Hi, Joe
Not sure this is the kind of question you answer but I need some guidance. I am the new supervisor of my team after a challenging reorg. It’s been a hard process of taking on this role, but I think I’m in a good place. Except for one guy on my team. He is doing everything to make it hard to move forward. I’ve tried reasoning with him but it’s not working. Any suggestions?
New supervisor
Hey, New Supervisor.
Sorry to hear you are going through this. Many of my clients are asking me the same question. With so many companies and nonprofits dealing with budget cuts, discussions around returning to the office or working from home, and an increase in resignations, it’s getting more challenging to manage an effective work culture.
In my coaching and trainings, I use a classic framework from American author, speaker, and organizational consultant William Bridges, where he explains that transition is the psychological process of adapting to change. In his writings, he emphasizes the importance of understanding the many-faceted layers of transition as a key for systems and organizations to navigate change and growth effectively.
“Transition is the natural process of disorientation and reorientation that marks the turning points in the paths to growth,” he says. “Transitions are key times in the natural process of self-renewal.”
Bridges offers us a simple, three-phase guideline that leads to clarity and aids us in successfully moving through transition.
- Letting go of the past.
- The "neutral zone" where the past is gone, but the new hasn’t fully presented itself yet.
- Embracing the new.
While the external circumstances may have already changed, we all have our own relationship with change, based on our psychological makeup, trauma history, privilege and how much we have to lose with the imminent change. Some see it as an exciting chance to expand; others can feel a threat to their power.
Using this “map” is a helpful first step in coming up with a strategy of how to support you and each member of your team to all go through that process of stepping into the new. My suggestion is to see where all members of your team currently are situated in this process. It sounds like you have fully embraced the new, or are still hovering in that uncomfortable liminal space where you are still not sure how things will play out. And it sounds like this person you are having trouble with is stubbornly not letting go of the old.
Once you’ve evaluated what phase each person is in, then you can come up with strategies for how to support them to continue moving forward. If people have let go of the old, but are still not embracing the new, what can you do to alleviate some of their anxiety caused by the uncertainty. Perhaps you need to be clearer in exactly what is expected of them in this new model.
And for this colleague who is stubbornly holding on to the old, maybe it’s a question of them gaining their trust. What can you do to show them that they will not be left behind, or become obsolete, in this new configuration? Maybe find out what their deeper concerns are, or what they would need to open to letting go of the old ways.
You may find out that they are just sabotaging the process; that they will never support you. If that is the case, perhaps it is appropriate to ask them to consider whether this job is still right for them. This of course is tricky when dealing with HR issues, but the sooner it is made clear that there is no way that the team is going back to the old way, the sooner you can have them make their own decision of whether to be collegial or to move on.
If it doesn’t feel safe for you to address them in this way, perhaps you find someone to join you in this conversation. The best way to help the other people be more receptive is to meet them where they are, give them the benefit of the doubt, and still stay clear and steadfast in your conviction that the change is inevitable. If you have any questions on how best to have difficult conversations like these, where you ensure that neither of you get harmed in the process, check out my book, “Mastering Respectful Confrontation,” for skills and strategies.
This is one way to approach this, New Supervisor. Perhaps you can use this situation as an opportunity to sharpen your management skills, and also as a way to establish your authority as both a compassionate and decisive leader. By doing so you build trust and safety, and set the conditions for a work culture based on respect and accountability.
Keep looking forward on your path,
Joe
Learn more about Joe Weston and his work here. Make sure to c heck out Joe’s bestselling book Fierce Civility: Transforming our Global Culture from Polarization to Lasting Peace, published March 2023.
To Ask Joe, please submit questions to: AskJoe@Fulcrum.us.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."