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I have been located into a company that has completed a slow transition from local IT support to being outsourced. My colleague has been there for 10 years and is part of my outsourced company.

I have been put in charge of a big project but he is always around taking control and pushing me out because he is obviously in competition and feels with the change he might lose his job.

I told him nicely to continue with his job and leave me be, but he refuses and continues to be present.

If I forced my way into someone else's project, I would be sure to be directly and harshly told to go away but I don't want to create conflict with someone I work with everyday. How do I approach this?

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    Have you brought up this behaviour with your manager? If not, why not? – Philip Kendall Mar 19 '18 at 19:04
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    @PhilipKendall My manager is too over the top and will tell my colleague I complained. This will make conflict too – AnotherUser Mar 19 '18 at 19:14
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    There is already a conflict. Either between you and him, or you and your boss when you let your colleague take over your project. You need to decide which conflict you want to deal with. – Erik Mar 19 '18 at 19:41
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    If you don't want to create conflict, you may be the one who ends up losing their job. – Bernhard Barker Mar 19 '18 at 19:55
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    This is a perfect situation for a manager to step in. You already tried handling it yourself, but the colleague is not listening. The next step is to have your manager speak with him. – jcmack Mar 19 '18 at 23:42
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IMHO, it is in the stage, where you need to involve your direct manager. Given that you have been given a project, responsibility is also on you. And if heart to heart with the colleague didn't work, it puts you in danger of being incorrectly judged on project performance where he stepped in.

Also, it doesn't look like you are the one, who initiated the conflict, so it is your turn to defend your position.

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  • The OP has tried to handle this at the lowest level possible, professionally and directly. That's usually the first advice given; time to escalate to management. "It wouldn't be fair for you to do my work and it might confuse the manager who assigned this to me. Let's confirm with our manager and let them decide how they want resources allocated; neither of us should be making that decision." – arclight Mar 25 '18 at 15:53

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