Dealing with critters

Dear Bob …

How does one go about dealing with a political guerrilla, one who jumps to attack at any reasonable shortcomings in your area, but refuses to take responsibility or attempts to spin the situation when the shortcomings are on his side of the fence. These people tend to act like Jello when attempting to “nail” them on a particular issue, the Jello, just falls off around the nail and continues to exist more or less unaffected.

An interesting case in point in our organization is one individual that was clearly identified by a strong management person several levels above this person’s boss as being a weasel. Said managment person told the weasel that they must start to transistion their roles and responsibilities to another group. The weasel said “ok”, then did absolutely nothing. Another round of “re-organization” goes through, and weasel is still around, with the possibility that they have even more power than before. I realize this is a “management” problem, in that the weasel’s direct manager is the problem for failing to insist that the weasel has to play by the same rules as everyone else, but as a business peer that must occasionally deal with this person, it is maddening.

– Trying to cope

Dear Trying …

The short version is to ignore the weasel. Since I’ve been in this situation, found it just as maddening as you’re finding it now, and didn’t handle it particularly well, let me try a longer one and see if it helps.

The first thing to remember is an old, time-tested principle: Never wrestle with a pig, because you both get dirty and the pig likes it. Never engage the weasel on his level. (I realize I’m mixing my mammals, but that’s the danger with old sayings).

The second thing to remember is that unlike real weasels, the kind you’re talking about usually lives in a very well-defined pecking order. That means he’ll either think of you as someone to suck up to or someone who should be sucking up to him, but almost certainly not a peer.

So when dealing with the political gorilla (sorry, guerrilla, but I was on a roll with the mammal theme), always act in a way that establishes you as his natural superior, regardless of what it says on the organizational chart.

That means when you’re one-on-one just blow him off the moment he strays from topics directly related to getting the job done. Have a stock of verbal ammunition ready to use when the need arises: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now as I was saying about reducing inventory levels …” “Okay, that’s fine. Now as I was saying about reducing inventory levels …” The point is, you don’t owe this guy a lot of respect, and if you show him much he’ll see it as a sign of weakness.

When you’re dealing with him in public, it isn’t all that different except that you need to make sure your responses establish you as his superior in the eyes of everyone watching the two of you interact. Ronald Reagan used the phrase, “There you go again,” to good effect in this kind of situation. Find phrases suitable to your style to make it clear the guy’s a flea (which isn’t a mammal at all but which does feed off them) in your eyes without making yourself look small at the same time. One possibility: Preface whatever you were going to say with two seconds of uncomfortable silence. Then say, “Let’s get back to the topic at hand.”

If he backstabs you when you aren’t around, just ignore it. He’s a flea. If he stabs when you are around, just ignore it. He’s a flea.

If you make it clear to everyone you’re dealing with, including the weasel, that he’s a flea, chances are good he’ll stop being a political gorilla, or guerrilla … or at least, he’ll lose his ability to affect you.

Isn’t zoology grand?

– Bob

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