Quote from John Freeman on January 11, 2024, 6:14 pm

Hello TPM community,

this applies to:

• Manipulators
• Liars
• Lazy
• Complainers
• Drama queens
• Etc.

It's about making them feel good about themselves.

Example: I had this lazy, liar, incompetent, ego fragile, resistant to feed-back/coaching manipulator resident at work (yes it's a lot). She basically trash talked me (and lied) to my bosses. So I became part of the problem. They told me that we "have make do with her for the winter". They don't know she's lazy, liar and a manipulator (yet).

Now I became part of the problem as she basically projected her problems on me. So based on my boss' feedback she told me to go easy on her, which I did. So now what I do:

1. I'm warmer with her
2. Ask her how she is
3. Do the work she did not do
4. Compliment her: in the making
5. Don't tell her her mistakes or in a very face-saving/power protecting way (the hardest part)

All this makes her feel good about herself and she told my bosses. So it makes me look good on 2 fronts:

1. I improved my relationship with her: signs of good social intelligence
2. I took the feed-back to my bosses and applied it: signs of a good follower

Make no mistakes. Slighted manipulators, for good or bad reasons, will take their revenge on us.

Just as sure as the sun rises and sets. It's a given. So let's not give them ammunition. Let's document, tell the bosses what she's doing wrong. Say it lightly to her in a face-saving/power protecting way. So when the day comes when this person does a major fuck-up, the CYA part is dealt with.

This is highly machiavellian as in-between the identification of the manipulator and the big reveal, not once we have been identified as an enemy. And we look professional to our bosses: "I noticed a couple of small things with this resident, nothing big and I'm coaching her...".

In a way, maybe I should have accepted the mediation to expose her lies. If you have any opinion on that I'm curious.

Cheers.

Edit: my biggest mistake was violating the rule: "Make friends not enemies". She was not powerful and I have very very few enemies at work (maybe 3 max). But even if they are not powerful, they can destroy our reputation through smear campaigns. Even the weakest individual can destroy the strongest individual through smear campaigns. So this points out that the people with whom it is critical to be friends are actually.... the manipulators. As they can do the most damage. Sad but true.