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Amenable Amy
Welcome to the 6th pen-portrait in our series portraying different types of internal clients.
The person
Amy is a Marketing Executive in the brand team. She’s very nice – indeed, she tries her best to be pleasant to everyone. She values relationships highly, but she always tries to avoid conflict. Although she may sometimes not really agree with something, she will never voice her criticism. As a result, almost everyone loves her!
The problem
The main problem is that Amy won’t say when something is wrong, even when it is important that she does say something. She just doesn’t want to appear negative: she would rather accept something that is sub-standard than risk upsetting the person involved by saying something.
Similarly, Amy will also shy away from questioning the needs of her superiors when they ask her to do something but she’s not sure about some aspects of the work. She just doesn’t want to cause any problems. This can easily result in poor briefs: other members of the team may also get some things wrong without even realising it, because she doesn’t correct them.
The solution
There are three useful ways of handling Amy:
- Firstly, try and get her feedback by using factual ratings rather than judgmental scales. With the latter, she will always tend towards good, positive remarks. Because she is fundamentally very honest, if she has to give a factual rating, she will tell the truth when faced with categories such as ‘Always on time’, ‘Usually on time’, ‘Often late’, etc.
- Secondly, make sure you take control if she is just the intermediary. Go around or above her to get clarification of briefs from the key people involved – but do this with her and keep her happy.
- Remember that she is a useful and supportive ally. In a meeting that is looking at new ideas or the latest results, use Amy’s positivity to your own advantage. Ask for her opinions on any aspects where you feel that you need some extra support.
Finally, try not to get too frustrated with her constantly sunny disposition. Make sure that you don’t upset her – because if she then said something bad about you to others, they would really think the worst of you because they know that she never says a bad word about anyone!
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