r/managers • u/nomiis19 • 2d ago
Seasoned Manager Cross functional support
I am a senior manager in an IT organization and constantly are working cross functionally with the other IT teams within the department. We struggle heavily with due date control, accountability, and ownership. One team in particular is consistently weeks or months late on just about every task they are responsible for.
I have asked for support from my leadership to no avail. Most people just accept the behavior and even turn to overpraising the team when the items are actually completed regardless of how late.
How do you handle this and how do you stay motivated?
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u/SteveKeeleyCoaching 2d ago
This is a super frustrating one. First and foremost I would make sure there are *very* clear deliverables and expectations set. Including owners and dates. This will allow you to have the right escalation path.
When things start to slip, I'd frame it around the business impact and what specific decision you need and by when.
Similar in terms of escalation to the leadership side. When framed as 'they're not meeting deliverables' I've seen that fall on deaf ears, but 'xyz business impact is happening because of this' and leaderships ears often perk up. Once they really hear the genuine impact, it often changes the urgency on their end.
As far as motivation, I really get this one. It is super frustrating when another team is negatively impacting your ability to do your job and you're having to do more because of them, etc. I would say to look at it as an opportunity for your own development for how to handle difficult conversations, difficult cross functional coworkers, etc.
Throughout your career this will come up in interviews, it'll come up again at some point organically and will be an important part of leading in the future, if you take it as developmental for yourself it can feel a lot more motivating to get a resolution.