A 50 year old senior engineer who holds two masters degrees, and is quite competent and has worked well as A LONER for the past 20 years has been assigned in my product development project. I would like to make sure that this engineer works as a team member. My questions are as follows:
1. How can I make him work as a team member?
2. If he persists in wanting to be a loner, should I fire him? Saving Changes...
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Anonymous
As someone who works very well/productively as a loner I am amazed that a manager approaches this as;
1. How can I make him work as a team member?
You can't make anyone do anything. The best managers I've had have effectly laid out the rules of the game before hand, gotten my buy in then went from there. This is a highly trained person you are talking in regards to and you are already looking at the option of firing him. No offence but I'm glad you're not my boss.
2. If he persists in wanting to be a loner, should I fire him?
Why not fire yourself for not being able to manage your team effectively. As a manager I would hope that your main strength is your communication skills, use them. Build your team.
Sounds to me if you are already looking at the option of firing a competent, highly educated person that there is more to this scenario that you are letting us in on. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
thanks anonymous for your comments,yeah I guess you are right, communication is the key. the project has not started yet, I am just planning for all the possible scenarios. If your still have other tips/advice, please let me hear about it. Regards. Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Dear Anonymous, I might be a bit old fashioned and I know that this has gone out of style or is lost on many organizations, but I prefer process-oriented "Management By Objectives." If you fix the process, you fix the problem - says Deming. And if you manage by objectives, you focus on the right thing. As an aside, I commend you for having the insight to reflect upon and plan in advance for your new team member. Cheers. -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
I tend to manage a project team as a team, therefore, I would find a way to leverage the loner's skill set by giving him or her tasks that can be completed independently and then having him or her report findings back to the team. I once worked at a company that insisted the team go to lunch together everyday as team building exercise, that got old quickly, and I left the company.
BTW, Mark's comments are right on! Saving Changes...
Barbara Van HornSr. Project Manager| University of MassachusettsShrewsbury, Ma, United States
I would add just a couple of thoughts on this. One of the biggest risks when working with "loners" is that they will start down a path that is incompatible with the path the rest of the team is taking and no one knows until you try to incorporate their work into system testing. I would suggest that you look for ways to make sure that your "loner" communicates what he is doing on a regular basis so that you don't end up having him do rework that could potentially impact the delivery of the product. Also, since a lot of design is done at lunch, in the breakroom and in the hallways, I would also suggest that you make sure you are communicating to him changes that could impact what he is doing. These individuals, while they bring a high level of expertise, often cause a lot of extra work for the manager because you have to do more monitoring of their work - not because they are bad performers but because they tend to "silo" themselves.
"Impartial observers from other planets would consider ours an utterly bizarre enclave if it were populated by birds, defined as flying animals, that nevertheless rarely or never actually flew. They would also be perplexed if they encountered in our seas, lakes, rivers and ponds, creatures defined as swimmers that never did any swimming. But they would be even more surprised to encounter a species defined as a thinking animal if, in fact, the creature very rarely indulged in actual thinking."
