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I have been witnessing some interesting behaviors in the past few weeks and months.  These behaviors are being exhibited by both a certain subset of a department and an external service provider (ESP) the company has been doing business with.  I don’t think that any group of people as a singular mind so it may be a stretch from one perspective to lump all these people together.  Which is a valid point, but I will say that from an observers point of view from an overall perspective, they can appear to be ”one” mind.  Also, intent is impossible to know.  I’m sure, from a physiological perspective and a legal one, firmer views into intent are explored.  At least for the point of this entry, it is the perception of intent of the group as a whole which is to be evaluated.

The internal group of people are going to have less control, responsibilities, influence on parts of what they do now in the future.  Their first reaction to this, which I would consider normal and natural, is to be defensive, upset, and to try and undermine it.  However, it has migrated to a more passive, aggressive kind of undermining.  In person, they are all on board with whatever you discuss.  Once you have travelled back home and communicate with them by email and telephone, they no longer want to play along.  They horde information and don’t want to share it.  The group exhibits more pleasure in poking holes and gripping about something than getting on-board to try to help work through and resolve any real issues.  If I had to guess, there is some underlying fear of loosing a job for these people.  I have to say that it is a valid fear.

I will admit that being in that same situations I would probably act that way.  At some level, we all could be terminated on any given day.  I try never to focus on these self defeating thoughts.  One should only be focusing on providing great value to company.  In the end, that is the biggest factor in keeping employees around.  The sad and ironic thing is that, those fears of losing a job is driving the non “team player” attitudes which is ultimately driving the stakeholders in the decisions to believe they are a problem and not part of the solution.  To summarize, the thing that seems to scare them the most is driving them to behave in a way that is going to insure that fear becomes reality.

As for the external service provider, their irony is similar to our internal group.  This provider is working on one part of a multi-part delivery for us.  It is not time to consider whom is to do the other parts. The service provider’s behaviors demonstrate that they want more than just the one part.  Which is fine, except they seem more focused on getting the next part than providing a real service to the company on the part they are currently trying to fulfil.  So, in the same vein as our internal group , the provider’s lack of focus and value on the part they are already commited to doing is going to gaurentee that the they will not get any additional parts.