Reply to: How to avoid working relationship stalemate.

[fraymond]

Interesting comments to read... I think in my case, it was less to do with female and more to do with 25 yo PM just out of grad business school with no real experience being micromanaged to deliver by an american department "manager" from an accountancy background. That sets up a pretty powerful dynamic much the same as the army I imagine.

[socialworker]

You have provided a good illustration of the the three levels of the Company Hierarchy.

The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”

If you're faced with a dysfunctional organization, i.e. any organization, you have two choices. You can either become a dysfunctional person and fit in, or you can become a true freelancer and forget about the internal politics of each of your many clients.

I read the link and it's brilliant. I now know I am an over performing loser. It's strangely comforting.

[darmstadt]

Where I'm currently working I share an office with a woman as I have to support her and she's great. The techies upstairs have 2 women sysprogs who are good and their manager is a woman and the senior manager is a woman. I have worked with women in techie and management areas before and the worst tend to be British and the best German and Americans, strange that...

[SueEllen]

So yes, if you go to an interview and you find that a woman is (nominally) in charge, right away you are going to wonder if you have walked into that scenario, a situation that leads to deprofessionalization and chaos in the project.

Not necessarily.

Some of the best managers I've worked with have been women and some of the worst have been women. Likewise with men.

One project I worked on was governed by a female senior PM.

The company used her to get rid of the two incompetent PMs one male and one female that had worked at the company for years. They did this by first promoting her and then they restructured a few months later and made the other PMs redundant.

They simply didn't take the hint that they weren't any good like the male techie they refused to promote who they had brought me in to cover the work he couldn't do.

However he finally got the hint that he should leave when they promoted someone who was part-time who had learnt the work on the job instead of him. They had worked out they would get more work out of the part-timer than him, and having had to interact with them both this was true.

I also left a project because the guy in charge who wasn't actually an experienced PM decided he wanted to go back to do what he originally did. He was actually a BA who had worked as a developer whose degree qualifications were in the industry of the client. They brought in an experienced PM to replace him who was useless. Most of the team left within 6 months of bringing him as he was thick and caused more problems than he solved. I've never met anyone who couldn't understand versioning .......

[darrenb]

Im afraid if I went for an interview and it transpired that there would be women in charge Id take that as a massive negative and unless there was an awful lot of positives that would be a no from me.

Women can be angels or devils, depending on the environment they are placed in. Since most corporate environments are toxic, they tend to bring out the worst in women. What I've seen in over a dozen companies is women being deployed for destructive purposes by sociopathic executives: in HR, in accounts, as clueless PMs (as in the OPs case), etc. So yes, if you go to an interview and you find that a woman is (nominally) in charge, right away you are going to wonder if you have walked into that scenario, a situation that leads to deprofessionalization and chaos in the project.

[formant]

I usually don't enjoy working with women. Did a software deployment project in HR not too long ago. Ooooh the drama.

Current team is all male apart from myself. So pleasant. So drama-free.

I might prefer working with women who are as techie as me (no experience of that), but the admins, and PMs, and BAs...nah. There's the odd exception of course, but those exceptions are few and far between.

[escapeUK]

My experience with working women has been very negative, if you want a friend, or an understanding ear they are great. However, if you want them to do the right thing again, or not make the same mistake for ever they are hopeless.

Though the constant talking about tripe is the worst. We are all shaped by our experiences.

[NotAllThere]

Perhaps it's just the quality of the clients you're engaging with?

I have a female boss for one of my contracts. Highly intelligent and competent. Never had any difficulty with her. Though I find it amusing that many of my colleagues are terrified of her. I've only ever had difficulties with really awfully incompetent managers - regardless of gender.

Anyway, I never ever get involved in politics. That's why I became a contractor.

[escapeUK]

Spotted your problem there.

(Just kidding obviously!)

Oh I dont know. Recently I have been watching those undercover boss things. The men without exception are asking "how can we improve things", "could we do better at this?" The few women ask "do you have any children?" and that then dominates any conversations, especially if the children are ill or disabled.

Im afraid if I went for an interview and it transpired that there would be women in charge Id take that as a massive negative and unless there was an awful lot of positives that would be a no from me.

[darrenb]

Funny you should say that, it was exactly the position I found myself in. The grad was a defecto pm but with the blessing of senior mgt. anytime good sense was brought up to avert problems, it was usually escalated as 'difficult contractor'. And so I wasn't unhappy about a mutual early departure due to "lack of work", as the collateral damage to the project was mounting without sufficient experience to see this becoming a major problem next year. The only thing is, I'm left wondering if a different approach could have yielded a better, more fulfilling engagement all round. Perhaps becoming a regular drinking buddy with her superiors could have yielded more influence.

You have provided a good illustration of the the three levels of the Company Hierarchy.

The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”

If you're faced with a dysfunctional organization, i.e. any organization, you have two choices. You can either become a dysfunctional person and fit in, or you can become a true freelancer and forget about the internal politics of each of your many clients.

[Willapp]

... with her...

Spotted your problem there.

(Just kidding obviously!)

[Sausage Surprise]

I was wondering if anyone experiences a similar thing on their gigs. A good client lasts a few years, problematic ones a matter of months. But the honeymoon period always wears off. Quite often with a stalemate or clash of personalities which seems to be unresolvable. Which is the case of my last gig, I never really got the chance to perform the duties stated in the contract, requests for work was not forth coming and so I asked they examine my need on the project.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Keep invoicing till you get another gig is my philosophy. Good/bad client....who cares as long as they pay the invoice, then move on.

[fraymond]

OK, so you think going over the 'problem's' head and socialising with their senior management would have made things easier for you?

I didn't mean in a subversive way. The management were implicitly driving the behaviour of the juniors underneath them, and I was in the position to influence the management but didn't. Instead I took the route of attempting to help/advise/contribute/collaborate/guide the graduates in their project management, without realising it was a force too big to be reckoned with. In these situations, is there anything wrong with turning up and just collecting a pay cheque then?

[BolshieBastard]

Funny you should say that, it was exactly the position I found myself in. The grad was a defecto pm but with the blessing of senior mgt. anytime good sense was brought up to avert problems, it was usually escalated as 'difficult contractor'. And so I wasn't unhappy about a mutual early departure due to "lack of work", as the collateral damage to the project was mounting without sufficient experience to see this becoming a major problem next year. The only thing is, I'm left wondering if a different approach could have yielded a better, more fulfilling engagement all round. Perhaps becoming a regular drinking buddy with her superiors could have yielded more influence.

OK, so you think going over the 'problem's' head and socialising with their senior management would have made things easier for you?

I think I can see what went wrong here!

[fraymond]

Consider going permie?. Looking for long cosy gigs and not relishing moving on can't be the way of a contractor surely.

I see your POV, but after contracting for 10 yrs I could never go back. My comment was really about the fact that in the line of providing business services as a pm, it seems very difficult not to get (at least partially) involved in politics during the day to day running of things. As a hands on techie it was much easier to do what told and have a longer engagement. Now that there are more soft skills involved, invariably some contracts collect personality clashes and are at risk of vested interests, subversive games and positioning getting in the way. Each engagement takes so much upfront relationship building and people investment, it seems a shame to have them cut short by the same measures playing out in reverse. Maybe I get too involved, or is it just harder delivering change program's as a true contractor compared to other services?