Disinformation in the Workplace

Spend a rainy day reading a corporate espionage thriller like Paranoia by Joseph Finder and you will learn a valuable lesson. In the corporate world, things are not always what they seem. This blog entry encourages you to become a judicious user of information in your job.

Today's workplace is a dog-eat-dog world where many will go to great lengths to get ahead. Call it their indoctrination into conspicuous consumerism, looking out for number one, or bending under the pressure of providing for a family. Whatever the motives, employees can be bent to the wills of their more calculating colleagues if they are not careful. Where does that leave you, a person who prides yourself on integrity and a high moral code?

Here is the best advice. It's like the old saying-believe only half of what you hear and a quarter of what you see, or something like that. If you are in a job where you have to make decisions based on information provided by other people, make consistent efforts to verify information. It might be as simple as checking someone's facts or interviewing employees who prepared reports. It might be calling someone's secretary to confirm the reason why they were unable to attend a meeting. If you want to accept people at face value, that is a noble sentiment, but it does not protect you when you become the unwitting pawn in someone else's scheme. The best solution is to strive to track down information for yourself, to test what people say for reliability, and to always consider the source of information.

Part of the strategy to survive in your job is to trust your instincts and to question the motives of people who try to help you. For example, if you sense that someone is setting you up to look bad in a meeting, perhaps they are. If a promotion or other perk offered by someone in the company seems too good to be true, maybe it is.

There is a fine line to walk between paranoia and building relationships with other professionals whom you can trust. You've just got to be skeptical about what you believe and who you believe. You've got to be wary about not letting people use you to get ahead in their own careers. You've got to protect yourself from being assigned the work that no one else wants. You've got to establish a reputation for being shrewd and good at what you do. If you don't set yourself up to be a target, then you reduce the likelihood that you will be tricked into helping the wrong person.

Be a shrewd player in your company and always consider where information comes from. You never know what the motives of the person passing it along might be.