Dear Bob ...I was promoted a couple of years ago. Some members on the team did not like it and I went through the usual office politics and jealous behaviour by the team members, including "Mr. B." from the same team. Soon after that, Mr. B. became a project manager. He still holds the grudge against me that he had before I got promoted. He is trying to block my progress, create more issues for me, create a wron Dear Bob …I was promoted a couple of years ago. Some members on the team did not like it and I went through the usual office politics and jealous behaviour by the team members, including “Mr. B.” from the same team. Soon after that, Mr. B. became a project manager. He still holds the grudge against me that he had before I got promoted. He is trying to block my progress, create more issues for me, create a wrong image about me with the business executives. There is always a negative agenda for team meetings and he holds one-on-one meetings with members (secretly) to keep them informed and keep me out of the loop. This is making my job tougher day by day. He is playing with the HR policies and the politics smartly.I have indirectly brought this to Director’s attention but no luck. Now I am a very high performer in the team and always dedicate myself to the quality work. However, I am currently in a position where I cannot immediately leave. Thus it is a double jeopardy for me. If I go to HR it may worsen the situation.Please advise. – Been Shiv’dDear Knifed …I don’t know of a more challenging situation than being on the wrong end of an adept corporate backstabber. I checked my favorite reference for this kind of thing, It Takes More than a Carrot and a Stick, (Wess Roberts, 2001). Wess says, “Heaven doesn’t want them and the Devil is afraid they’ll take over Hell.” As far as being a peer who’s on the wrong side of one, though, there isn’t a lot of advice to give. Wess suggests keeping your interactions to a minimum, giving them as little as possible to work with, and exposing their backstabbing when you have enough evidence to make it stick. None of these sound like they’ll get you where you need to go.The best defense I know of is to spend more time and energy building your own personal network in the company. People who don’t know you are susceptible to what they hear; people who do, and who like and trust you, are more likely to call to let you know it’s being done to you. When they do, sound as relaxed and confident as possible, and say something like, “Yeah, I know. For some reason, Mr. B. seems to have it in for me. I don’t understand it, and he doesn’t seem comfortable talking to me about whatever is on his mind, so I’m just ignoring him.”You know he’s doing it, and from your perspective it’s more like being bitten by a flea than anything else – annoying, but hardly life-threatening. At least, that’s the impression you want to give. Whatever you do, don’t do anything to retaliate. This is corporate game-playing, and if you’re forced to play a game, at least make sure it’s your game. Mr. B. is better than you are at backstabbing, so if you were to respond in kind, the two outcomes would be that (1) you’d harm your reputation by looking like a backstabber yourself; and (2) you’d lose.You can be better at the “I operate at a higher level than he does,” game, though. If he were any good at that, he wouldn’t have to backstab in the first place.This is far from a sure thing. A lot depends on how those hearing Mr. B. respond. Some managers and executives are, shall we say, insufficiently skeptical, accepting whatever they hear first as fact … a situation called “first liar wins.” Others, less naive, are probably as interested in how you deal with the situation as anything else. So the best thing you can do is to say various versions of, “Oh, that’s just Mr. B. again,” in a tone that’s free of stress and just on the right side of being patronizing.– Bob Technology Industry