Rating: +2
I see these people as opportunistic. By that I mean that they are constantly taking advantage of the situation - often unethically. They are out for themselves and seem to see the rest of the world as ‘prey’ to be manipulated and consumed – insensitive to others and self-consumed. This type has been a real pain and challenge to deal with. My questions are: How do you deal with there predatory types? What strategies (if any) have you found that work? What damage have you seen them do?
Hello Earl & how are you !
I've read through many of the replies. And first, a few assumptions regarding your question to ensure correct context. 1) Your context is "in business" 2) These "predators" can also be classified as "political" animals, or those who are trying to get ahead via political will power vs. their accomplishments. And as accomplishments are generally the accepted method for promotion, they spend a good amount of their political will trying to take credit for the accomplishments of others. They are generally in a peer organization, otherwise you would just fire them. They have no problem with devious and unethical behavior and generally live by the credo that perception is reality so they are experts are creating false "perception" - note that the later means that their are many gullible people in this persons circle, which is another problem all unto itself.
OK, here is the problem with many of the approaches rendered thus far; it's like getting into a boxing ring with what we call an unorthodox style of boxing. It's very difficult to synthesize a plan, because your opponent has no plan themselves, punches are coming from anywhere, anyplace and with no rhyme or reason.
Given that premise, an organization should guard against these type of employees. The same way a good boxing coach keeps his fighter out of the ring with these types of fighters. There are many organizations and leaders that over time have stomped out this type of behavior, Andy Grove at Intel was one – my understanding from former Intel people, is that Grove had zero tolerance for ‘empire builders’ and he would eradicate them on the spot – so that’s one method is to have a zero tolerance policy for that type of “political empire building” however, note what I already stated above-if someone in the organization is already succeeding with this predatory type behavior, then you have that other issue where there are to many gullibles in the organization, probably at higher rungs, so “ouch” and “good luck” in that instance.
Lastly, my 80 year old once put it best when I went to her with a dilemma, she said that sometimes you can talk and talk and talk, but nothing you say can replace a good old fashion a$$ whipping.
Good Luck,
Peter
August 2007