How to deal with Saboteurs, Aggressors and Know-it-alls

CANDY TYMSON (2001) The Saboteur This type of behaviour has reached epidemic proportions in business as more and more people become insecure about their future prospects. The saboteur will deliberately undermine your position by not telling you about important meetings or policy decisions. Or maybe he or she will gossip behind your back, or blame you for something you didn't do. They can cause big trouble if they are allowed to continue unchallenged. You should: 1. Confront them. 2. Create and maintain allies. 3. Keep good records. In the event of a showdown it can boil down to your word against theirs. It's therefore very important to be sure of your facts and have the evidence to prove them.
IN THE SECOND OF A THREE PART SERIES ON INTERPERSONAL SKILLS, COMMUNICATIONS EXPERT CANDY TYMSON TELLS HOW TO COPE WITH THAT UBIQUITOUS BREED -- DIFFICULT PEOPLE.

Dealing With 10 Coworker Personality Conflicts

Marv Dumon (2009) Sabotage The saboteur of the group takes competitiveness to a truly dysfunctional level. There can be various motivations for sabotaging a team's or department's efforts. For example, the saboteur may want to see others fail, and thereby increase his or her relative standing (and compensation) within the group. Saboteurs may also strike in order to protect their own jobs. They will do harm to documents and databases in order to create more work for themselves, which they hope insulates them from being fired or laid off. Or, they may harbor a secret disdain toward their boss, peers, or company, as they may have been passed over for promotion, bonuses, or an attractive transfer. Whatever the reason, saboteurs tend to be highly selfish individuals. There isn't much you can do to protect yourself from these saboteurs except to keep on top of your work and to be conscious of these people. The selfish trait is picked up by good managers, and saboteurs are often passed for promotions because more focused peers are concentrating on how they can continually increase their contributions to the company. In the end, the saboteur only hurts himself.

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-careers/09/10-coworker-personalityconflicts.asp#ixzz1gJ4fjzYq

Abstract

Mark Landstad, relatively new to CliffBank's investment banking division, has a veteran teammate, Nicole Collins, who appears to be a reliable ally. However, when Mark needs her help in locating vital information for his part of a presentation they will be doing together, she feigns ignorance. During the meeting, Nicole produces the data out of the blue and wows the attendees with her analysis. Knocked off balance by the sabotage, Mark clumsily seeks advice from his boss, who is a brick wall when it comes to interpersonal dynamics. How should Mark deal with his backstabbing colleague?
"When Your Colleague is a Saboteur" Ashley Brandenburg 2009 Summary This article is about a man, Mark Landstad, who was currently hired at Cliffbank as an investment banker. Mark had been working on slides for Monday s presentation all week but couldn t find his predecessor s research. After meeting most of the people on his team, he felt most comfortable asking Nicole for her help. Nicole was away on business and wouldn t be able to look over Mark s slides until Monday morning before the presentation. Early Monday morning Mark went to Nicole s office and asked her advice on the slides that he had prepared for their meeting later that day. Nicole agreed that she would look at the slides but waited until minutes before the meeting to comment on them. Looks great, Nicole said nonchalantly and clicked her mouse. I think it will really make a good impression. All s well. See you in a few. Mark, who was frantic, followed her into the conference room. As Nicole started off the meeting she clicked on new slides of information that Mark had never seen and was exactly what he asked Nicole for. Mark was in utter shock and couldn t manage to say anything during the meeting and therefore did not make a good impression during his first presentation in front of the company s president. After the meeting Paul, the head of the division, went into Mark s office and asked him if he could call Ian, a friend of Marks at Millhouse, to further discuss the demeanor of their business. Although Mark felt uncomfortable calling Ian, he did it anyway. Once on the phone with Ian, they began to talk about their business and Ian told Mark that he had already been contacted by Nicole. Now Mark was furious that Nicole withheld information from him and went behind his back and spoke with his contact. Mark then went to Nicole s office to discuss what had happened in the meeting and about the conversation he had with Ian. Mark went to Nicole s office and told her that Paul wanted him to meet with Ian. Nicole became angry and said she wanted all the credit and he wasn t going to take that away from her and that he was not meeting with Ian without her. Then walked out of the office, Mark is furious. After Mark confronted Nicole, Nicole told him that there was no way he was going to meet with Ian if she wasn t there and that she had been working on Millhouse for a long time. Nicole wanted all of the credit and therefore was holding information from her teammate Mark. Nicole then told him to relax and walked right pass him as if nothing had happened.

Mark was stunned; he didn t know what to do next. He tried to confront the problem and take care of it himself but it didn t work. Mark then went to Paul to describe the situation. He told him that he could fight his own battles and could and would deal with it, but he wanted to let Paul know what was going on. Paul said, I realize that Nicole is an ambitious young woman, but you ll learn to respect her results. I have.

3 takeaways One thing I took from this article is to look at everything from all perspectives. If you first look at the situation you think that Nicole is truly sabotaging Mark. Nicole is a very driven person and believes that in order to succeed you need to do whatever it takes to get what you want. I do not agree with that perspective. Yes, you do need to do a good job, but you can not step on people to get what you want. Once you start to get a reputation that you would do anything and everything to get ahead people will not trust you. It all ties into ethics. Another thing I got from the article is that you cannot trust everyone. Nicole wants to get ahead and withheld information to do so. Mark is nave to think that everyone is as trusting and that situations like this can and do occur in the work place. Mark needs to adapt to other positions throughout his career. The last thing I got from the article is that not everyone is a team player. You have to adjust to different types of people as well as different positions throughout you re career. Like Deborah said, Mark did not take the time and effort to learn about the divisional culture and norms, if he did, this situation could have been avoided.