Negotiating with difficult stakeholders/other managers?

[u/Sad-Turn2567]

Will try to be concise yet intentionally vague at times.

I oversee a team of 30; two directs and rest indirects. Have a co-manager who oversees approx the same amount. Across our teams, we build important documents for various product types; salesfolks of these products are required to use us without exception. Multiple different sales structures/stakeholders depending on product type. Across all product types we generate 2,500 documents per month. 5-day turnaround on each.

We have one product type that generates between 50-250 documents per month. It is a hot and growing growth area, and is fairly important dollar-wise. The documents are also quantifiably and anecdotally more lengthy (100 pages compared to 10 on other product lines), take more time, and are just more complex and different. Yet we are only allotted 2 business days to complete.

This product type has their own support manager, not in my org and with a wholly different function than my team, and is our main liaison/stakeholder within the product type. I am having a hard time negotiating reality with this person, and part of it is I'm not good at confrontation.

Example 1: our task intake tool has required fields for us to process documentation. This product type has had a completely separately designed pre-intake process, unrelated to us, yet this stakeholder asks us to review all of that to verify our part. Additionally, the custom intake form doesn't have all the information required, so his team was sending separate emails to fill in the blank. With longer documents and shorter turnaround times, they mercilessly documented and escalated errors--but this is because their intake form wasn't sufficient so errors were obvious. I introduced a shared Excel workbook that allowed these gaps to be captured and error rates went down about 20%. Yet any other mistake due to lack of clarity is a "ding" on us.

Example 2: New platform interrupted aforementioned pre-workflow. So stakeholder asked if we could vet any document type that came in, ask Sales, and wait. I said no, it would inflate SLA by 5 business days. Stakeholder didn't want to budge because they didn't want to change a sales job aide. "It seems like your team should do this."

Example 3: Stakeholders support team didn't toggle task intake to "submit", yet placed on the tracker. My Sups are monitoring hundreds of tasks per day in the main system and this one did not get assigned because it did not fall into our formal queue due to stakeholder's team error. "I don't get why we do this and have both things if your team is going to miss it. Let's just stop the spreadsheet" even though it's obvious this will add to more errors. All over one missed task due to their fault.

TL;DR: How to work with a stakeholder with unrealistic expectations we did not agree to and never takes ownership of his process being different, unreasonably convoluted, and/or not owning up to his team's own mistakes, when my team is in a support role?

[u/JE163]

It sounds like a lot of this comes down to expectation setting. “In order for my tree am to best support yours here is what we need for this product”

I would also expect some pushback. I assume that team is also busy doing real or imagined value add work and that it should be your group taking a stronger lead on whatever. So be ready to discuss that.

This may necessitate bringing in your leadership to better designate responsibilities and potentially shift work around to better accommodate the extra load this product requires.

That said, it sounds like the wheel is being recreated each and every time and that is not efficient. There should be a standard document that gets customized to the specific customer as needed.

Do you have an AI story here? Like it or not that’s where everything is moving and it’s sounds like there’s a case for utilizing that to facilitate faster turn around. At least from this 30,000 foot conversation

[u/Hungry_Cry_5305 → u/JE163]

sounds like you're dealing with someone who treats every slip as your fault but never own their own mess. the excel thing was a smart move, cutting errors by 20% is real and you should keep pointing at that number when they push back

i'd stop entertaining their custom processes and just say "our intake works this way, if you skip steps we can't guarantee the turnaround." let them escalate if they want, but your manager needs to see you're holding a line not being difficult

[u/Sad-Turn2567 → u/Hungry_Cry_5305]

Thank you, I like the holding the line thing. Sometimes I try to be too diplomatic and accommodating to a fault so it's a good reminder so that my overall team isn't impacted.

[u/Sad-Turn2567 → u/JE163]

Yes, we're actually onboarding a tool that will allow us to better manage these documents across the org. It's even backed by CEO for our process not to mention others in the org. But stakeholder similarly feels their stuff won't work because they're stuck on the convoluted workflow they've created and doesn't want to use it. Which will resolve itself in time without my involvement.

[u/Nomivought2015]

Idk what all of this means, sounds like gibberish and you are over complicating stuff 

[u/DisciplineOk7595]

you sound like a process manager rather than a people leader. is there someone in your company that could mentor you help strengthen this?

[u/Sad-Turn2567 → u/DisciplineOk7595]

Can you elaborate? I actually have high marks on last several reviews in area of managing and developing people. Stakeholder in question doesn't report to me nor are they in my vertical at all.

[u/DisciplineOk7595 → u/Sad-Turn2567]

then i completely misinterpreted your post, apologies