Comment by timacles
3 hours ago
If he was hired to do a job, its not on the team to "trust" him. Its to incorporate him as a resource. I'm sorry but speaking strictly from a productivity standpoint, we're not here to be empathetic, we're here to deliver value to the organization.
If I'm a manager of a team thats struggling and now also sabotaging additional resources, because they havent got the right warm and fuzzies, I'm going to be looking to have some difficult conversations. I'm also going to be very critical of anyone who floats a lack of "trust" as the blocker without some concrete evidence to justify it.
Whatever concerns they might have is not for the contractor to address. They are between them and their own management who deemed them unable to deliver sufficiently.
Well this is all highly hypothetical but my point is that there are valid reasons to not entrust a contractor, who is only around temporarily, with long standing features. Not because they are nefarious but because they, by definition, will not own the feature ultimately.
Resistance is also not the same as sabotage. My assumption is that everyone is acting in good faith from their own perspective. An immediate issue I see that the contractor was brought in because folks were looking at the calendar and not the tasks. Now the team is being pushed to carve out tasks. If shovel ready tasks are identified first, almost certainly, things go smoother. You're not context switching everyone. Its far less chaotic.
What you seem to not understand is empathy is going to move the team forward and deliver. Jumping to bad faith immediately is likely not the fastest way to a solution. If someone is struggling, its useful to understand why and address those problems. Its often not because they're bad.