Back to Dear Lucy homepageI have been working for a large non-profit healthcare organisation for about a year now. My focus has always been on introducing efficiencies and my work is recognised by the board of directors. My issue is that some of my colleagues are developing a Pavlovian reaction to everything I say or do and are opposing it on principle. I try to engage them and work with them but they seem threatened by my low tolerance for mediocrity and desire to challenge the status quo. I love my job but fighting them drains my energy and is not sustainable. What to do?
Healthcare director, male, 32
Lucy’s Answer
There are various things here that trouble me. The first is the phrase “non-profit”. The non-profit sector is full of people who are ideologues, unsympathetic to financial realities.
Healthcare is a problem, too, as the culture of suspicion towards managers is strong and deep. So anyone who wants to “introduce efficiencies” in your sector is going to be as popular as a fox in a henhouse.
From the sound of it, though, you are worse than unpopular. If they are opposing everything you say on principle it sounds as if they have come to dislike you with a fervour. And from your description of them, you hold them in contempt, too.
And so who has right on their side? In principle I’m inclined to side with you. I bet changes need to be made and I can believe your colleagues are behaving like babies. Yet the sentence that makes me worry is when you say: “They seem threatened by my low tolerance for mediocrity.” That sounds high-handed and, coupled with the fact that you are quite young, I can see it getting up their noses.
So, here are your options. Try to get one of your supporters on the board to help you force through the changes you want to make. Or try to win them round by behaving differently. This is going to take a lot of time and determination, given how much bad blood there is, and it may not work. You need to listen to them more. You need to try to find some common ground. You need to show them that you respect them (this may be hard, as it seems that you don’t).
There is another option, which might be better. You decide you will never win them over, and leave to work for a private sector company where you will meet lots of others of your own kind.
