Recently I wrote a piece about how to undermine your subordinates. It ended with a facetious comment about my forthcoming article on undermining your boss, which I had no plans ever to write. But I've had so many requests from readers (some of them obviously desperate) that I was compelled to write what you're about to read.
But I've learned my lesson, so here's a facetiousness warning: almost none of the following is serious.
The First Principle of Undermining Your Boss is: Don't Get Caught At It. No, wait, that's the Second Principle. The First principle is: Do Not Ever Do It. Ever. It should be obvious why not, but here's the reason: Your Boss Can Get or Already Has Much More Powerful Tools for Revenge Than You Do.
OK. Now we have that out of the way. Here's how to do it.
- There's only one reason to undermine your boss
- Some people hope they can get their bosses transferred or terminated, or even take over their boss's job. These outcomes are extremely unlikely, because every incompetent boss who somehow stays employed has a supervisor who wants it that way — or who is just as incompetent.
- Fixing things is a fantasy. The only reason to even try to undermine your boss is Ecstatic Enjoyment. Oh, and maybe sometimes Revenge.
- At the right time, do nothing
- When you notice something happening that you could help with, don't. Pretend you didn't notice it. Go to lunch. Whistle a merry tune.
- Of course, if your boss asks you to assist, that's completely different. But since your goal is undermining your boss, requests for assistance always present delicious possibilities.
- Get help from Human Resources
- When it comes to undermining your boss, HumanNothing juicy in Human Resources
is ever really confidential
for very long Resources can work magic. But they need a reason. Ask for a confidential counseling session. Confidentiality might seem to be counterproductive here, but remember: nothing juicy in Human Resources is ever really confidential for very long. - In the session, ask in a solemn tone, "If someone knows of something unethical going on, are they obligated to report it?" Ignore the answer. It's asking the question that counts. If that doesn't get HR going, then ask, "If someone wants to report something unethical, how can I do that anonymously?"
- Be publicly supportive in useless ways
- In public, always support your boss. Since undermining is your actual goal, you don't want to be on the list of suspects when they try to figure out who could have said or done whatever was said or done.
- But don't go overboard. Don't actually do anything that would help. If your co-workers all hate you, then your public stance is working. You're safe. From your boss, that is — from your co-workers, maybe not.
If you do any of this, be ready at a moment's notice to start a job search. Even better: skip over all of it and start a job search now. Top Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
- Scopemonging: When Scope Creep Is Intentional
- Scope creep is the tendency of some projects to expand their goals. Usually, we think of scope creep
as an unintended consequence of a series of well-intentioned choices. But sometimes, it's much more than that.
- Why Others Do What They Do
- If you're human, you make mistakes. A particularly expensive kind of mistake is guessing incorrectly
why others do what they do. Here are some of the ways we get this wrong.
- Failure Foreordained
- Performance Improvement Plans help supervisors guide their subordinates toward improved performance.
But they can also be used to develop documentation to support termination. How can subordinates tell
whether a PIP is a real opportunity to improve?
- Some Hazards of Skip-Level Interviews: III
- Skip-level interviews — dialogs between a subordinate and the subordinate's supervisor's supervisor
— can be hazardous. Here's Part III of a little catalog of the hazards, emphasizing subordinate-initiated
skip-level interviews.
- Time to Let Go of Plan A
- We had a plan. It was a good one. Our plan seemed to work for a while. But then troubles began. And
now things look very bleak. But people can't let go of the plan. For some teams in this situation, there
isn't a Plan B. For others, Plan B is a secret.
See also Workplace Politics and Managing Your Boss for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming March 20: Top Ten Ways to Make Meetings More Effective
- Meetings are just about everybody's least favorite part of working in organizations. We can do much better if only we take a few simple steps to improve them. The big one: publish the agenda in advance. Here are nine other steps to improve meetings. Available here and by RSS on March 20.
- And on March 27: Allocating Action Items
- From time to time in meetings we discover tasks that need doing. We call them "action items." And we use our list of open action items as a guide for tracking the work of the group. How we decide who gets what action item can sometimes affect our success. Available here and by RSS on March 27.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group