Here you must understand the difference between the kind of strategy I advocate and Machiavellian scheming. The strategy I advocate is entirely positive. Its aim is to strengthen your hold on your job, not to undercut others or damage their careers. It seeks to give you career advantages, but only fair ones. Moreover, it doesn't stop with your own personal concerns but encompasses many other people's concerns as well. I urge you to be supportive of your boss, for example, and to take actions that will benefit your company.
In contrast to this, the schemer's strategy is negative and selfish. It seeks to gain advantages by hurting others. Its scope is narrow: it is designed to benefit one person without regard to broader consequences that may affect others or even damage an entire company.
I know a woman who schemed in this way. She held a minor executive position in a bank. Eager for more salary and status, she set out deliberately to make friends at higher management levels. This in itself was fine; indeed, it is advisable to do just that in seeking a mentor and for other reasons. She did it negatively and selfishly, however.
Instead of supporting the boss of her department, she spread tales of his incompetence. It was true the department was functioning poorly, but mismanagement by the boss was not the only reason. The woman herself was causing some of the problems by failing to pay close enough attention to her assigned duties. She devoted most of her time to self-serving strategies instead of trying to help the group get itself together. She also undercut many of her peers in the department. She tried to make it seem as if most of the good work turned out by the department was her doing.
The scheming worked for a time, as often happens. She impressed management and was eventually made the boss of her department. However, the department's performance immediately went from bad to worse. The new boss's subordinates, her former peers, rebelled. Many asked for transfers. When it became apparent to management that the new boss was incapable of holding the team together, she was moved to another part of the company. Her dreams of a management career faded away.
Scheming of that kind rarely pays off in the long run. However, it can produce short-term advantages and those could be at your expense if you are the one being schemed against. “You must be prepared to protect yourself against unfair assaults from subordinates. This is how:”
Defenses against a Subordinate
In a large international company, a young lawyer subtly spread the rumor that his boss, also a lawyer, was a secret drinker. He coveted her job and had long sought some method of getting her out of the way. In truth, she drank only lightly on social occasions and never during a working day. However, she had a middle-ear ailment that sometimes affected her balance. She was sometimes seen bumping into doorframes, and occasionally she had to lean on something for a second after standing up from a chair. When the young man called attention to these lapses, executives began to watch her and wonder about her just as he intended.
In another situation, a man was denied a promotion that he felt he deserved. The reason for the denial was incompetence, but he took it as a personal attack against him by his boss, and he schemed to get even. He saw his chance when he and his boss attended an important sales meeting in a distant city. The boss was to give a key talk at this meeting. The vengeful subordinate secretly saw to it that when the boss stood up to speak he had all the wrong papers with him and made a fool of himself.
A subordinate may scheme against you for career advantage or for some less pragmatic reason, such as spite. It may be very subtle, so much so that for a long time you may not realize what is going on. Rarely will a subordinate schemer do something so flagrant as to risk getting fired or even chastised. You are not likely to get anywhere with a direct confrontation: "See here, what is it you have against me? ... Can we talk about it? "The schemer's most likely response will be to pretend he or she doesn't know what you are talking about.
Instead of an unproductive confrontation, your best defenses are these:
OBSERVERS: Establish a network of friendly observers so that you always know what is going on behind your back.
This may sound a good deal more sneaky and cynical than I intend. I don't mean you need to have spies listening at keyholes or going through people's desks. All I really mean, essentially, is that you should not allow yourself to get isolated. An isolated boss is one who can readily be schemed against. Instead of letting that happen to you, make it a point to have frequent, friendly contact with subordinates, peers, and others in and around the company.
The woman lawyer accused of drunkenness saved herself this way. She had noticed for a long time that top executives seemed to be wary and standoffish in her presence, but she had no idea a rumor about drinking was in circulation. However, it happened that she was in friendly contact with an older secretary who had recently returned to work after many years of raising a family. The older woman seemed lonely, so the lawyer occasionally went to lunch with her. They talked companionably about their families, their off-the-job interests and, among other things, their health problems. One day the older woman asked, "Tell me about that ear problem of yours. Does it affect your balance?"
"Once in a while, yes. I'll feel dizzy for a couple of moments." The older woman looked embarrassed, hesitated, then said, "There's something you ought to know. The other day I heard Mr. Pollock ask if you'd been drinking."
Now a lot of things became clear. The woman lawyer immediately went to her superiors and candidly explained the facts of her ear ailment. The drinking rumor died quickly. In time, through other friendly observers, she was able to track down the source of the rumor. She had the young man transferred.
The more friendly contacts you have, the less likely it is that things can happen without your being aware of them. Take the time to talk with people. Don't eat lunch alone if you can help it. Chat with the security guard at the front entrance, the part-time file clerk who is working her way through school. One of the worst mistakes anybody in business can make is to become a loner.
PROJECT AND PRAISE: If you identify a subordinate as out gunning for you, one of the best defenses is to get him or her absorbed and enmeshed in a special project. Make the person so busy and enthusiastic that there is no more time for scheming.
It may seem peculiar to reward somebody who is plotting your downfall, but I can tell you from experience that this is almost certain to work better than a direct confrontation or threats of punishment. Indeed, I'll go further and say that public praise is a highly effective tool of leadership; now it comes in handy as a weapon of defense. Having given your plotting subordinate an absorbing project and having seen him well started and thoroughly hooked on it, you utter words of praise at meetings: "That advertising evaluation is turning out beautifully, Pete. Very interesting results, not what anybody expected. Let's have a talk about the implications someday soon."
If you are lucky, you have now changed Pete from an enemy to an ally, at least temporarily. If he is smart, he realizes that you score points with management by taking on special projects. That is how you get noticed. Pete has a chance for some excellent personal publicity, and he is not likely to spoil it by plotting your ruin anytime soon.
FARMING OUT: Another defense against a scheming subordinate is to get him or her moved out of your department. However, the seemingly obvious approach--firing--is seldom the best. To fire this subordinate, you need to prove that the alleged scheming has actually taken place and that it has been damaging enough to warrant such drastic action by you. Marshaling such proof is just about impossible; since the very nature of scheming is that it takes place under cover.
Therefore, you will have to seek other approaches. If you can get the troublesome subordinate promoted or transferred out of your department, that can solve the problem for you--but it may only create a new problem for the next person who becomes the schemer's boss. Promotions and transfers are not always easy to arrange, in any case.
Try a different approach first. See if you can arrange to have this person farmed out temporarily.
This may work if the schemer has a skill that can be put to use in some other area of the company. Stay alert for word of projects calling for extra people.
I know a woman bank executive who did this with a younger woman who had long been angling for her job. The younger woman had managed to spread some potentially damaging stories about inept leadership. After putting up with the problem for a time, the older woman saw what looked like a temporary solution. The bank wanted to send a small team of people to sort out complications resulting from a problem loan in South America. The job was expected to take six months. The boss volunteered her subordinate.
"I was careful not to put it to her like a banishment," the boss recalls. "Instead, I made it sound like a special plum. I said I was offering it to her because she'd been doing good work and because I thought she'd benefit from the trip; she could learn a lot. None of this was a lie. She actually wasn't bad at her job. But my main motive, of course, was to get her away from my group for a while. I needed a break."
What she didn't realize was that the seemingly temporary solution could be made permanent. While the troublesome subordinate was away, the older woman reorganized her group so as to compensate for the missing member. In the course of doing this, she stumbled upon a new way to structure the young woman's job--a way that brought her under closer and more effective supervision. The scheming did not stop right away under this new arrangement, but it was enfeebled in its effect. The older woman could handle it more easily. In time, it did stop.
If you can arrange a temporary farming-out for your troublesome subordinate, you may be able to use the respite in a similar way. Try to reorganize the work so that you and/or your observer network can monitor the schemer more effectively and closely. One way to do this is to require more frequent reports on the group's activities. If you are lucky, the farming-out could turn into a permanent absence; your subordinate could see new opportunities or be invited to join a new team permanently. If not, at least you will be prepared for the person's return.
