Re: Getting along despite interpersonal skills
What do you do with someone like that? Figure they'll learn
in time?
If they're grown-up, they probably won't learn, barring some kind of psychotherapy.
What to do with such people? Assuming that you cannot help them to change (you might, if you were a close friend, but usually not as a normal colleague), three things come to mind:
- Create some kind of process so that the social misfits have some guidance. This assumes some kind of cooperation on their part - it is useful in cases where there is reasonably good will thwarted by a serious lack of social skills.
For example, you might stipulate that changes after a certain point in the process (e.g., sign-off by the SMEs) must be pre-approved by the manager.
- Make sure that you are not yourself tarred with the same brush. This is not necessarily CYA, it involves things like working on your relationship with the developers to make sure that any negative feelings they may have towards your colleague do not extend to yourself or other writers.
- Let this person talk to outsiders (contacts outside the documentation department) as little as possible.
Regards
Jan Henning
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Jan Henning
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