Working with an Incompetent Colleague – When and How to Escalate

I was agonizing about what to do for weeks. I’ve dealt with incompetent co-workers before. Most of the time, I can make up for their incompetence fairly easily or at least work around it and not be affected. Not this time. This colleague was a key partner to my work. If she or her team weren’t going to do their job to the highest quality, neither I nor my team nor my program could be successful.

I’ve woken up multiple mornings, immediately worrying about what to do with this partner. I have worked with her and her team for six months already. In the first month, my leader already told me that this team may not be very good. I was optimistic then and said let me give it a go. Maybe this person just needed the benefit-of-the-doubt and clear communications of our expectations.

Well, I was wrong. I tried various different ways of working with this partner for the next five months with no real improvements.

• She didn’t deliver what she promised – She would repeatedly promise to deliver something and then just not do it. There was always an excuse for why. Even after I or someone on my team followed up verbally and by email, there was still no follow-through.
• She and her team seem to be okay with low quality work – We were depending on her team for a critical piece of analysis. When we showed up to the meeting to hear their results, it was clear they hadn’t actually met to fully understand the results. Many of our questions on the data could not be answered. Worse, one of their conclusions was clearly wrong based on the data they provided, but neither she nor the team noticed it until our team pointed it out.
• She blamed her team when something was wrong – On several occasions, we would follow up on something not done right. Instead of taking accountability, she would verbally or via email point the finger at one of her team members and ask them why they didn’t do it.
• She offered no proactive help or thought leadership – Our team basically had to dictate everything we needed from her and her team, down to the Powerpoint format of the analysis.

I think you get the idea. We were spending hours doing follow up and her work. You may wonder why I didn’t just escalate the situation immediately? Well, it was not that easy politically or emotionally. A few reasons:

• Our business group and this group had different leaders and different cultures.
• Both my leader and I didn’t know the leader of this group well.
• We had no idea how the other leader would receive this escalation.
• I was also so upset at the situation that I wasn’t sure I could communicate objectively.

I realized after a few weeks though that escalation was inevitable and needed.

• My team and I were getting burned out doing this partner and her team’s work.
• Our work really couldn’t be successful without a strong partner in this department long term.
• Our overall reputation was also getting damaged as this partner was not delivering promised information to important outside partners with whom we do business. Those outside partners were now following up with my team to find out what was going on with this group.

Here’s what I did to escalate this issue:

1. Cleared it with my leader and aligned on options – I shared my recent experience and concerns and garnered her support to escalate. We also discussed options depending on the response. We were ready for multiple scenarios since we didn’t know how it would turn out.
2. Identified an alternative partner in the same group that may do a better job – We were ready to hire our own resources for this work as a worst-case scenario. This would take a lot of work and may even break relationships with this group, which would not be ideal. Instead, I was fortunate to meet another resource in this same group that seemed to have a much more understanding of our needs and could be a better partner. It was a gamble, but anything was better than our current situation
3. Wrote several drafts of the escalation email and sent a draft to an outside friend for feedback – I was emotional about the situation so I knew my first few drafts were going to sound bitter or angry, neither of which would have been productive or professional. My friend who was disconnected from the situation gave me some great pointers and shared where my email sounded fine and where it need to be edited
4. Wrote the final draft with the program and business risks as the focus vs. including anything personal. This meant I shared the following:
   1. Why I was reaching out and what was at stake for the business.
   2. What our expectations were from this partnership and why it was critical for the success of both groups.
   3. Provided examples why this partner was not delivering on the above.
   4. Ask for help and guidance.
5. Scheduled a meeting that day with the leader to discuss – Personally, I chose to send the email first and then set up the meeting. Some people would suggest only doing verbal meetings. I like sorting my thoughts out on email first.

Did I do everything right? Well, I’m not sure there is one right way to do this. What I appreciated however was that I did it and I felt good about it. The leader in this group was actually quite sympathetic and helpful. It didn’t hurt that we already had an alternative resource in mind to at least try out, so we made it easy for him to say yes.

I no longer have to wake up and think about this issue, which was a huge blessing as worrying about work constantly sucks. Did the new partner work better? Definitely. It was well worth all the work and agony to escalate. I was ready to leave the job if this didn’t turn out well. This is how bad it got. Did the old partner get fired? Ironically, she got promoted. C’est la vie. I didn’t care though as long as I didn’t have to work with her again. My goal was never to get her fired. My goal was to work with better partners who can help my team and the program succeed.