an industry colleague is lying to me about a dispute we had years ago

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

Six years ago, I was vice president of the board of a national advocacy body (Org A) that had a long-standing, mostly good, relationship with another national advocacy body (Org B). The two organizations had some commonalities but also quite well defined swim lanes.

While I was VP for Org A, Elsa from Org B had approached me and asked if I could be on a voluntary advisory group they were convening. Elsa assured me it had nothing to do with my board role at Org A, and it was a group of independent experts in the industry, with Org B just providing a secretariat. My board eventually agreed it wasn’t a conflict of interest so I joined.

Two weeks after the first expert meeting, Org A voted to resign their associate membership in Org B, in response to a disagreement about Org B’s new approach to something, although I think they just disliked Sven, the CEO, and decided to try and force some sort of change within the organization. I didn’t agree with the resignation but was overruled by a majority vote.

The day after the resignation was announced, I got an automated email saying Elsa had removed my access to the online platform being used by the expert group. I sent a couple of emails seeking to clarify if this was a tech issue or related to the resignation, but got no response.

Three days later, Elsa called me. She was on speaker with Sven. They confirmed I had been removed from the expert group, then proceeded to scream at me and tell me I was compromising my personal values by staying on the board of Org A. I calmly said that professionalism and kindness were two of my values, and that I would end the call if they continued to yell. They kept yelling so I hung up. I was shaken but chalked it up to Elsa and her team being unprofessional.

Two weeks later, the board chair of Org B called me and asked me to join their board, because they thought I had a useful skill set. I respectfully declined — partly because it was a conflict, and partly because I didn’t want to be managing Sven, who thinks it’s okay to yell at people and question their integrity.

Two years later I get a job with an organization that funds some of the work undertaken by Org B. I declared our previous history to my new CEO during the interview process, who wasn’t bothered — she understands it’s a big industry! I also resigned from Org A around the same time, because that was a conflict. I ended up meeting Elsa for a coffee when I started my new job, as we had to work together occasionally, and she apologized for how she had treated me during that phone call and we all moved on.

I’ve been in my current role four years and have a cordial relationship with Org B and Elsa. Org B has a reputation as being difficult to work with and they regularly have “reset” meetings with other organizations across the industry when they behave poorly, but I have generally gotten on well with their team since that apology.

Fast forward to today…

Elsa emailed the group of experts from the original panel, including me, asking us to share our experiences of the panel as a case study for successful cross-industry collaboration. I replied to Elsa and asked if she was sure I should be included because they had removed me from the group very early on.

She’s just replied and said, “Oh no, you were removed at the request of Org A, didn’t you know that? It was nothing to do with us. Love your work!”

Alison, this just … didn’t happen. I was the VP at the time, I would have known about that request, and my board was just as shocked as I was about what had happened. But … I can’t prove anything. The board has changed over, I no longer have access to those emails from that time, and it’s their word against mine.

Elsa and I have a previously scheduled coffee for next week to discuss a new funding proposal and I don’t know what to do. Do I ignore the email and pretend nothing ever happened? Do I cancel the coffee on some pretext? Do I respond to correct the record? I just don’t know.

Are there professional reasons for you to maintain a cordial relationship with Elsa? Does it benefit your current employer or you personally to be on pleasant terms with her? If so, the most practical thing to do is to just privately roll your eyes at Elsa’s rewriting of history, file it away as useful information about her lack of trustworthiness, and go to the coffee and conduct whatever business needs to be conducted.

To be clear, Elsa sounds like a mess. The phone call where she and Sven screamed at you, the accusations of compromising your values, her affiliation with an org so difficult to work with that they regularly need “reset” meetings with industry partners … she’s a mess.

For all I know, it’s possible that Org B removing you from their online platform was a reasonable decision in response to them being in open conflict with your employer, or maybe it was just petty retribution (although in the case of the former, they should have just owned it and explained the reason). But the rest of her behavior is bad enough that it doesn’t really matter.

As for her claim that you were removed at your employer’s request … it’s probably a deliberate lie to save face; she needs to work with you now and your current employer funds some of her organization’s work, so she’s trying to smooth things over and using deceit to do it. In fairness, it’s also possible that she genuinely doesn’t remember because it’s been years, but that too doesn’t really matter; we don’t need to figure it out because you’re not assessing Elsa as a potential employee or close friend. You already know she’s shady and not someone you’ll ever want to collaborate with closely.

So it really just comes down to what kind of relationship you need with her professionally. If it doesn’t much matter, feel free to cancel the coffee on some vague pretext and not reschedule it. Either way, though, I don’t see any reason why you can’t reply to her email with, “Oh, I think your recollection is wrong; Org B chose to remove me after Org A resigned its membership in B. Anyway, it’s water under the bridge now and I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

If she replies to debate that, just ignore. There’s no point in engaging further on it. And if she brings it up when you meet in person — which she would be foolish to do! — stick with, “It was a long time ago and I think we’ve all moved on.” The goal here isn’t to get both of you on the same page so you can have a relationship based on truth and genuine connection; it’s to conduct whatever business needs to be conducted and be done.