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Originally Posted by saidso
I'm no expert on business diplomacy but my own take on this would be to drop him a very neutral e-mail. Depending on your relationship and on his personality. "I noticed that the keywords were not 100% effective on this job. Is it too late to review?"
How would that sit with you? He will probably ignore the comment but you can feel that you've covered your responsibility and put the ball firmly in his court. Then you let it go, get on with your life, and act surprised if he raises it in future. "oh that job? I'd forgotten about it already but do let me know if I can be of any help in future".
I'm not confident enough about successful diplomacy to put this forward as general "advice" but I've been in some similar situations and work relations exist in the context of long term relationships in my experience. Therefore I behave as I feel comfortable, which is to step back in my own driven personality and keep potential conflict to a minimum.
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You could also send an email saying "I noticed our keywords aren't ranking as high as we expected. I had some ideas to adjust them and wanted to get your thoughts on this, since this was something we worked on together. What would you think about x,y,z?"
That way it's not about someone's fault but about figuring out a solution together.
I'm sure you already have some paper trail that he determined the original keywords, so just save those emails and you're CYA. You could also say to your boss, but not in a blaming way, and privately, like you're asking for feedback "I noticed that the keywords X gave me for the site aren't really gaining the traction. I was going to suggest to him that we adjust them to X. Would that be appropriate for me to suggest to him?" Then it's like you want to make sure you aren't crossing boundaries, but also your boss would be aware that it was the other guy's job. Then when you go to the coworker with the above statement, you're kosher with your boss, and it's not coming off as fault or blame, but that you had an idea to improve something, not that it's wrong to begin with.
Proving fault or blame may be satisfying to our egos, but in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and productiveness, it doesn't get the job done, which you know. If the goal is to get your ideas implemented, then you're spot on that diplomacy is required. I just caution to make sure that it's not about your ego and really about the work being done well and the client satisfied otherwise it will not come off as diplomatic. I'm not suggesting that it is about your ego, but I know you've felt insulted a few times by coworkers and so you wouldn't want this to come off as some kind of payback (I know it's not, just saying in case).
In general, start off by presenting an improvement/solution, versus a problem/blame/fault, and it should be fine.
Hope this helps. Good luck! Let us know how it goes.
Seesaw