PM Clinic is a listserv (email discussion group) for project managers and those interested in project management to which I belong. Each week, a situation or question is posed, then members of the group (including some very smart people, certainly much smarter and more experienced than me in project management) offer answers or suggestions.
This week’s situation was:
Somebody on my team recently slipped to me that they have a crush on another engineer on the team. Office romance isn’t prohibited in our office (unless one of the parties works directly for the other person), we have a small team and I’m concerned about the potential project impact if they start a relationship.
I’m specifically concerned about
• Minimizing the impact to the team’s decision making ability and culture by introducing a couple
• Ensuring that other co-workers don’t marginalize the girl’s opinion because she’s dating the guy
• Issues from the relationship leaking into the team’s ability to work with each other
• Minimizing gossip
Regardless what I think about them as a couple, my first priority is the health of the team and finishing our project.
What’s the right course of action here? Do I sit back and address the problems when they arise? Do I act now to set expectations? Is this dangerous enough to the health of the team for my office to change our romance policy? Should I encourage them because we need more engineers in relationships?
I had to stand up and cheer when I saw the following response, shared here with the permission of Chris Mahan who posted it:
Sigh.
It is assumed that your first priority goes beyond your duties as a project manager at CORP XYZ, and that your real first priority is to be a good human being to others, and that the reason you even have a job is to ultimately gather resources so you can provide for yourself, your family, and those in need around you.
Now, one of the things people go through in life, is the finding and keeping of mates for play, practice*, and founding of a family to replenish the planet when all of us old farts die off. This is a fairly stressful thing in and of itself, and can be downright scary, especially (and I stereotype horribly) for introverted engineer types. This is one of those things that, if mishandled by a PM who is driven by deadline, or even team-cohesion, can lead to really nasty situations, horrifically bad feelings and may push some individuals to extremes (suicide, depression and subsequent lack of self-care, etc).
Imagine for a moment that Engineer X starts, for the first time in years, to get the "let's get it on" vibe from Engineer Y, and feels suddenly that the far-of dream of marriage, a house in the suburbs, and two lovely little cherubs is now within reach, and perhaps even attainable. Imagine that this Engineer X had told his aging mother about his new love interest and had witnessed the tears of glee rolling down her rosy cheeks. Imagine Engineer X having found himself weeping at his father's grave, a modest stone in a field of green grass under an imposing oak tree, wishing that his own dad could have outlived cancer another year to maybe, just maybe, come to his only son's wedding.
Now imagine the project manager for project BigBadImplementation for company ZORG CORP who now sits Engineer X and Engineer Y in his office and says: "Look, I don't want to know what's going on between you two, but let's just say that I don't want anything derailing my carefully crafted Microsoft Project four-month, nine hundred lines project plan. If there is, I'm going to have to go ahead and take some administrative action that could really hurt your chances at that 4% raise next year. Do I make myself clear? Great! Now let's get out there and give our customers what they want!"
Upon leaving the room, Engineer X would mutter some abject "Jeez, what bug bit his butt today" and Engineer Y would mutter back something like "yeah, we'd better keep to our cubes" and part ways down a nondescript gray low-walled cubicle aisle.
Now Engineer X, crushed to the bone at the soullessness of the machine, will sit at his cube and pretend to work for the rest of the day while alternating between silent seething at the PM FROM HELL and mourning the seemingly abrupt end of his chance at real intimacy and, dare he say it: love.
No. My advice is to not only not get involved, but more so to think as a caring human being first and as a PM second. If you can't see the real humans behind the badges, you've already become what people hate: corporate scum.
If you've got to push people down paths of misery, depression, and a life of missed opportunities, you're a poor excuse for a manager.
PS: I wrote in a somewhat inflammatory style. I exaggerated in order to more clearly show my point, and I hope no feelings are hurt as a result, as I was not targeting my tirade at anyone in particular, just the "situation of the week."
I heartily agree with Christ that our whole reason for being on this planet is ”to be a good human being to others” and that the reason any one of us has a job, or runs a business, “is to ultimately gather resources so [we] can provide for [ourselves], [our families], and those in need around [us].” Three cheers for Chris. Follow him on twitter at chris_mahan.
Ah, thanks!
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