A manager’s dilemma: Dealing with a chatty Cathy

Dear Bob …

When I joined this company just over a year ago, I inherited an administrative assistant. Call her Sally.

[ Also on InfoWorld, Bob offers counsel on how to treat employees — and account for their habits — fairly | Get sage IT career advice from Bob Lewis’ Advice Line newsletter. ]

Working with Sally is painful. She isn’t a bad person. She is, however, an awful administrative assistant. She’s been here a long time, knows everyone, and everyone knows her. Usually that would be a big plus, because I could tap into her personal information network to have access to the company grapevine.

Not with Sally. So far as I can tell, whenever anyone sees her coming they do their best to not be there, because Sally spends most of her day sharing her medical history, personal problems, child-rearing challenges, difficulties housebreaking pets, and advice received from her therapist with anyone and everyone who will listen.

Including me, and believe me, I don’t want to know. Oh, there’s so much I don’t want to know!

And because of all the time she spends sharing, she doesn’t get much done, which means that for practical purposes I have to be my own admin.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big believer in a principle you’ve espoused from time to time, which is the importance of getting to know the people who work for you as individual human beings and not just as roles on the organizational chart. There’s a difference, though, between getting to know someone and becoming deeply involved in their lives.

Isn’t there?

I don’t want to fire her. As I say, she isn’t a bad person, and she has a number of personal challenges to deal with. I suspect that if she found herself unemployed it would become a permanent situation, and I’d rather not have that on my conscience if I can avoid it.

So how do I avoid it, without just giving up and waiting for my own head to explode? I don’t even know how to begin the conversation. What do I say? I don’t care about your kids or your dog?

– Dealing

Dear Dealing …

Yes, that’s exactly what you say.

Well, no, it isn’t. It’s approximately what you say.

Sit Sally down. Close the door. Say something like this, matter of factly, not angrily: “Sally, the two of us are going to have to find a different way to work together.

“Right now, I’m spending more time being your confidant than you’re spending being my administrative assistant. That’s going to change, starting the moment we end this meeting. So far as I can tell, out of your 40-hour official work week, you spend at least 25 talking about personal matters with anyone who will listen. That’s going to stop. It has to stop, because there’s too much that I need you to do, and because you’re always too busy to do it, I end up doing your job, when you’re supposed to handle the routine aspects of my job.

“So starting immediately, I’m going to give you more work than you think you can get done during your normal work hours. We’ll start with my e-mail. I want you to read everything that comes in. You’ll set up a folder for the ones that need my personal attention. You’ll set up a second one for e-mails you think you can handle for me — in that one you’ll include a draft reply you’ll write for me. And for the ones that don’t require my personal attention or a reply beyond a quick thanks-for-the-information, you’ll write me a daily summary of who wrote and what they said. Put those e-mails in a folder labeled ‘Thanks for the information.’

“From now on, if I see you in a personal conversation, I’ll assume I haven’t given you enough to do. Which will be fine — it will mean you’re becoming more efficient.

“Sally, you’re capable of being a terrific administrative assistant. I’m confident of that. We just need to change how we work together, to give you the opportunity to make it happen.

“Any questions?”

Then do it. If it turns out she simply isn’t capable of being even an acceptable administrative assistant, be direct with her about the difference between her performance and your expectations. Continue to express confidence in her native abilities — that’s essential because it allows you to insist that she take responsibility for her own development.

Sally will almost certainly be angry with you at first. In a way she has a right to be — this is a conversation you should have had with her a year ago, and instead you’ve let her think her performance is acceptable. Sure, she should have known better, but not everyone does know better without being told.

That’s your job.

– Bob

This story, “A manager’s dilemma: Dealing with a chatty Cathy,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com.