The Downsides of Career Cold Violence

By: Dakotta J.K. Alex. Consultant, Author & Entrepreneur http://www.dakotta.com Click author's name for more of his/her articles

You may not be familiar with the term Career Cold Violence, but that doesn’t mean you’ve never experienced it. Career cold violence is a term that refers to the kind of behavior that occurs when an employee of any given company attempts to harm another employee in some way for their own benefit, or just because they don’t get along too well.

Why People Commit Career Cold Violence
The workplace can be competitive at times, such as when there is a new promotion up for grabs. It’s tempting for an employee to want to use unscrupulous methods to harm the reputation of the competition and secure a position of power or better pay for themselves, or to simply let their dislike for the competition be known.

The Price of Career Cold Violence
However commonplace it may be in some businesses, career cold violence is, to put it bluntly, quite foolish. It’s only human nature to want to take shortcuts, to take the easy road to success. Many people don’t even take any moral issue with “stepping on a few toes” in their run to the top of the company. What makes it foolish is the simple fact that it won’t work in the long run. If you can only succeed by lying about your colleagues, then sooner or later, you’re going to be in a position where people are relying on you to do your job well, and if you haven’t gone through the correct channels and acquired the requisite experience, you’ll find yourself ill equipped for the challenges and responsibilities that your new promotion has granted you. Even if you are capable of handling the responsibilities of a position that you attain through unscrupulous means, there’s still a very good chance that you’re going to be caught in the act of lying about a colleague or otherwise attempting to sabotage their careers. It may be easy to spread a lie, but a lie is more difficult to maintain than the truth is to prove. As the novelist Mark Twain once said “If you never lie, you don’t have to remember as much”. Besides the fact that you may be caught in a lie, what if your attempts to improve your standing through career cold violence do not work? Besides the fact that you will have compromised your professional integrity for nothing, you may damage your standing with your fellow employees. Suppose the person you lied about winds up getting the promotion to supervisor!

To put it simply, we’ll weigh the pros and cons of career cold violence:
Pros
There is a very small chance that you may improve your standing at work through deceit or hostility.
Cons
You may be caught in a lie, and then fired.
The person you lie about may become supervisor, and then find out you lied about them and fire you.
You may show an unflattering side to the people you lie to, and then they may fire you.
You may be promoted and, not having earned the position through your actual qualifications, you may prove incapable of the tasks and be demoted… or fired. There are simply too many risks involved for any sensible person who values their career to contribute to a hostile work environment through career cold violence.

Try to Maintain a Pleasant Work Environment
Remember that nobody wants to make enemies at work. Ideally, we would all like to work with our friends, and the next best thing is to make friends at work, or at the very least, be civil. A workplace is like a small society, and for society to function efficiently and for the members of that society to be comfortable, we need to be fair and civil to everybody we meet, even people we don’t like. In other words, career cold violence is never okay, not even if we think that the victim “has it coming”.

How to Counter Career Cold Violence
Count yourself lucky if it never happens to you, but you may well become the victim of career cold violence during your time working for a company. The way to counter career cold violence is never, never, to try and fight fire with fire. It’s cliché, but it’s cliché because it’s spoken often and it’s spoken often because it’s true: Two wrongs never make a right. If you feel you’re being singled out by a competitive colleague, the right course of action depends on what this person is doing…

Minor hostility
The employee who seems to be treating you with hostility might not necessarily be sabotaging you or lying to your supervisor about your behavior. They may simply be treating you rudely or attempting to distract you during work hours. The best way to deal with this is usually to simply ignore it. Most of the time, a workplace bully will simply cease and desist when they find that their efforts to get a rise out of you are going unrewarded. If this person persists, talk to them directly and ask them to stop, and if that doesn’t work, ask that a supervisor address the issue. Always speak calmly and rationally when addressing at-work conflict. Never raise your voice or use any swear words or say things you may regret later. Just state the facts. Address your colleague’s behavior and explain how it’s bothering you. Even if you’re speaking to your supervisor, it just looks bad on your part if you lose your temper and start pounding your fists on the desk and calling your colleague a “stupid pain in the butt!”

Rumors
It may be that your colleague is spreading rumors about you, perhaps saying that you’re unqualified for the responsibilities that would come with a promotion. Honestly, the best way to disprove rumors about your work ethic and skills is easy to guess: Simply display an exemplary work ethic and take every opportunity to display whether or not you are well equipped for the duties that will come with a promotion. On occasion, you may be forced to address a rumor directly, but most supervisors know how competitive the workplace can be, and that some people are willing to go a little too far to secure their own place on the corporate ladder.

Sabotage
Luckily, this kind of career cold violence is somewhat rare. It’s even a little silly to think that your coworkers might construct elaborate schemes to get you out of the way, thus securing their coveted promotion. However, it still just may happen, so it should be addressed. On rare occasion, an employee may do something extreme to try to get a competing employee fired or otherwise deemed unfit for career advancement. As maybe the most common example of this kind of behavior, this could mean an employee lying to a competing employee about the time a company meeting takes place, causing that employee to show up late and make a bad impression on a superior within the company. To prevent this kind of thing from happening to you, just make sure you have a strong reputation amongst colleagues and supervisors as a responsible employee, stay up to date on schedules and stay up to date on your duties. If you find yourself becoming a victim of this kind of behavior, it’s usually best to go straight to a supervisor or the human resources department and file a complaint.

When a Colleague is Victimized by Career Cold Violence
It may not be you, but a trusted colleague who is being singled out for hostility and bullied by a fellow colleague. Luckily, this puts you at something of an advantage if you feel you need to address the issue personally. The person providing the hostility is more likely to see the distractive force they’re introducing into the workplace if a third party takes issue with their behavior. The same rules apply here as when you’re dealing with your own workplace bully. Be calm, be rational. Don’t lose your temper or become hostile yourself, and if the need arises, bring the issue to a supervisor’s attention.

Don’t Contribute to the Hostility
Sooner or later, most of us have to deal with some degree of hostility in the workplace. It may be that we are never completely rid of this kind of behavior, no matter how hard we try. There will always be some degree of disagreement and differing of opinions at work, there will always be some degree of competition. We all need to be able to handle this conflict maturely and responsibly, though. We all need to do our part by simply not contributing to cold violence in the workplace. Remember that nobody wants to work in a hostile environment. We all would like to simply be able to go to work and come home in peace. It may not always be that way, but it is usually the goal we have in mind. Again, we may never be rid of workplace hostility, but we can at least be certain that, if we refuse to take part in that hostility, we won’t be a part of that hostility.

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About The Author: About the author: Dakotta J.K. Alex, social networking director and author of “Damn, I Need a Job. Again!” and “The Recruiters Guide Book,” is a Global HR Solutions Consultant specializing in human capital recruitment, process management and career analysis in the US, Europe and China. With over 10 years of consultancy experience he has found his niche in the social networking arena and now runs the 3rd largest recruiting network forum www.RecruiterGroups.com in addition to a candidate / recruiter forum known as www.AskTheRecruiter.com. Information regarding Dakotta’s other ventures, books, and articles can be found at www.dakotta.com.