An F-bomb to a Manager

Recently, a team lead (call him Ryan) who reports to me dropped an F-bomb. He claimed there was Favoritism going on within my team. To a manager, this is like dropping an F-bomb. Favoritism will destroy a team faster than any other disease. It spreads like wild fire, fragmenting the team, reducing morale and productivity. If a manager ignores it, it will quickly become out of control and the manager is toast.

Ryan has a very tenuous claim. One of my other team leads takes members of the team he formerly managed out to lunch on a monthly basis. He buys their lunch at significant personal expense. He has done this for years, ever since he was the manager of this group people. He even extends an invitation to former members of his team and those who have been laid off in the past 2 years. Two people that are invited to the monthly lunch are now members of Bryan's team. The favoritism charge comes from the fact that only 2 members from Ryan's team are invited. Two others are not.

So the favoritism charge was not aimed at me, but at one of my team leads. However, if I tolerated actual favoritism on my team then I would be just as guilty. Based purely on the facts, this does not meet the definition of favoritism. To be, the business resources (money, time, promotions, best opportunities) would need to be directed to those who are favored. In this case, the group met on their lunch hour and the bill was paid for by the team lead, not the company. Additionally, the team lead does not have the authority to favor anyone with the mentioned business resources. By any stretch of the definition, this could not be considered favoritism.

Yet, if some act is perceived as favoritism it cannot be ignored. The appearance of favoritism is just as destructive as actual favoritism. So what to do? I met with Ryan to understand his concerns. I fought hard not to blow off his concerns as just a symptom of WBS (whiney baby syndrome). I asked Ryan what he would suggest to alleviate the problem. He suggested that lunch invitations be rotated to everyone on my team. So the complainer wants to require another person to spend their money on everyone, not just the people he wants to spend it on. Sound familiar? Sound like spreading the wealth?

The discussion was essentially over after that comment. I told Ryan that I wanted to be fair, and in that spirit I would not object if he wanted to take a group of people of his selection out to lunch. He could even buy their lunch if he chose to do so. It only took him a few seconds to decide that he did not want to spoil a good thing for 2 members of his team, and he definitely did not want to buy lunch for the other 2 to be fair. I suspect that Ryan might be a liberal.