behaving like this is good for me professionally, but I also just don’t want to treat people in an aloof manner because I think it’s rude). How can I be professionally friendly without developing friendships? I want to be respected and liked, just from a distance. Does that makes sense?

Two important points that may provide context:

A large part of my problem is that I just don’t like very many people once I get to know them. I’m not saying this because I see it as some kind badge of honor or anything; it’s actually a character flaw that I struggle with on a daily basis and I’m very often lonely because there just aren’t many people I can tolerate spending time with. I’m mentioning it because I think it’s the main contributing factor to why it’s not a good idea for me to make friends at work. And as much as I try, it probably just isn’t going to change.

My husband and I don’t live near family or close friends, so work has always been the most obvious way to meet people we can hang out with on the weekends. At this point, I’ve kind of made peace with the fact that this just doesn’t work for me, but that’s why I’ve always kept giving it the old college try in each of my jobs.

Readers, what’s your advice?

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do I have to buy my boss a wedding gift, my interview slot was revoked, and more

by Alison Green on May 7, 2015

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Do I have to buy my boss a wedding gift?

I know that social convention dictates that one wedding invitation equals one gift, and workplace rules generally say that gifts flow down, not up. I don’t socialize with my boss (or anyone in my department) outside of work. My entire department received wedding invites to both the destination wedding and the reception a month later in our town with out holiday gifts (a restaurant gift card). The kicker is that my boss assigned me to cover a travel assignment over the weekend when his reception is. The entire office was also invited to the reception. Am I obligated to buy him a wedding gift? And if so, can I get away with something like a bottle of wine?

Wait, no, wedding invitations do not obligate you to send a gift! You really should give a gift if you’re attending (although with destination weddings, thoughtful couples will make it clear that simply getting yourself to their far-off destination is gift enough), but simply being invited absolutely doesn’t obligate you to give one.

Given that (a) it’s a destination wedding and (b) he scheduled you to travel somewhere else that weekend, I’d read this whole thing as him issuing invitations to his staff for the sake of politeness but without a real expectation that any of you will attend.

Anyway, no gift necessary. A card and sincere congratulations would be a nice gesture, but you really don’t need to feel obligated to do anything beyond that.

2. What to do when some interviewers don’t show up for a group interview

I have found myself in this situation several times: I am scheduled for a job interview with several of the staff, such as partners in the firm. But only one of the interviewers is available when I arrive. The others are held up — in a meeting off-site, for example. I offered to wait, offered to leave and return later in the day, and failing that, tried to reschedule. I tried my very hardest to pin them down without appearing pathetically desperate! Yet, they would say the other interviewers would not be back that day, and today is the last day they’d be interviewing for the position, and they had all the info they need from me talking to the sole interviewer. I told them I feared it put me at a disadvantage by not having the opportunity to interview with the other staff. And sure enough, I never was hired in these situations!

How could I have coerced them into rescheduling my interview, short of camping out in front of their door?

You can’t. They’re the ones who set the parameters for their interview process, decide who will participate, and decide whether or not to make changes to it on the fly. It’s possible that the missing interviewers aren’t key to the final decision-making; it’s also possible that they are, and that you are indeed being put at a disadvantage. But there’s really nothing that you can do when this happens; it’s out of your hands.

3. I was offered an interview slot and then it was revoked

I applied for a job about a month ago that I was really excited about. Today I got a call asking if I could interview, and I was thrilled! The person asked me if I could interview on Saturday (it was Thursday, so two days notice). I explained that I was going to be babysitting a friend’s kid literally all day Saturday but other than that my schedule was pretty flexible, and she said she would check with others and call me back. She called me back saying that all other slots were now full, including on Saturday even if I did figure out how to make it work, so unfortunately they wouldn’t be able to interview me after all. This isn’t how this is supposed to work, right? Maybe I just wasn’t a competitive enough candidate for them to try and accommodate. This is barely a question, I mostly just want your permission to be mad about it.

Permission granted. When you reach out to someone for an interview, it’s rude to then say, “Oh, never mind, we have enough other people to talk to.” It’s also rude to give someone so little notice, unless you acknowledge that it’s short notice, apologize for it, and ideally offer other options as well. (In fact, there’s another letter on a related topic coming later on today.)

4. Employer barred me from having contact with my ex

I work for the federal government at an airport. I’ve dated a coworker, and things ended badly to the point where police got involved. The coworker who I dated filed a false harassment claim on me, and my work issued out their own “no contact” order, which states that me and my coworker aren’t allowed to talk or see each other while at work, off of work, and through any social media, and if one of us is at a bar/restaurant, and the other person shows up, someone has to leave (like a restraining order). I’ve had an altercation with this coworker outside of work. Can my employer fire me because of that?

Yes. After all, imagine if you were being harassed by a coworker and one way that your company was able to protect you was by ordering that person to have no contact with you — and then the person broke that agreement and had an “altercation” with you outside of work. It would be perfectly reasonable for your company to hold the person to the terms of the original agreement, decide that they were making it impossible for you to feel safe at work, and fire them as a result.

I understand that you’re saying that the original harassment claim was false, but your company was apparently concerned enough (rightly or wrongly) to issue this no-contact order, which was apparently broken. That said, if you didn’t initiate contact or start the altercation and if you tried your best to extract yourself from it, you could try explaining that. It sounds like a pretty bad situation though, and one where you’d each be better off working separately.

5. I’m supposed to report on an organization that I just interviewed with

I work at a news organization that is affiliated with a large university. I’m currently searching for a new role, moving into more public/media relations than journalism.

I had an interview with a department in the university for a role that I’m really excited about. But I just got an assignment from my editor to report on a potentially unsavory (not earth shattering, but unpleasant consequences) decision the university is making. Here’s my dilemma – my editor said I need to contact the PR/Relations department and the hiring manager I interviewed with!

I feel uncomfortable ethically for several reasons. Seems like the only course of action is to delay the story for a little while, and hope I get an answer about the job? I’m uncomfortable approaching the university department as a reporter for my current job, especially on a story that may garner them some bad press on a local scale. I also know this constitutes a conflict of interest on my end as a reporter but I don’t think I want to reveal my boss that I’m looking to leave. Any suggestions?

You have totally stumped me and I don’t know what to advise! I’m interested to see if others have advice on this.

Read an update to this letter here.

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my trainer at my new job lied about me to our boss

by Alison Green on May 6, 2015

A reader writes:

I recently started a new job. I NEED this job. It’s full-time, permanent, and for a fantastic wage in an area where job prospects are so bad that, aside from 2-3 month temp contracts and zero hour work, I was unemployed for over 3 years before this. And I’m good at it. The supervisor is already telling me they are impressed with me, that I’m taking on more work and am doing a better job of it than most people get the hang of in 6 months. Of course, I’m making mistakes still, but overall feedback has been incredibly positive. I feel I can do well here.

The department is small – my trainer is the only other person who knows how to do my job. Although I am technically in training, I am somehow already essentially doing 90% of what will be my job independently, and am just expected to ask him when I need help – which requires me to intuit when I am misunderstanding or missing something that I am not actually familiar with yet. But I’m a quick learner, and so far it’s been working out okay.

A lot of people in the department wear headphones while working in this office. So a week ago, I asked my trainer if it was okay for me to listen to music while working, and he told me it was fine by him, he didn’t mind people doing it, and waved away my offer to limit it to a single earbud in case he needed my attention as “not a problem.”

Today, the supervisor came back from her holiday, and there was a sudden, unplanned “chat” late in the day. There was some praise of my work, some valid criticism, and then she mentioned the headphones. She doesn’t agree with headphone use in the office, although she accepts it’s permitted in this office by the actual boss. But she doesn’t think it’s appropriate for me to use them while training, which I accept completely. But then my trainer immediately spoke up to say he agreed with her and he doesn’t like it when people use headphones in the workplace either and would rather I didn’t do it. Which gave the impression that I had just *started doing it* without asking or checking with anyone, and was the literal opposite of what he told me.

I’m already in a sink-or-swim situation where this job is concerned, and if my trainer is willing to outright lie and throw me under the bus over something as minor as this, how can I trust him not to do the same or worse when it comes to work issues that actually matter?

I wasn’t prepared for a 1-2-1 so didn’t have time to come up with a response to that or anything else – I was in the middle of a task 15 minutes before the end of my shift when the meeting was announced as happening *right then*, so I was caught off guard and just nodded and agreed with everything I was told. I don’t want to make a big thing over something so minor, and I’ve already learned through gossip that department culture is heavily against people who “make complaints” to HR and similar, but my faith in my trainer is shaken and I feel like I’m going to need to tread incredibly carefully in how I do my work. How can I best protect myself going forward?

Well, you’ve just learned something valuable about your trainer: He’s weak, and at least a bit of a jerk. And he’s willing to misrepresent things to make himself look better. Minimally better, apparently, as I doubt your manager would have held it against him if he’d said, “Oh, Jane actually asked me about that and I told her it was okay. Sorry about that!” (And that’s why I say he’s weak — people who are confident about their skills and their standing would have just been straightforward about it.)

So, you cover your ass where he’s concerned. You document things in email as much as you can without looking strange, and you build relationships with other people on your team so that you have other people you can go to with questions that don’t absolutely have to be answered by him specifically.

You can say something directly to your trainer, although that may or may not make sense. For example: “Bob, I must have misunderstood you when we talked about headphones last week. I thought you had said they were okay to use. It’s totally fine for me not to use them, but did I completely misunderstand our conversation?” Your tone here should be genuinely confused and curious, not confrontational. But if he’s really toxic, there’s no way to say this that won’t feel threatening to him, so you have to judge based on what you know of him and your own tolerance for risk.

Of course, you could say something to your boss too, but I’d lean against it. I think that would make this into a bigger thing than it should be and potentially make things worse with Bob. But I would absolutely be ready to say something to your boss if you notice anything similar from Bob toward you in the future.

But beyond that, I’d just work on getting fully trained as soon as possible, so that you’re less reliant on this guy for help.

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what’s the etiquette for calling coworkers outside of normal work hours?

by Alison Green on May 6, 2015

A reader writes:

My husband called a coworker Tuesday night after 10:30 pm and talked until almost midnight about business. This person was also on vacation. This was not an emergency call and I feel, regardless of whether the coworker kept the communication going, that my husband was out of bounds in making this call. Was he?

You can read my answer to this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and often updating/expanding my answers to them).

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my manager refers to me as her “supermodel”

by Alison Green on May 6, 2015

A reader writes:

I am the most junior employee at a small non-for-profit. My supervisor is a 66-year-old woman, who is very sweet but a little overbearing.

We work very closely with another organization, who provide services similar to the ones we do, and the head of that organization is a very beautiful, tall 28-year-old woman. (She is also extremely professional, competent, overqualified, and just an overall very kind person, but that is beside the point.) Our two organizations even work out of the same office building.

I assume this must have already been a running joke between the two of them before I started here, but my supervisor would say that the other organization had their “own personal supermodel” working for them. Now that I’ve started working here, I’ve heard her say multiple times that “now we have our own supermodel too.” I don’t mean to come across as vain or ungrateful for the compliment, but when she refers to me this way, especially in front of county legislators, the president of the company, and other various V.I.P.s, it makes me feel as if my actual work is unimportant as compared to my looks. Honestly, I feel like I’m becoming that stereotypical 50s secretary, just there to make the office pretty.

I don’t want to offend her by saying something, but I worry that potential connections are being lost when I’m introduced as “office supermodel” instead of “office manager.”

Eeewww — yes, of course you feel that way. It doesn’t matter how complimentary she intends it to be; having your looks discussed in a professional setting is demeaning and gross. And by doing this, she’s inviting other people to think about and possibly comment on your appearance too.

You absolutely should say something to her. I’d say this: “Jane, I know this is a joke between you and (other organization), but I’d really appreciate if it you didn’t refer to me as a supermodel. I want to be known for my professional achievements and competence, and I really don’t want the people we work with thinking about what I look like; I want them thinking about my work.”

Hopefully, she’ll apologize and say that she’ll stop doing it. But if she becomes defensive or tells you that it’s just a joke, you should say, “I know it’s a joke. But it makes me uncomfortable, so I’d like you stop. Thank you.”

If you’d like, you can add in, “I know it can be hard for young women to be taken seriously, and I don’t want anything that adds to that problem.” (This is optional, but it’s possible that spelling this out could help her understand where you’re coming from.)

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playing mini golf before an interview, disciplined for topless post-mastectomy photo on Facebook, and more

by Alison Green on May 6, 2015

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Playing mini golf while waiting for an interview

If there is mini golf available in the lobby of the professional office where your interview is, should you play or not?

A company that has mini golf in its lobby presumably is the sort of company that wants people to play it*, so I suppose you can go for it if you must — but only if your interviewer is very late and you need to entertain yourself while you wait. (Late like 15 minutes or more. Otherwise spend that short amount of time looking over your interview notes or you’ll look like you’re prioritizing mini golf over more serious business.)

* My assumption here is that it’s intended for staff, like a foosball table or whatevs. If it’s not — if it appears to be only for visitors, or if it’s a shared lobby and you don’t know if it actually belongs to the company you’re interviewing with, or if no one else appears to be playing it — then hands off.

2. Receptionist won’t follow my instructions to screen salespeople

I have instructed our receptionist to not give out the contact information for any positions in our company to cold call salespeople or telephone solicitors and to not transfer such to voicemail. Our company serves a very small niche, and the current vendors we have we have had for many, many years and we are fully capable of seeking out the services or products we need on our own without being hounded by salespeople. I have told her to simply say that we do not give out contact information and to collect contact information from the salesperson and pass it on to the department supervisor who can contact the salesperson in their own time if they are interested.

She will do great for about a week or so and then goes right back to giving out our names and transferring people into our voice mail boxes. I think this is the job of the receptionist and that I’m not asking anything out of the ordinary. Apparently she thinks otherwise. Am I nuts?

Nope. Sit down with her and say this: “We’ve talked several times about how to handle cold-calling salespeople, but each time after about a week you stop following the policy we’ve set up. What’s going on?”

Hear her out, but ultimately you want to say this: “I need you to consistently follow this policy — not just for the next week or two, but permanently. Handling these callers in the way I’ve asked you to is part of your job. This isn’t optional; I need to see it happening. Can you do that?”

And then if it pops up again after this conversation, you treat it like you would any other performance problem.

3. Disciplined for topless post-mastectomy photo on Facebook

In error, a friend posted a topless picture of herself on Facebook, post-mastectomy reconstruction. These types of photos are allowed on Facebook, though she had intended to post it in a private group rather than her main profile page. She took it down within a matter of 15 minutes. However, in the time that it was up, one of her coworkers saw it and took it back to their manager. My friend was disciplined for her actions.

Would you have taken the same approach?

Hell no. This wasn’t pornographic any more than website about breast cancer are pornographic. She was discussing cancer recovery.

That coworker is a busybody, but the manager who disciplined her for it was way, way out of line (and setting up a PR disaster for the company if word about this gets out). Your friend should push back, hard. What bullshit.

4. I work in a tiny crammed office full of noise, dirt, and other people

Not sure if there is a solution to my issue, but I work for a contracting company within a school district in a room that is in a warehouse which is the size of a small bedroom, 10×13. I share this with the manager and 2 supervisors. Yes, you read that right.

The manager and I have a desk. The supervisors do not. There are also 4 filing cabinets 2 small/medium printers and 3 student-sized desks for surface space, a paper shredder and a toolbox. On top of the filing cabinets are a refrigerator, coffee maker and a microwave. The convenience of those things are a good thing. There hardly is any surface space to work. To say the least, I am frustrated every day being in there; it is depressing and overwhelming at the same time. I am not sure how I have managed to do it for as long as I have been. There are no windows except for the small rectangular sliver on the door. It’s difficult to concentrate on anything, especially when my manager is on the phone, which is always on speaker. I have mentioned many times that it would be helpful if he didn’t use speaker all the time but … I can’t answer my phone most of the time because I can’t hear the other person if my manager is on the phone or there are others in there talking to the manager. I have to go to the bathroom in the next building over, which means I have to go outside to the next building in order to use the bathroom. You can also imagine the cleanliness of this room – it never gets clean and the floor always has a layer of grit on it.

I have tried to call OSHA and the town board of health and nothing. My manager’s boss says we can’t get our own office space because the budget doesn’t allow for it and the school district will not give us a space in any of their schools because they feel it is a security issue. My manager thinks the space is ridiculous and has mentioned to his boss that we really need an appropriate space to work. That has fallen on deaf ears and he has seen what we are working with. Currently I have been looking for other employment. Any other suggestions that I didn’t think of?

Yeah, this isn’t something that violates OSHA regulations or that the board of health would deal with. It certainly sounds like a miserable working environment, but not one that violates any laws. Can you work from home some days? Work from some other space in your building? If not, and if no one is willing to change the space, I don’t think there’s much you can do, unfortunately.

5. Firing an employee over the phone

I need to fire a part-time employee. She has been working for me for a month and only works 2 days a week. She is not supposed to work again for a few days. It is a 30-minute drive for her to get here. Is a phone call acceptable? I feel like it would be a jerk move to have her drive out here to get let go. Also, this is a bartending job and I am kind of concerned about her making a sence in front of guests.

It’s fine to call her in a case like this. You can explain that you’re sorry you’re not talking face to face but you didn’t want her to make the long drive into work only to have to turn around and leave.

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can I tell coworkers I don’t want to chat when I arrive early and am working on personal projects?

by Alison Green on May 5, 2015

A reader writes:

I have a part-time job with hours that change day-to-day, but due to carpooling arrangements I usually arrive early. Because of this, I’ll bring my laptop and work on personal projects, freelance artwork, etc. One of my coworkers likes to arrive early too, but apparently for the purpose of socializing. She’ll walk up to me when I’m working on my computer and ask whether I’m “busy” and if we can chat — which often lasts until one of us has a shift, sometimes up to an hour. I have a hard time saying that I am busy since the stuff I’m working on is not strictly job-related, but I do count on these hours to be productive and make headway in my projects (plus her abrupt “okay-we’re-talking-now” manner makes me really flustered and nervous as it is). Do I have a right to tell her that I’m busy when what I’m doing is not related to work? Obviously it would be rude if I was just playing games or wasting time on the Internet, but I feel like this is in a bit of a gray area.

To be fair, some of the digital art stuff does supplement my income, but this coworker (and others) will watch over my shoulder if they see me drawing. It makes me really uncomfortable but I’m not sure if I can justify telling them to stop, since I am the one bringing non-work stuff into a work environment. I don’t want to come across as a recluse, but at the same time it’s hard for me to sit through an hour of small talk when I know I could be surging ahead on projects that are important to me. How would you suggest going about all this?

It’s completely reasonable to say that you’re busy and can’t talk. She’s even giving you a clear opening to do that, when she first approaches you and asks if you’re busy.

It sounds like you’re feeling like you might not be entitled to say that since you’re in your workplace but not working on work things … but it really is perfectly okay.

I bet you’d find this easier if you were doing were something you had to complete and weren’t doing for fun — if you were, say, finishing your tax return on the day it was due or had to finish reading a book for a book club meeting that night (okay, you’re supposed to enjoy that last one, but it’s at least somewhat obligatory). It might help to think of it more like that — you have obligations that you’re attending to, and you’ve set aside this time to take care of them.

But even when that’s not the case — even if you were just knitting or reading for pleasure or zoning out before the day started, it’s really not rude to say, “Oh, now’s not a good time. I’m doing X before work starts.”

In your particular case, I’d say, “Actually I can’t talk — I’m setting aside this time before my shift to get a project done. I’ll talk with you later today!”

Telling people not to watch over your shoulder while you’re drawing is a little trickier. That’s one of those things where if you’re doing it in a public place, it’s hard to tell people not to watch. But you could certainly say something like, “It’s tough for me to draw when people are watching. But I’ll show it to you when I’m done if you’d like!”

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how to manage a project where roles aren’t clear

by Alison Green on May 5, 2015

Ever managed or worked on a project where it wasn’t clear who should be playing what role, some pieces of the work didn’t get done, and the project languished because no one was explicitly charged with driving the project onward? (If you’ve ever been involved with any project with multiple people, the answer is probably yes.)

One absolute fundamental to successfully managing projects is to set up clear roles from the start, so that everyone involved knows who is responsible for what.

It’s particularly helpful if your project team has a shared vocabulary to talk about the roles people will play. There are different models you can use to do this, but one good one is the “MOCHA” model from The Management Center (so named, they say, because if you do this right your job will become easier and you can sit in a café drinking mochas all day):

MOCHA

Manager: Manager assigns responsibility and holds owner accountable. Makes suggestions, asks hard questions, reviews progress, serves as a resource, and intervenes if things are off-track.

Owner: Owner has overall responsibility for the success or failure of the project. Ensures that all the work gets done (directly or via helpers) and that others are involved appropriately.  (Note: there should only be one owner!)

Consulted: Consulted should be asked for input and/or needs to be brought in.

Helper: Helpers(s) are available to help do part of the work.

Approver: Approver signs off on decisions before they’re final. May be the Owner or Manager, although might be others in the organization (for example, in high-profile projects, your VP or CEO).

Note that in this model, O is the most important role, because that gives you a clear owner who is responsible for the success or failure of the project. And since the owner has final responsibility for the success of the project, it’s crucial that you only have one owner. (Otherwise you’ll find that the overall responsibility gets diffused and people get unclear about their roles again.)

Also note that the manager and owner of a project should be two different people, since the manager’s role is to ask hard questions and hold the owner accountable.

So for example, let’s say that you’re in charge of overseeing a proposal process. You’d be the “O” (owner) and in charge of making the work happen. Your own manager might be the “M” (manager) because she’s managing your work on the project. Other team leaders should be consulted (“C”), and your writer, editor, and research assistant are the “H’s” (helpers). Your manager and the VP of Sales might be the “A’s” because they’ll approve the final proposal.

Manager Owner Consulted Helper(s) Approver
Jane Marco All relevant team leaders: Dave, Maria, Jen Sarah (writing), Paul (editing), Ana (research) Jane (first), Kate (final)

Using a shared vocabulary like this makes it easier to assign responsibilities, because everyone is clear on what roles they and others are playing. Once everyone on your team is using the same vocabulary to talk about roles, you can say things like, “Could you own getting all the content for this together?” or “While Jane is the A and will make the final decision, I’d love your input on this and would like to use you as a C.”

Try this model the next time you’re managing a project where multiple people are involved and see how it goes!

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my boss is constantly telling me how to run my personal life — and called me insubordinate when I pushed back

by Alison Green on May 5, 2015

A reader writes:

I work in an office of only 3 people, and my boss is constantly getting on me about my personal life. She gets upset if I don’t set up the doctor’s appointments she thinks I should have, or will make comments about friends and family if I’m planning to spend an evening (my personal time) with them instead of activities she’s suggested for me to do.

Last week, we got in an argument because the car I’ve been driving needs work before it will be safe to drive again. I made plans to buy the parts this weekend (which I did), but she cornered me after the other coworker left last Thursday and told me I should take the car (that I paid for) from my mother and use that till the other gets up and running. Please know I’ve not missed any work days and have been using cab services to get to and from work with no issues. I told her I wouldn’t do that to my mother and all I got in return was talk about being insubordinate. I left feeling helpless.

I have told her several times in the past to please stop prying, because it’s stressing me out and making the workplace a very unhappy place for me. I’m writing you now at 1:30 a.m. because I’m losing sleep over the fact that I’m dreading going in tomorrow. I have a feeling she discussed this argument with the other employee, who just started working with us in February, and I feel that puts both the new girl and I in a precarious situation and was very unprofessional of her. How do I know this? She did it to the previous employee we had before she quit, except I was in the opposite position having the boss venting to me about the other employee, which was uncomfortable to say the least.

I am just frustrated. I dread when our third employee isn’t around, because I feel ambushed and interrogated over things I feel are none of her business. It’s affecting my job and, as you can see by my restlessness, my personal life as well.

Your boss is way out of line. She’s your boss, not your mother, and you’re not a minor child who she’s parenting.

But I don’t know that you’re going to be able to change her. You’ve told her directly to stop prying, and she hasn’t.

However, you can do the following:

1. Stop giving her information to work with. If she doesn’t know about things like your car issue, she can’t have an opinion about them, right? Stop sharing anything about your personal life, which should take a big chunk out of how much opining she can do.

2. When she offers unsolicited advice (about things she already knows about, like the car, or her ideas for how you should be spending your time outside of work), shut her down. Refuse to engage with her about those things. You do that by both being clear that it’s not up for discussion and by redirecting the conversation to work. For example:

You: “I have the car situation under control. Can we talk about how I should be approaching Issue X with Client Y?”
Prying boss: “You don’t have it under control! You’re taking cabs to work. It would be better to use your mother’s car.”
You: “I have it covered and really would like to talk to you about Issue X with Client Y.'”

Prying boss: “Did you ever call an allergist like we talked about?”
You: “I don’t want to discuss my medical care at work.”
Prying boss: “But it’s so important, health blah blah.”
You: “I don’t want to discuss my medical care at work. Did you have a chance to take a look at that data I sent you on Project Z?”

If she accuses you again of being insubordinate (!), say this: “I am happy to take direction from you regarding my work. But my personal life is not up for discussion here, and I need you to respect that.”

But while this may rein her in somewhat, I’m not sure she’s someone who will ever completely stop. You may ultimately need to decide whether you want the job if this is part of the package that comes with it.

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