Simon is on a sales team with a new colleague, Cheryl. Cheryl has some difficulty adjusting to her new role, and Simon takes on the role of mentoring her. During a team meeting at which Cheryl is not present, Simon sees Cheryl’s boss, Amanda, accidentally continue to share her screen following a slide presentation. Simon reads that Amanda and her boss are considering placing Cheryl on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) due to Cheryl’s difficulties. Simon debates whether he should share what he has seen with Amanda, Cheryl, or both.
Simon works on a sales team. Late last year, Cheryl joined his team, with a long and successful sales career behind her. Simon and his team were excited to have her expertise and were eager to learn from her contributions. Unfortunately, as a few months passed by, Cheryl’s performance was less than successful. Although Simon was extremely surprised by Cheryl’s underperformance, he assumed she was having difficulties adjusting to a new work environment.
Recently, Simon and all of his colleagues began working partly remotely, which involved acclimating to a new work rhythm. Simon kept up with Cheryl’s progress and noticed that she was still struggling. In team meetings, Cheryl had made passing remarks to Simon that she knew her job could be in jeopardy due to her challenges. Simon therefore made an effort to be friendlier to Cheryl at work and to check in with her regularly. He wanted to see her succeed, and she came to view him as a mentor.
One day, Simon was on a remote team call in which his boss, Amanda, shared her screen to show the team a set of slides. Once Amanda was finished with her slide presentation, she forgot to stop sharing her screen, even as the team’s conversation shifted to different topics. While people were talking, an instant message from Amanda’s boss popped up on Amanda’s screen, which she continued to share: “Are we moving forward with a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) for Cheryl?” [A PIP means that an employee’s performance has been deemed inadequate and that the employee is in need of additional support.]
Amanda did not seem to realize she was still sharing her screen, and everyone could see her reply to the instant message saying that she was on a team call and would respond to her boss later. Amanda then closed her messages but kept sharing her screen, unaware of what everyone else had just seen. Ultimately, Simon alerted Amanda that she should stop sharing her screen on the team call.
Simon has no idea who else might have noticed the exchange between Amanda and her boss about Cheryl’s PIP. Cheryl was not on the team call.
Simon was not sure if he should go to Cheryl directly and warn her about the PIP, since he is sympathetic to her. He also wondered if someone else would tell Cheryl about the message before Amanda could speak with her, since others may have seen it.
However, Simon knew that telling Cheryl about the message might stress her out, and the message was not definitive. Maybe Amanda would not be putting Cheryl on a PIP after all. Furthermore, Simon feels awkward about Amanda not realizing that she was unknowingly sharing her screen during the team call. He is not sure if it is worth mentioning to Amanda directly, or if he should just let her know sooner the next time it happens.
Have you ever accidentally seen information that was not intended for you to see? Have you ever accidentally shared information with others? How did you handle either one of these scenarios?