I spend a lot of time writing about how people can make things better. But what if we entered a mirror universe where I shared how to make things worse for those around you? Could there be something of value learned? I hope so, because I am committing to this concept for the next thousand or so words. Engage!
Inspired by the Beastie Boys song (see their performance on Letterman or the official video), I thought that I might offer up some tips on how one could sabotage productive working relationships, as a leader. Very few things in life are guaranteed, but I am fairly confident that committing to the advice below will absolutely wreck even the hardiest group of people.
A successful team thrives with the help of multidirectional trust, well-articulated roles and responsibilities, and a well-established common goal. How can the person in charge undercut those foundational elements? Quite easily, it turns out, as long as they have a touch of mischief in their heart.
Undermining trust: What some call trust others may call psychological safety; I use trust here to describe a place where everyone feels comfortable being themselves around everyone else, a place where they feel encouraged to contribute without hesitation.
Well, if you want your team to go off the rails, we can’t be having any of that. To destroy the trust your team has placed in you and each other, there are five easy things you can do:
- Be inconsistent: Constantly change your expectations and your standards, without communicating them, of course. Criticize one team member for doing the exact same thing you praised another one for last week, then praise the next person who does it. Think of it as management by RNG.
- Play favorites: Show clear biases in how you relate to your team. Make life easier for some and harder for others. Shower compliments on your favorites while barely tolerating the rest.
- Say different things to different people: Do this just enough that you can’t be totally discounted. Example: tell someone that you think they are doing an excellent job, then tell their colleague they aren’t. Unlike the previous suggestion, this one might be done for ostensibly good reasons—like not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings or appear unsupportive. Whatever the intent, giving people conflicting information leads down the same path: straight to dysfunction.
- Break confidences: Assure someone explicitly that they can trust you, or just take advantage of their faith in you. Promise them that what they say will absolutely go no further than you. Then blab it to everyone. Bonus points if you can use this technique to directly undermine interpersonal relationships, e.g., telling team member A what team member B “really thinks” of them.
- Throw it in their face: A different enough flavor of #4 to get its own entry, this one involves no deception, just patience and a mean streak. Wait until someone opens up to you about a personal vulnerability or candid self-assessment. Pocket that moment of honesty, then, when this person has the nerve to question something you say, throw it back in their face. Bonus points here for doing it publicly to maximize their shame.
Using these five techniques, you should have effectively undermined your team’s trust in you and each other. But dissolving trust might just demoralize your team. You want them actively fighting with each other, which brings us to our next item.
Belligerent ambiguity. Here is where we take those well-defined roles and responsibilities, throw them in a dumpster, and set them on fire. Assign two team members to lead the same initiative without explaining the structure to either of them; they will be arguing in no time. Or give them a group task, leave no one in charge, and go incommunicado until after the deadline. Or give everyone vague job descriptions or guidance that leads them to duplicate their efforts.
Weaponized confusion is a hallmark of dictators. I remember hearing that Stalin used this technique, but don’t have a citation to back it up. The idea here is that if your underlings are preoccupied defending themselves from the perceived line-crossing of others, they will be too busy to think about taking your job and far too mistrustful of each other to work together on replacing you. While I understand the logic of using it in a brutal, high-stakes setting (like your average dictatorship), I struggle to see its efficacy in most contemporary professional settings.
Misdirection. What is a leader? The simplest answer would be, “one who leads.” And what does it mean to lead? Again, a simple answer suggests that to lead is to direct a group in achieving a goal. That goal could be something as ambitious and complex as going to the moon and returning safely to Earth. Or it just be planning a holiday party. The key is that, to lead, one must have a well-defined goal, then use resources and marshal the efforts of their team to achieve it.
When people are working together on a common goal, they bond. They build respect and trust. They share a purpose, a meaning in what they do, helping them overcome hardships and transcend misunderstandings, because they see that their work is in service of a greater good. Very different people can become very close when chasing a shared goal.
Again, you can’t be having any of that if you want your team to implode. So rather than articulate a clear, reachable goal for them, give them vague generalities. Offer no benchmarks for success, or even metrics to measure progress by. Even better, constantly shift your goal, frustrating any attempt at cohesion. The important thing is to make the team feel that their work is not just pointless, but that it is completely valueless. This will help blow up minor miscommunications into major conflicts in short order.
As you can see, breaking a team’s morale isn’t always easy to do, but if one is determined enough, they can turn even the smartest, most empathetic professionals against each other. Even more satisfying, perhaps, enough misfeasance at the top can lead members of the team to question their own integrity and efficacy. Using a few of the tips mentioned above can wobble a team; deploying all of them will disintegrate any chance they have of working together effectively.
Flip/flop/flip, let’s head back to our regular universe, where leaders don’t work to undermine those they work with. Using the “pointers” listed above as a collection of things to never do might help keep your team running smoothly. And perhaps, if you feel something you are thinking about strays into the mirror-leadership universe, don’t bring it into our universe. Choose trust, clarity, and purpose.
So until next time, expect the unexpected, stay informed, and I’ll stay informal.
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