How to Handle Workplace Sabotage: Strategies to Overcome Co-workers Undermining You

Ever felt like a co-worker is pulling the wool over your eyes and undermining you without you even realising it? Well, perhaps you can learn a thing or two on how to deal with this from the Netflix series The Mole.

The reality show revolves around this topic, pitting competitors against each other with the objective of increasing the grand prize money by completing a series of challenges as well as figuring out who the ‘mole’ among them is.

The ‘mole’ has actually been hired by the producers to quietly sabotage their efforts and upset the apple cart. The psychological challenge is the unnerving bit, aside from the part where they complete the challenges.

Interestingly, each participant is pretty confident they have the skills to figure out who is trying to sabotage them. The good part about this show is people actually know that there is a Mole, however in real-life office politics, you very often don’t even know who is subtly ruining your efforts at work.

In a HuffPost article, University of Maryland organizational management professor Trevor Foulk said, “If someone is paranoid, they might interpret a simple benign interaction as an insult. For example, if someone walks by in the hall and doesn’t say ‘hi,’ under normal circumstances you’re like, ‘Oh, they’re just busy today.’ But when paranoid, you’re like, ‘Oh, they’re mad at me, why didn’t they say ‘hi?’ Oh, I hope they’re not talking about me behind my back.’”

Some dangerous things a colleague can do includes contradicting you when you speak, and purposely sharing your mistakes rather than giving you feedback privately. Making jokes about you or your work, attacking your work ethic, claiming credit for your work and undermining the authority you have at your workplace.

The obvious thing to do is to try to confront them and build a relationship, this may not always work as they may not want that in the first place, thus the undermining. If you can’t identify the reason for it, share your concerns with a co-worker, manager, or human resource team. Try to be specific about the incidents with times and dates and even witnesses if possible.

Also, be excellent and committed to your work. Foulk says, “If you’re worried that people are talking behind your back, conspiring against you, etc., but you also feel that if it came to it, your manager would support you, the threat that those people represent –– again, whether real or not –– doesn’t seem as bad, since you know you’ll be able to protect yourself even if the threat became real.”

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