Page 112 - Executive Warfare

EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE

Fiorina dealt with this by storming the man’s office: “I startled him....
He started to get up. I said, ‘Sit down,’ and strode quickly to his desk and
stood beside it as close to him as possi-
ble. I literally towered over him.” After
USE
getting the man to admit she’d never
DISINFORMATION
taken credit for anyone else’s work, she
TO TRICK DOUBLE
ended by telling him, “From now on, if
AGENTS INTO
you want to say something behind my
REVEALING
back, you’d better be willing to say it to
THEMSELVES.
my face.”
An admirably direct way of dealing
with the problem—but in my experience, openly confronting an enemy
and telling him that you are a good person, so cut it out, almost never
works. Shame tends not to be much of a deterrent with people who are
this underhanded. Knowing that you know doesn’t embarrass them as
much as it drives them underground
and makes them even more devious.
OPENLY
So what about retaliating in kind?
CONFRONTING AN
The temptation that one has to resist is
ENEMY AND
starting nasty rumors about people
TELLING HIM THAT
who’ve spread nasty rumors about you.
YOU ARE A GOOD
This is a real test of self-discipline. If
PERSON, SO CUT IT
you do it, the rest of the organization
OUT, ALMOST
sees that you are no better than your
NEVER WORKS.
foes. So don’t.
The best way to deal with a really
treacherous peer is to discredit her so that the next time she says something
ugly about you, it simply splashes back.
Let me tell you about my own experience with a peer who turned out
to be a particularly subtle and malicious enemy. For years, I’d had these
embarrassing problems.Any time I sent an e-mail critical of what was hap-
pening anywhere in the company, it would somehow find its way to the

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