How to Remove Opposition from Your Organization
After Solomon became king, he followed
the instructions of his father, King David, to eliminate
all his foes. This episode is record in 1st Kings
2:1 - 2:46 of the bible. Politically, it was an astute
thing for a leader to do in order to become more
powerful. He eliminated his oppositions by killing
them off.
Today, in some political hotspots of the world,
we can still see some of them. But how about our
work environment? Some work places have developed
political hotspots of their own. Obviously, we cannot
kill the oppositions off, but there are other subtle
ways of eliminating them. In this article, I have
listed down some ways managers can use to eliminating
their oppositions legally. If you have more, please
let me know.
It's a sad thing - an insecure manager will sometimes
try to eliminate his/her staffs even though the latter
can be very competent, talented or even loyal employees.
It does not matter whether you are really against
the manager; as long as the manager thinks you are,
and then you are out.
Talking about losses for the company, this type
of action can even reduce the competitiveness of
a company, especially during times of manpower shortage.
If you are in the Human Resources department, do
take note! Are employees really your greatest assets?
An
insecure manager's goal to eliminate all those
who seem to have a different viewpoint from him
(or
her) depends a lot on his level of maturity. Surprising
as it may seem, the age of a person does not indicate
his level of maturity. In the book, "The 7 Habits
of Highly Effective People", if the manager
is still in the "dependent" level, he often
blames people if anything goes wrong. On the other
hand, the "independent" manager will often
use languages that show that he does not need the
employee. Words like, "I don't need you", "Take
it or leave it", etc, shows a person to have
acquired the independent level of maturity, but still
has not reached the interdependent level.
Very
often, it is difficult for an insecure manager
to move from an "independent" to an "interdependent" level
of maturity, because it involves personal character
building and the ability to let go. That's where
the problem starts. The manager feels insecure. Any
opposition from his subordinates is deemed a threat
to his authority.
What
the insecure manager wants are the "yes-men" in
his department. These people will never answer back
or give any problems. They will spend their time
busy producing piles and piles of reports that cleverly
show the upbeat performances of the department while
hiding the highly critical negative true situations.
Nobody dares question the manager's authority even
though sometimes these are flawed.
If you are an insecure manager, the correct thing
to do is to work on being interdependent. However,
if you are not ready yet, below are some manipulation
techniques that are often used to eliminate your
oppositions. All of them are based on creating difficult
situations for the targeted employees so that they
can leave on their own:
1. Using informers. In this method, the manager
manipulates so that many other people will report
the faults of the targeted person or his area of
responsibility. Naturally, the victim will have to
work extra harder to rectify the faults. (It does
not matter whether other people have the same faults).
The targeted person's subordinate can also be used
as an informer. By listening to the informer, the
manager makes it clear that the target is bypassed
and sidestepped.
2. Adding job responsibilities. Here the manager
heaps on duties that the victim is not familiar with.
Because of this, the victim will have to spend a
lot of time learning. At the same time, the manager
will often breathe down the target's neck asking
for results. Before he can produce the results, new
assignments will be added in.
3. Using abusive languages. The manager uses abusive
languages to criticize the employee. He may also
subtly use psychology to brainwash the employee so
that the latter will feel that he is doing a lousy
job. The manager uses the power of auto-suggestion
for this purpose by consistently repeating it many
times.
4. Spreading false and damaging comments. The manager
may pass the word around that the target is doing
a bad job so that everybody will believe it to be
so. He uses the power of advertisement, and hopes
that the comments will spread by word of mouth to
finally reach the victim.
5. Questioning down. The manager knows that with
the limited time available for the target to do his
work, he will not be able to have all the answers
ready. So by questioning deep into the subject, the
target will usually be left with more questions than
answers. So he has to go back again to find out the
answers, essentially piling up his workload. This
is especially useful at closing time.
6. Assigning chores. In this method, the manager
will immediately assign additional chores to the
targeted person whenever he felt that there is opposition
from the target. He wants to silent him and not gives
him a chance to voice out his opinions.
7. Assigning anything. When the targeted person
is quiet, this method will surely raise tempers and
reactions. By assigning ridiculous assignments to
the targeted person, the manager can show that he
is totally in control and he can do whatever he likes
with the target. The intention is to incite open
opposition or even physical attacks that can be used
as evidence later on.
8. Telling lies. By just telling lies or half-truths
that other people has given some negative feedback
or comments, the manager can create mistrust, raise
tempers and cause disunity amongst the colleagues
of the target. This can also be used to recruit more
informers to go against the target. It is also very
useful to bring the victim's morale down especially
when it is difficult to verify the truth.
9. Hinting resignation. If the target still soldiers
on after the above methods, without giving up, the
manager might want to try dropping hints that he
wants the target to resign.
10. Demanding a resignation. If the hint does not
work, the manager might directly demand a resignation.
11. Issuing show cause letters. If the target still
does not resign after the above, then it calls for
more drastic actions. The most convenient misbehavior
charges that can be used are "insubordination" and "negligence".
By issuing show cause letters, verbal warning, written
warning letters and other documentation whenever
the target does an action that can be interpreted
as insubordination or negligence, the manager can
gather all the evidences that can be used for a legal
dismissal eventually.
12. Domestic enquiry. Getting a domestic enquiry
panel to judge the case often results in findings
in favor of the manager. With all the evidences that
show that the target has been misbehaving, the manager
has grounds to terminate the targeted employee legally.
It's easy for the manager because nobody will dare
to become the victim's witnesses for fear of reprisals.
Furthermore, the panel members can often be handpicked
from the management inner circle.
It is comparatively easy to mastermind incidents
to make life difficult for any unfortunate victim
so that it becomes unbearable. Usually the targeted
person will resign on his own because there is hardly
any future left for him in the company. The unfortunate
person will have become a victim of manipulation.
Is there justice for the victim? Unfortunately there
is none! However there are numerous warnings from
the bible.
If you are that manager who feels so insecure that
you want to adopt the above measures to get rid of
your troublesome subordinate, think again. Eventually
you will lose. Eventually, there will be some consequences
that you will face. The evil that you do will catch
up and come back to haunt you.
In
fact, after King Solomon's death, his kingdom was
divided, which eventually led to more disasters.
As the saying goes, "Do not consider anyone
as blessed before his death, for only then he will
be known." (Sirach 11:28)
If you are at the top rungs of your company, you
can do yourself a favor by removing all the insecure
managers who are practicing these measures. They
will certainly ruin you and your company.
Better to listen to the opposition and know the
real situations facing the company rather than to
let all the good people move on to the competitors.
by
Thomas Yoon
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