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Over the course of my career, I have been hired twice by different companies to take over a project or role that was being handled poorly. In both cases, the person that I was 'replacing' was under qualified for the role that I was to take, but well-liked around the office.

The first was an art student that was hired to be a programmer. The other was a secretary that was asked to be a webmaster. In both cases, the person was reassigned to do other things.

This created a lot of tension for me and made it difficult for me to do my job. Difficulties included:

  • General ill-will and arguments with the other person.
  • Difficulty getting information on my project's past.
  • Constant negativity directed towards my project and my decisions.
  • The other person attempting to regain control of the project.
  • The other person feeling the need to fight for their continued employment.

I had no coping strategy whatsoever. The best I could manage was to try to ignore the other person.

In the end, things sorted themselves out after a month or two. However, I feel that the interactions I had with these people hurt my attitude and created other problems around the office. What would have been a good strategy for handling this situation?

Edit -

In general, how to you act professional and positively towards someone in the workplace that feels threatened by you.

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    What did you try to do to resolve these issues? It's hard to try to help you without knowing what you did in the situation. Also, you may want to consider editing the title to better reflect the question.
    – Amy Blankenship
    Mar 25, 2014 at 0:31
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    Hey user, and welcome back to The Workplace. I'm a bit unclear on the question here -- it sounds like these people were unhappy with the management decision to remove them from your project. That, to the best of my understanding, is beyond your control. That makes it very difficult to answer. If there is a specific situation you have trouble with that you can control, an edit to focus on that may get you better answers. Thanks in advance!
    – jmac
    Mar 26, 2014 at 4:50

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Being new to a team puts you in a position of having to build trust. In this case, building trust is made more difficult by the knowledge that you're there doing the work that someone else was doing yesterday. You need to spend extra time building relationships to compensate for the situation.

Take a look at the situation from the other person's perspective. They were working on something, and (possibly without warning) their project was given to someone who was just hired. They probably feel a fair amount of resentment, or have concerns about their career prospects as a result. These feelings are understandable, and keeping their perspective in mind can help you as you're working on your new project.

The first step towards building relationships and trust is to be as professional as possible about the existing project and your predecessor on it. Don't say anything negative about the existing project, and certainly don't say anything negative about your predecessor. Be empathetic towards them and understanding of their situation. After all, it doesn't seem like great management to try to make a secretary into a webmaster without providing sufficient training for such a role. Gently remind them that you're in an uncomfortable position of wanting to do a good job and that you don't want them to be angry at you. You want them to realize on their own that their feelings might be directed at you because you're a convenient target, but you're not actually the correct target for them.

You might also get some traction if you can use it as a mentoring experience for you and your predecessor. They can teach you about the company and the project, and you can teach them something about the project so that they are better equipped to handle a project like this in the future. If this is something that they're interested in learning, you have an opportunity to help them meet their career goals as well as improving your own skills in mentoring and coaching.

Being polite and professional helps others around you see that you are trying to do the right thing, both for the project and for your predecessor. Once they get past their initial reaction about the change, you have an opportunity to turn them into an ally. If they're unable to get past their initial reaction, you still have the opportunity for others to see you acting professionally and thus not see you in a negative light.

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  • I think that the attitude of "he's out to get me" became very contagious. Your right, If I had taken on the role of mentor (or tried to) the situation would had gotten better faster.
    – user17580
    Mar 26, 2014 at 21:58
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This is a case that needed handled by the person that hired you. Clearly someone thought that an expert was needed. So when running into roadblocks of this nature politely state to the individual:

"I am sorry you feel this way, however, < manager name > has asked me to do this work and I need your help to do it."

If you continue to get hostility take this to the manager right away. It is really their job to sort out these types of things, not yours. Be clear with the manager and factual.

"I need help with < xyz >. < former employee > is not providing me with the < abc information > I need to do < xyz >"

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  • I think going back to management may not be the best answer. It may just show management he/she is not able to handle the situation without management interfering. That may not be in the best interest of the person asking the question.
    – AleAssis
    Mar 26, 2014 at 3:15
  • In general, the attitude of the manager was that they hired me to fix things, so I should fix things. They were looking for problems to go away, not pop up.
    – user17580
    Mar 26, 2014 at 21:55
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    @AleAssis - That would be entirely dependent on the amount of authority you are given by management. I advocate a 3-step approach. 1) Make the request (in writing / email) for the information. 2) If no response, re-request the information, CC'ing the appropriate manager. 3) If still no response, inform the appropriate manager and ask for his assistance. If you don't have authority to sanction the employee, you have to enlist someone who does, or inform management of what delays / repercussions will arise due to the non-cooperation of the employee.
    – Wesley Long
    Mar 26, 2014 at 22:08
  • @AleAssis it is my opinion that it is managements job to remove roadblocks, especially non technical road blocks like this, from me getting my work done. This falls right into the management category in my opinion. I have worked both as a programmer and software manager and in both roles I would expect the manager to resolve this. That is their job.
    – Bill Leeper
    Mar 27, 2014 at 15:59
  • @user17580 The manager hired you to fix the technical problems, not deal with someones hurt ego. That falls into the managers bucket in my opinion and having been a software manager, I would want to know that one of my employees was causing trouble. Contractors are very expensive and they don't need to be dealing with someone being difficult.
    – Bill Leeper
    Mar 27, 2014 at 16:01

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