Dealing with Difficult People | Handling Bullies

“One of the project managers in my PMO got stressed out today. He can't stand talking to his development (dev) lead. 'He yelled at me when he disagreed with my point and kept telling me to do the work beyond PM responsibilities. He also makes project management decisions, such as what I should do to coordinate with other teams. When I started to disagree, he told me, "Do what I said!" " ​

The story shows typical bullying behavior. It happens to competent development leads who consider they are the mainstay of the project. The ego leads to bullying others to follow how they like to get things done. Such a situation is toxic to a project team. PMO leader has to deal with this situation immediately. 

We suggest the PMO leader sit down with the project manager and analyze the problem in detail to determine the causes for the conflict and solutions. 

• The yelling in many times is a raise of voice. We have to be more specific on what had happened. It's important not to exaggerate the facts. Then, looking into the cause, we found the problem is that the dev lead doesn't understand the project manager role. We need some clarification, but we reported to the dev lead's manager for behavior adjustment to establish the required respect. 
• Telling PM to work beyond his responsibility is caused by the dev lead's impression that the project manager is administrative rather than leading the project. The PMO leader can send the PMO role and responsibility guideline to the dev lead to set the boundary between dev and project management. 
• The interruption of project management decisions could be caused by misunderstanding the project manager's role. Then, we emphasize the project manager's leadership position and the partnership relationship with the dev team. We also defer some significant project management decisions to the PMO leader, whom the dev lead would respect when the project manager couldn't handle the disagreement.

With this process, we were able to mitigate the conflict. The case confirms the importance of defining the project manager's role and responsibility at the beginning of the PMO setup. 

Editor's Notes: There are many difficult people at the workplace. They surely can get into your project. In this how-to handle difficult people series, we will share some stories and suggestions on handling the situations. However, remember to pick the battle and compromise to avoid unnecessary conflict.