Lessons in Organizational Savvy: Handling Sabotage

In 2004 Rick Brandon and I wrote, “Survival of the Savvy.” Soon after that we developed a self-assessment based on the 13 competencies associated with being organizationally savvy. Participants in our seminars all take the assessment and we see a group aggregate report for each program. After hundreds of seminars, tens of thousands of participants, clearly the lowest scores are for the competency “Handling Sabotage.”

One of the key corporate realities that the Organizational Savvy model is based on is that more often than many of us are prepared for, some colleagues at work don’t have our best interests at heart. We collaborate but we also compete for recognition, resources and increased responsibilities. Most of the competition is fair but a certain percentage of your associates will resort to unfair ways of undermining you and helping themselves.

Below I am going to alert you to the TYPES OF SABOTAGE, the most common METHOD OF SABOTAGE, and how to PROTECT your team, your company and yourself from sabotage. First I want to emphasize that I see this as an extremely serious issue. Sabotage can put the company’s resources and reputation at risk; create conditions where people with the wrong values and weak skills get promoted, and can be devastating to individuals. If you have ever been on the receiving end of one or more of the types of sabotage, you know it can be demoralizing. People feel betrayed, and they often start to doubt themselves because of misplaced trust and question why they “didn’t see it coming.” They also feel unequipped to deal with these attempts to derail them. My goal is to help you “see it coming,” and learn to predict and protect against sabotage.

Types of Sabotage

1. Withholding information
2. Diverting resources, head count or budget
3. Excluding from meetings
4. Falsely blaming
5. Taking credit for your work
6. Making fun of you (behind your back) or giving you nicknames
7. Teasing, sarcasm or insults in public settings
8. Procrastinating on projects so you miss deadlines
9. Sending you to “Corporate Siberia” and/or giving you dead end assignments
10. Marginalization (e.g. at meetings: interrupting, dominating, diverting focus, squeezing your time)
11. “Managing the Airwaves” – using access and influence with their network to tarnish your reputation.

I’m probably leaving out some forms of sabotage related to how people can leverage the latest technology. And in our discussion I’m not going to touch on each of the types I listed. I want to discuss the most common form which is “managing the airwaves”. Once you understand how and why people deploy this approach you will be better positioned to protect yourself from all forms of sabotage.

Method of Sabotage

“Managing the Airwaves”

There are some people who realize that if they try to compete with you in the areas of competence, work ethic or results they will lose. They decide to come out on top by using some of their advantages, a strong network, and access to power. The first step is to craft a narrative that, if it sticks, will either damage your reputation or disqualify you from future promotions.

Here is what they are counting on:

1. People in power are extremely busy
2. Not that many people get access to power
3. Often people in power may accept what is shared with them about people and not take the time to check out or validate the message
4. They understand the “scorecard” of the people in power e.g. priorities, taboos, what they look for in leaders, core values.

Here are some examples of “managing the airwaves” in action. I wish I could tell you that these narratives didn’t work, were ineffective. Unfortunately for the reasons I just listed these messages can stick.

• Said to the head of HR, a key partner to the CEO who valued (scorecard) strategic thinking more than any other leadership quality: “Hey Marty is a solid guy. In fact if you point him in the right direction you can take it to the bank. Now you have to ‘call the plays’ for him but he is reliable.”

• Said to a leader who strongly prefers “hands on executives” (scorecard): “Anne is really intelligent, very highly educated. Of course she doesn’t like to get her ‘hands dirty’ and likes to stay at 30,000 feet.”

• Earlier in my career I was coaching quite a few leaders at a company. Someone in HR wanted to bring in a consulting company he used to work for to do executive coaching and he saw that I was in his way. In meetings with senior HR leaders (almost all of my internal clients) he referred to the consultants as “executive coaches” and he used terms like “fix it program” and “charm school” to describe my work at the company.

• An extremely common form of “managing the airwaves” is to use general, broad, unfavorable labels about someone:

“Sharp elbows”

“Empire builder”

Not a team player

Everyone likes her but she’s too nice for that role

 Often they don’t provide specific examples or distort/exaggerate incidents.

PROTECT

1. Predict ­

It is much easier to protect yourself if you can anticipate who and how and when people will move against you. Sometimes you can even get there first.

A. Who do you threaten?  You probably see yourself as a nice person and a collaborator but your presence and actions can actually threaten your colleagues. Here are some examples:

• You bring new skills and/or a new approach to the organization. Someone who is an “expert” in the current way of doing things perceives that if you are successful they quickly become a “novice.”
• You “raise the bar” for a team you are leading and begin to hold people accountable.
• In a meeting you challenge one of your peer’s set of facts or strategy.

Some of these people may welcome your insights and want to learn from you but you can count on some of them deciding to block you or slow you down.

B. Who are you dealing with?  Overly political people who put their interests over the company’s, and who will do what they can get away with, by definition, don’t “wear signs.” They do give off “tells” if you know what behaviors to look for. Here is a list of Overly Political Tells:

• • Exaggerations
  • Over-promising
  • Taking undeserved credit
  • Hiding “bad news”
  • Giving only partial information
  • Lying
  • Insincere flattery
  • Unfairly tarnishing reputations
  • Superficial explanations
  • Guarded / Evasive Speech
  • Giving differing versions of events to different people
  • Not eliminating conflicts of interest
  • Punishing people who challenge or disagree
  • Overly control information

C. Times of Fear and Greed. Fear and greed drive stock market movements and they also ramp up political behavior. The common connection is higher levels of SELF-INTEREST. So when your organization is going through very tough times or there are opportunities for big paydays, expect self-interest to drive behavior even more than it usually does.

2. Leverage Your Network

The day you need a network it’s too late to build it. No one is smart enough to survive in a corporation without an effective network. Your network can:

• Inform you about your “buzz” and who is “managing the airwaves”
• Alert you to hidden, personal agendas
• Highlight political people and behaviors
• Sell your ideas
• Document your contributions
• Create an accurate, helpful narrative
• Protect you from attack

So build, maintain and leverage your network. It is desirable to have someone in your network who is “wired” in, and someone with power. People might think twice about targeting you.

3. Never Reinforce a Negative Buzz/Don’t Give People “Ammunition”

If you are Marty in the example above, don’t go to meetings and focus heavily on operational details. If you are Anne, don’t use a lot of strategic concepts without connecting to concrete examples. If your “buzz” is that you are “not tough enough”, don’t go to meetings and smile too much or be overly polite.

4. Create a Plan to Manage Perceptions

Even if you think your “buzz” is ridiculously wrong, it’s still important to visibly correct perceptions. If one person is “managing the airwaves” against someone who is “abandoning the airwaves” it’s often an insurmountable advantage.

A core Org Savvy principle is, “The difference between reality and perception, is that people make decisions based on perception.” Other people don’t know what is in your head or your heart, and don’t follow you around. Don’t assume that they know about your competencies and contributions. Create an accurate image of yourself by making these qualities visible through your written and in person communication and through the messaging your network provides.

To wrap up, as I mentioned I didn’t discuss all the forms of sabotage. However, if you absorb the learnings about overly political people, self-interest, why you can be perceived as a threat and what people will do to block you or damage you, you are already more astute about sabotage.

A list of resources is provided below. In particular, I recommend reading Rule 10: Protect Yourself From Sabotage and Marginalization (A Woman’s Guide to Power, Presence and Protection).

Resources

Books:

Brandon, R., & Seldman, M. (2004): Survival of the Savvy: High Integrity Political Tactics for Career and Company Success. New York, NY: Free Press

Bauer, M., Seldman, M., Santilli, P., & Thomas-Williams, J. (2022): A Woman’s Guide to Power, Presence and Protection: 12 Rules for Gaining the Credit, Respect, and Responsibility You Deserve. Pembroke Pines, FL: Optimum Press

Articles (all found on www.optimumassociates.com/thought-leadership):

• Sharpening Your BS Detector
• Self-Interest
• Forgive and Forget
• Reading Tells
• Halo Effect
• Camera Check