Approach to handling SMEs (was: Drafts back in time)

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Keith Cronin wondered: <<Have those of you who proclaim yourself bitchy (or
all business, or take no prisoners, or any other
not-worried-about-being-liked approach) found it to be the most effective
way to get results? Have you also tried the nice/happy/chatty approach? This
question applies to both genders.>>

I'm one of those Polyanna types who believes you should start out trying to
be friendly--even if you don't like the person, you can at least try to be
civil. Some SMEs take this as an admission of weakness and try to exploit
it; for them, I can demonstrate pretty quickly that I'm every bit as
stubborn as they are and that they won't walk all over me. But I try to be
firm without being nasty, since that only invites escalation.

I've rarely had to invoke a higher power either as arbitrator or as "the big
stick", but sometimes all the best intentions in the world won't get the job
done. Once, I actually had to get a manager to squash a particularly
problematic SME. That worked, but it pretty much poisoned our relationship
thereafter. Not my preferred approach.

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada 

"For what I have published, I can only hope to be pardoned; but for what I
have burned, I deserve to be praised."--Alexander Pope

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