Watch your back: you’re a target for sabotage!

“No, not me!” you say. “Everyone at work is so nice to me: my boss says my work is great, my peers ask my advice, and my subordinates tell me what a good manager I am! Everybody loves me; I’m a star!”

Uh huh. The truth is that we are all potential targets for sabotage. Here are some tips to help you avoid being a victim of both others and yourself (yes, sometimes our worst enemy is our self!).

Avoid Peer Sabotage

•  Don’t be naïve. No matter how nice everyone is to your face (and the more power you have, the nicer they will be), everyone is NOT your cheerleader. Acknowledging this is not being negative or even being a risk manager; it’s being realistic. Who might gain from your stock going down? Hmmm. Ponder that thought.
   

• Take responsibility. If something works, take the credit. If there’s a problem, take credit for that, too. Sometimes we think that a problem will just go away on its own without being noticed by anyone. Wrong. If you acknowledge a problem first (with, of course, your proposed solution), it has less chance of becoming a big issue. If you try to hide a problem, you are offering your potential saboteur some great material. If you blame someone else, the truth will eventually tarnish your reputation (and then you will have sabotaged yourself).
   

• Document your work. Keep a record of what you do. Be specific. Share information with upper management and colleagues and your team. Use a dated medium like e-mail to describe exactly when you did something and who you told about it. In case you ever need it, you’ll have proof.
   

• Celebrate success. Humility is overrated. When you accomplish something significant, invite your team or your colleagues to celebrate with you. Even more important, when your team accomplishes something even slightly significant, be the very first to congratulate and celebrate the team’s success.
   

• Support your peers. If you are dependable, loyal, and supportive of your colleagues, you have a pretty good chance of receiving as good as you give. Most people feel guilty about betraying someone who has been a loyal colleague and friend. Most people. You will still find the occasional rat, but then we’re back to the “don’t be naïve” point.

 Now, just a couple of points about sabotaging yourself. Unfortunately, it’s often women who are guilty of self-sabotage.

 Understand Attribution of Success and Failure

 When a man succeeds, he often believes it is because of his ability. When he fails, he may believe that the situation was simply beyond his control (that is, his assistant didn’t prepare the correct report, the client wasn’t ready to buy, or the deal wasn’t meant to be). When a woman succeeds, she often believes that she was lucky, had an excellent support team, or was in the right place at the right time. (She may also believe that she was wearing her lucky shoes and was having a good hair day!) When she fails, she may believe that she simply lacked ability.

This means that Sue may sabotage herself by not taking credit for what she accomplishes. She gives it away. At the same time, she is likely to receive the blame that John attributes away from himself when he fails.

 Understand Accepting Responsibility and Blame

 Men tend to have trouble understanding that assuming responsibility does not mean accepting blame. If a man does not disassociate responsibility and blame, he might refuse both. He additionally may allow the blame to fall on whoever is willing to accept it. A woman may be quick to say “I’m sorry,” meaning that she regrets that something happened, not that she regrets she did it. Doing so, she may assign herself not only responsibility but fault, by her own admission.

 This means that Sue makes it worse. John screws up, loses a sale, and comes back to the office, moaning and complaining. Sue says, “I’m sorry.” She means that she is sorry to hear that he had a bad meeting. He hears “I’m sorry” and assumes she’s taking the blame. So he lets her have it.

 Understand Filtering Good and Bad News

 Male defense mechanisms are usually better developed than those of women. I.e., men tend to be better at shaping reality to their own advantage. As a result, men tend to focus on positive information and filter out the negative, which results in positive self-esteem but little improvement. Women, on the other hand, tend to focus on negative information and filter out the positive, which offers them greater potential for improvement but continues to challenge self-esteem.

 For example, men look in the mirror and see Brad Pitt or Kevin Costner. Women look in the mirror and see their own worse nightmares. Women do this physically, emotionally, intellectually. They see what’s wrong. Men see what’s right.

 Here’s an anecdote to illustrate my point: A male colleague was asked to speak at a breakfast meeting at a civic club. He didn’t prepare very well, and the overall response was lukewarm. After his talk, a member came up and said, “That was the best presentation on giving money to education that I have heard before breakfast this month.” When my colleague returned to the office, his boss asked him how it went, to which he responded, “They said it was the best presentation they had ever heard!”

The next month, a female colleague was asked to speak at the same breakfast meeting. She was prepared, focused, and dynamic. The audience loved her. Half way though her presentation, someone’s cellphone chirped, and the owner jumped up and quietly slipped out of the room.

 When my colleague returned to the office, her boss asked her how it went, to which she responded, “They walked out while I was speaking.”

She had sabotaged herself by filtering out all the positive feedback and focusing on the one tiny distraction, which wasn’t even negative feedback.

If you were the boss, who would send out in the future? Who would you promote? Don’t sabotage your own success.

In Summary

Don’t be naïve; everyone is not your cheerleader. Take responsibility; if you ignore an issue, someone will be quick to assess blame. Document your work as you do it. Celebrate success, both yours and that of others. Support your peers; if you are there for them, they are more likely to be there for you. And finally (especially if you are a woman) take credit and recognize the positive.

You’re not just watching your back; you’re keeping an open-minded eye on your universe.

Sherron Bienvenu, PhD
Communication Solutions Newsletter
January 2004

Adapted from:

The Presentation Skills Workshop (AMACOM Books) and Business Communication: Discovering Strategy, Developing Skills, with Paul Timm (Prentice Hall). See Dr. Bienvenu's Books and Videos.