Letter to a Seagull Manager

Author: Majken Lorelei Matzau

"A seagull manager? That's the kind who comes flying in and craps all over everything."

Recently I had a project manager in the chair who was deeply upset and affected by stress. She had been given a new project director, and things had gone badly wrong. The project manager, a young woman, told me through tears that she felt increasingly confused, and also stupid, because she did not understand what her new director wanted from her.

She typically received fifty to eighty emails a day (and through the night) containing unclear and diffuse tasks, and when she asked clarifying questions about the work, she was met with a barrage of emails containing enormous amounts of detail that only left her more confused.

"He writes one thing while he's sitting in a meeting, and then he writes something else several times later in the day, so there are five or six emails in a single thread following up on my questions," she explained.

My client also told me that her colleagues on the project were just as confused as she was, and that they were fumbling in the dark whenever they set about solving a task where both the assignment and the goal were vague.

The consequence was that she felt useless, muddled, and professionally incompetent. Her confidence shrank, and that made it even harder for her to seek clarity about her tasks. So when she came to me, she believed – like so many others in the same situation – that she was the one who wasn't good enough.

And it was only when I reflected back to her how every one of the classic stress factors in project management was active, that it dawned on her that she was not the one being stupid.

On the positive side, she fortunately liked the project director as a person. So there was no personal conflict or emotional tension to be handled. And that makes my job much easier.

Once we had separated the wheat from the chaff and articulated what the problem actually was, she suddenly exclaimed, with a mischievous humor in her eyes:

"He does seagull management."

"Seagull management?" I asked. "I've never heard of that before."

"Yes, seagull management. A seagull manager is the kind who comes flying in and craps all over everything, and then flies away again."

That brought the laughter out in both of us. We then drew up a document for the project director in question. And if you work with a seagull manager yourself, you might consider sending this document to him or her.

The letter to the seagull manager

Dear project director,

I would like to request a status meeting with you on Friday from 10:00 to 11:30. I have put it in your calendar, and I would ask you to prioritize this meeting, as I have important matters to clarify with you.

By way of preparation, I would ask you to read the agenda and points below, so that we can use them as our starting point when we plan the coming month together, and at the same time take stock of how our collaboration has gone so far.

I look forward to the meeting on Friday.

Agenda

What do I need from you?

Tasks must be formulated clearly and spelled out plainly:

1. What
2. How
3. When
4. The goal

Planning and structure: Tasks must be given in good time. Not five minutes before you need input, and definitely not over a weekend. For example, I would ask you not to demand something delivered on Monday morning that you hand over on Friday evening. It ruins my weekend and my sleep.

It is important that you are prepared when you hand over tasks. Because you talk while you are processing, and I lose contact with you and lose sight of the tasks. I get all the intermediate calculations, and it stresses me. I need simplicity and clarity. So I would ask you to work out in advance what you want and expect to be solved.

The goal of each task must be clear. The tasks you give me are unclear – I am confused and I don't understand what you want. And I can almost never reach you, because you are out of the office. And if I write to you, I get far too many different answers, written in haste. It stresses me and I cannot make head nor tail of your instructions. I would therefore ask you to create calm and clarity around the goals of the tasks. Better one task at a time, clearly formulated and able to be completed, than ten half-finished, unclear tasks with vague goals and far too short deadlines.

I typically have fifty emails from you sitting there at a time – and I don't understand what you are writing. It makes me feel stupid and useless. But I am not the only one – every day there are colleagues who also ask whether I understand what you want. They are just as confused as I am, and I feel we are fumbling in the dark. I would therefore ask you to write short, precise emails instead of very long, detailed emails across many threads.

I like you. I think you are an extremely capable and inspiring project director. I just get stressed by the pace and the lack of clarity.

Proposal: we hold a fixed weekly status meeting. There must be a clear agenda, and it must be run strictly. Otherwise there are too many details and words and intermediate calculations, and then I get cognitive overload and stress.

1. I will convene the weekly status meetings and prepare the agenda, covering both the status of tasks and all the questions I need answered by you.
2. You must have your answers clarified before the meeting, so that you can give me clear answers without the intermediate calculations.
3. The agenda and the time frame must be respected.
4. At the meetings we will also take weekly stock of how the handover of tasks is working. Here we give each other feedback. What do we need more or less of from one another? Is there progress? And what else needs to be made clearer?

The stress level is too high – we need some calm across the board now, so that I don't break.

Kind regards,
A project manager

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