Judas Project

Have you experienced betrayal in the workplace? Would you like to tell your story? Then I would like to hear from you. Please email your story to betrayalintheoffice@yahoo.com.

I am writing a book on betrayal in the work place and I want to include personal stories to help those who have experienced betrayal share what happened to them the ramifications of the betrayal both to the betrayed and the betrayer and how as the betrayed they were able to move on. The goals for the project include helping all of us learn from each others' experiences and help prevent/eradicate betrayal in the office.

Interpersonal interactions in the office place have frequently been labeled "office politics," and are often characterized as unavoidable. I don't accept this premise. Any time we have human beings interacting, we have interpersonal relationships and should think of them as such and work to have the most positive interpersonal relationships we can as opposed to painting them with the same negative connotations often associated with the ugliness that occurs in the political arena.

Within the interpersonal interactions within the office, the very worst act is that of betraying a confidence. The very worst outcome of betrayal is a worker losing a job as a result of being betrayed. Note that we are not discussing whistle blowing or actions to bring to light a fellow employee's illegal acts. We are talking about sharing hurtful personal information with the intent of showing flaws in an individual's character that can lead management to see that individual in a negative light.

While my research suggests that persons betrayed may have made errors in judgment that put them in a vulnerable spot, many of those who paid the price for sharing personal information, which resulted in a range of negative job actions, would not have received any negative job actions without their own personal Judas betraying them.

So while we should always and be judicious in what we share about ourselves, we should not have to be worried about coworkers gathering information to use against us. I believe that the work I am doing on the Judas project can assist in making the workplace a kinder, gentler, environment for all of us. While I don't advocate complete transparency and free talk, I do believe we need to work in safe environments where a reasonable amount of personal disclosure enhances our interpersonal relationships and does not provide ammunition for the gun aimed at our back.

I would appreciate receiving your comments and your story at betrayalintheoffice@yahoo.com.

God Bless

Can't Versus Won't

If you want to empower your life, one of the things you can do is look at the words you use. Words have power and they impact our thoughts and feelings. That old nursery rhyme we were taught about sticks and stones breaking our bones but names not hurting us is nonsense. A simple example of the power and emotions associated with words involves replacing the word can’t with the word won’t.

Using the word can’t seems to make people believe they are absolved from taking responsibility for their actions. For example, I often hear people say things like, “I can’t stop thinking about her,” or “I just can’t control my appetite.” It is more accurate and more empowering to say, “I won’t stop thinking about her,” and “I won’t control my appetite.”

The new wording tells us that we are in control and at choice. Being in control and at choice comes with responsibility. I believe that is what people are running from when they use the word can’t. Want to put words to work for you and have a better life? Try replacing can’t with won’t. Then, if you won’t do something at least you know you are making a choice and you can take responsibility for that choice. Continuing to think in terms of won't versus can't may also lead to you finding that you can change if you want to since now you know you it is your decision and you are not powerless.

Opportunity Boulevard - Career Fair

If you are looking for a job in southern Nevada, you have to check out Recruiting Nevada and attend one of the career fairs put on by Doug Geinzer and Opportunity Boulevard. Recently I had the privilege of representing the State of Nevada at an Opportunity Boulevard career fair and I was truly impressed. With over twenty-five years of human resources experience, I have had the opportunity to represent my employers at numerous career fairs. I also worked with two very energetic police officers I supervised at the LVMPD to establish the Southern Nevada Public Safety Career Fair and Exposition, which featured all of the public safety agencies in Nevada.

With all of that experience, I can honestly say that I have never attended a better run fair than Opportunity Boulevard. They did it right providing the best possible experience for applicants and presenters. In particular, Opportunity Boulevard staff provided tremendous support, amble set up time, lunch, bottled water, break out rooms for interviews, advertising, copy machines, and great applicants. In addition, they provided presenters with a bag of career fair survival tools, which included mints and hand sanitizer, two essentials for any career fair.

After the event, Opportunity Boulevard hosted a social event for employers that provided valuable time to network with other recruiters and share valuable information.

Backstabbing At Work

I originally posted this article on another website and the response to it has led me to write a book on backstabbing/betrayal in the workplace. Watch this site for more details about the book and how you can contribute your story, if you have one, about how you were betrayed in the work place.

While I discuss office politics in this article, I find the term derogatory and prefer to think of the interpersonal interactions between people in the workplace as just that, interpersonal interactions. This helps me avoid ascribing negative connotations often associated with politics to those interactions we all experience in the workplace.

Office Politics – The Age Old Art of Backstabbing

The O’Jays warned us in their song “The Backstabbers,” they sang, “beware the backstabbers they smile in your face, and all the while they want to be in your place.” Obviously, they or a member of their group had experienced the devastating effects of backstabbing and felt strongly enough about the experience to write and sing about it. Backstabbing or betrayal has been with us since biblical times, at least, and is particularly well documented in Judas’s betrayal of Jesus. Judas learned his lesson and paid a heavy price for his indiscretion. Jesus’ words indicate the magnitude of this sin and suggest that Judas may still be paying for his betrayal, for He said, “it would be better for that man if he had never been born.”

Jesus forgave Judas and in so doing gave us the example of the type of forgiveness we are to have also. In addition, He demonstrated the anguish associated with the sting of betrayal. The lesson is the victim forgives and the backstabber carries the pain. Both parties move on with their lives and careers, but the damage to both is done and very often cannot be undone.

Having been the unwitting victim of backstabbing, I have made an effort to study this phenomenon and the role it plays in undoing managers and other executives. Most individuals who have lost jobs, been passed over for promotion, had their reputations sullied, or who have just been hurt in the workplace as a result of back stabbing were shocked, as I was, to find out that the betrayer was a personal friend and confidant. Further, the anecdotal information I have collected in my research suggests that many of the job actions taken against the victims would not have occurred if they had not been betrayed.

That is to say that even though, some of these individuals had committed political blunders in their work environment, they would not have led to their undoing without the aid of a Judas working behind the scenes. Similar to Julius Caesar’s fate, they were murdered; they did not commit suicide and would have survived their minor blunders had they not been stabbed repeatedly.

It is difficult to identify all the motivators that encourage someone to become a backstabber. Perpetrator profiles are numerous and varied. Sometimes they are motivated out of ambition; sometimes they believe their tattling about information shared with them in private will somehow benefit the victim if made known to supervisors. Some perpetrators are hungry for power and some are hurt or jealous. Whatever the motivators, there is never a good reason and ultimately the perpetrator and the victim both suffer.

So other than admonishing those would be backstabbers against the horrors of this truly ugly work place sin and the ravages it causes for all those involved, the question is what can be done to eliminate this workplace crime. Each individual in a work setting must guard against being on either or both sides of betrayal. That is we must consciously avoid being betrayed or a betrayer.

Neither of these are necessarily easy. Our desire for friendship and our felt need to vent often put us in the position of wanting to share information best kept to ourselves. Additionally our selfish desires for power, getting even, teaching people a lesson, wanting things our own way and on and on lead us toward indiscretion. So first of all we must learn to be friendly in the workplace and set boundaries. Not everything needs to be shared and a great deal should not be. In one of his Psalms, David said, “Set a guard O Lord, before my mouth, keep watch at the door of my lips.” It would be good for all those that wish to avoid being betrayed to make this our continual prayer. Similarly, it is good to edit what we have to say.

It may not be comfortable to question ourselves regarding every word that comes out of our mouths but it is important to ask questions like: Do I want everyone to know this about me? How might my supervisor view this? Could someone use this against me? Is sharing this going to have a positive impact on my reputation? Is this really something people should know? If we learn to edit what we say and we keep our personal lives personal we help eliminate one side of the betrayal paradigm.

All of us must also come against those temptations we have to be the betrayer. We must realize that there is no such thing as harmless gossip and everything we pass on can come to hurt us as well as the person we are talking about. Unless a person is just plain evil and delights in hurting himself and others, thinking about what damage could be done by spreading rumors and betraying confidences should be enough to curb this type of behavior. While some to the sayings may be trite, it is good to remember that what goes around comes around. In my limited research, I did find several instances where efforts made by subordinates to intentionally unseat superiors backfired and resulted in their own terminations. So if you are not one of those individuals motivated by doing the right thing remember the fate of those who played the Judas role and Judas’s own remorse that caused him to hang himself.

Office politics may always be with us, but life can be better for all of us if we work at limiting our conversations both in what we share about ourselves and what we share about others. Information shared in confidence should be kept in confidence and if you are about to tell someone something you have to preface with, “don’t tell anyone, but”…stop. If someone prefaces what he or she is going to tell you with, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this but,” tell him or her, “then don’t tell me.” If someone starts complaining to you about a coworker to you, tell him or her to stop until you have a chance to invite the coworker in so he or she can provide his or her side of the story. It may not be easy or comfortable at first, but you will find that you don’t get drug into situations you don’t want to be in. Ultimately you will gain the respect of your coworkers. Truly the work life you save could be your own.

Feeling versus Thinking

As a writer, I am continually striving to find the exact words to precisely convey what I am thinking and feeling. As a marriage and family therapist I was continually working with clients to help them understand their thoughts and feelings. There are distinct differences between the two and I believe that somehow we have allowed the distinction to get lost by failing to take responsibility for our beliefs. That is, so much of pop psychology has taught us that we are entitled to our feelings. Therefore, it is not a gigantic leap for us to believe that if we label everything as a feeling, then we don't have to take responsibility for any of our thinking.

Feelings represent emotions such as happy, sad, angry, fear, and joy. Feelings are not represented by conclusions that involve cognitive processes such as reasoning. Saying, "I just feel like he would make a good president," is nonsense and a total failure to take responsibility. I believe people that say things like that are afraid to say what they think and be accountable for their thinking. It is so much easier to say, "I feel," but it is wrong.

If you want to move forward in your life, stop hiding behind the words you use and take responsibility for your own thoughts. Learning to separate your thoughts and feeling will help you to integrate your life and more effectively deal with both. When you're happy or sad, please say, I feel happy or sad, but when you have a thought, say, I believe, or I think and you will be more honest with yourself and everyone else. You may also learn to edit your thoughts before they are verbalized and become a more effective communicator. I challenge you to give it a trial run.

How Feeling Comfortable Equals Success in Job Interviews

This is an article on interviewing that I posted sometime ago on Helium.com. It is intended to assist job seekers with their interviewing skills.

Volumes have been written by well-intentioned, knowledgeable people about how to succeed in the job interview process. Unfortunately, these articles often leave one with the impression that the proper presentation skills are the key to getting the job you want. Further, there is a lot left unsaid and the advice provided may be overly detailed and thus a bit daunting for most people to follow. Not discounting the value of these articles, it is important to be aware of some of the simple basics that the “self-help” literature leaves out.

Since you’ve probably never read anything I have written, let me say that I am a personnel professional who has earned his living writing oral interview questions and training interview panels for the last twenty-five years. In that regard, I have had the opportunity to observe thousands of candidates as they have gone through interviews with panel members I have trained as they ask questions I have written and rate candidates on factors I created from job analyses I conducted. In addition, I have sat in on review sessions as these board members have discussed the applicants they have interviewed. I hope that provides some credibility for what I have to say since I have also spent years training interview candidates and demystifying the interview process for them.

First and foremost, you have to bring the goods. That is, you have to be qualified for the position you seek. Too often the focus on presentation skills misguides candidates into ignoring the fact that the goal of the interview process is to select the most qualified applicant for the job. Post interview debriefings always focus on who is the best fit for the job and the discussion centers on qualifications. Slick presenters without the qualifications to support claims don’t fare well when it comes to ratings. The shortcomings in presentations of well-qualified applicants are typically dismissed. Unless there are glaring problems with the way a candidate presents himself that turns raters off, qualifications always take precedence over presentation. So the key to an acceptable showing is to avoid turning the raters off which translates into building rapport.

There are several things that go into building rapport, but fundamentally it breaks down to being as similar to the raters as possible in thinking and dress while showing an interest in the job, the company, and the raters. Rapport also requires that the candidate be honest and keep answers simple. Honesty includes knowing the job, knowing oneself and having an accurate assessment of both. Since the panel members are looking for a match between the candidate and the job, it is the responsibility of the candidate to be able to demonstrate that match. Simple, direct, concise, and accurate answers to questions help raters see candidates in the job they are seeking and raters who see themselves as successful in their careers need to see attributes similar to theirs in the employees they select to be part of their team. Trying to second-guess what raters are looking for and thus not being true to ones own beliefs and values leads to failure. Two bad things happen to interviewees who display this type of dishonesty. First, they don’t get the job and are left confused wondering if they should have been someone else or second, they do get the job and are left trying to live up to a lie in a position that wasn’t a match. The same two possibilities exist for a candidate that is honest, but in this case they are both good. If you get the job you can have confidence that you are a match for the position and you were selected for whom you are. If you don’t get the job you can reevaluate who you are in relation to the field or the position and console yourself with the confidence that you did your best and there was, with good probability, someone with better qualifications.

Back to the suit, yes do wear a suit, but be sure it fits and it reflects the standards of the company. This requires doing your homework and trying them both on before the interview. You must be comfortable in the suit and you must be sure the company is just as comfortable a fit. Again this all helps build rapport, bolsters your confidence and helps present what you have to offer in the best light possible. In that regard, present your qualifications in a confident manner without being arrogant. Don’t try to sell yourself and don’t take credit for other people’s work. Show the raters that you know the job and how your qualifications match up – demonstrate the match. Be sure to thank them for their time and implement the positive suggestions you’ve read from the extensive literature out there let them know your level of interest and that you look forward to hearing from them. Finally, rest in knowing that you did the best you could and you are more prepared for next time if you weren’t the one selected this time.

Lighten Up and Live

Consistent with the intent of this blog is providing information associated with living a balanced and integrated life. Human beings are more than the sum of our parts and in order to reach our true potential we must avoid segmenting and compartmentalizing our lives. We play many roles in life and whether we acknowledge them all at any one time or not, they are with us. They influence our thinking and our view of the world. Therefore, it is good to be aware of these roles and their impact on our actions in any given situation. Whatever the dominant role we are in at any particular moment, I believe we should never lose our sense of humor. It is not good for our health to take ourselves too seriously. Laughter has proven to have many healthful affects upon our bodies and I encourage people to, as my favorite comedian Ken Davis says, “Lighten up and live.” If you haven’t visited his website, I encourage you to do so. You can find him at Ken Davis.com or Ken Davis Blog. Enjoy his humor and reap the healthful rewards.

Proverbs 17:22
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Up Your Interview IQ

If you’re in a position to conduct selection interviews then you’ve probably had the opportunity to practice and you most likely have done some research. A relatively recent trend in interviewing has been the evolution toward what are known as behavioral questions or I prefer the term behaviorally based since all interview questions elicit behaviors. Several articles have been written regarding the types of interview questions with each article coming up with its own number and descriptions based on the experience of or research conducted by the author and many of the articles conclude by recommending behavioral interviews. I take a broader approach to interviewing and suggest that each type of question regardless of its categorization can have its place in the interview process given that it does not discriminate on an illegal basis. Again, a fine point, but all interview questions are intended to discriminate on the basis of relative suitability for the position in question. Therefore, to simply say a question should not be discriminatory is not accurate.

Having started my career as a psychology associate and having had several years of experience as a school psychologist and marriage and family therapist in addition to twenty-five plus years of experience in the human resources field, I have considered myself a student of the interview process. After conducting hundreds of psychological interviews, I was introduced to the subject of employment interviewing by my original mentor in the field, Jack Feldhaus, PhD. In addition to focusing on creating and conducting structured oral boards, my work with him and my subsequent work in human resources has focused on maximizing the effectiveness of the interviewing process.

It is generally recognized that open-ended questions that encourage applicants to do the majority of the talking contribute to gaining the most information about the candidate. Since more information generally assists in the reliability of results, it is desirable to gain as much information about candidates as possible. Combining this tenet with another basic tenet of personnel selection is the concept that past performance is the best predictor of future performance has led to behavioral questions coming into vogue. I began using behaviorally based questions while at the City of Henderson and have used them for over fifteen years with thousands of applicants. In fact when I first started incorporating this type of question, the form was so new that I called them situational questions in the interviewing manual I wrote for the City of Henderson.

Essentially behaviorally based questions ask candidates to describe a situation where they demonstrated a particular knowledge or ability. In structured interviews based on an appropriate job analysis, the questions and responses are tied back to a specific knowledge or rating factor that has been demonstrated to be required in the job. The knowledge domains give rise to questions to measure those domains. Common examples along with the domain they measure include:

“Tell us about a time you believe you demonstrated leadership.” (Leadership)

“Describe a situation where you believe you showed exceptional customer service.” (Customer Service)

“Tell us about a time you demonstrated your management style.” (Management)

“Describe a situation where you believe you demonstrated organizational ability.” (Organizational Ability)

“Tell me about a situation where you displayed your ability to deal with a difficult customer.” (Verbal Communication, Problem Solving)

“Tell me about a time you made a mistake in your work.” (Problem Solving, Honesty, Verbal Communication)

Okay so you get the idea. The key to having awesome interviewing skills or a high interview IQ rests in the development of the exam, choosing the right questions and the follow-up questions. Follow-up questions are particularly critical if you want to get the most out of behavioral questions. One of the beautiful things about behaviorally based questions is that they put the candidates back into the situation you are asking them to describe and that situation is typically emotionally laden. Reviewing the situation, candidates often feel the same emotions that they experienced in the situation and these emotions tend to come out in the interview since most candidates tend to become disarmed by experiencing their previous emotions. This gives you an opportunity to observe the congruity between what is being said and what was actually done. Further, the descriptions provided by candidates usually go beyond saying what they believe an interviewer wants to hear. Additionally, if you have utilized hypothetical questions to ask candidates what they believe they would do in hypothetical situations, you can compare those answers to what they actually did in real situations.

In order for all this to work though, it requires some pinning down. My experience has shown that candidates try to avoid direct and complete answers to behavioral questions. I characterize four types of candidates in the regard: shotgunners, eels, generalizers, and artful dodgers. Shotgunners are the ones that go so broad in their answers that you can’t tell what they are talking about with the hope that somehow by shooting all over the place they have hit the target you were looking for. Generalizers love to say “we” and you can’t tell for sure what they did. Eels are slippery and tend to use statements like, “I think I would…” Artful dodgers are similar and they tend to use some of these dodging techniques in all their responses. Regardless of the dodge or how you want to describe it, they can all be defeated with follow up questions. This is when interviewing gets even more interesting than it already is.

Follow up questions essentially go back to the original question and restate it to include part of the language used by the dodger.

Shotgunners – “Thank you for that detailed response, can we go back to specifically what you did and what you said in that particular situation and please make your answer concise.”

Generalizers – “Please tell me exactly what you role was on that team project and specifically what you provided in meeting the team goal.”

Eels – “I can appreciate how you would see that story is related, but what we want to know is how you handled the last complaint that a customer had about you. Be sure to tell us what the complaint was, whether or not it was true, what you did about it and what happened afterward.”

In addition to reestablishing the interviewing relationship, follow ups break down barriers between interviewers and candidates allowing for a more real dialog that tells you as the interviewer what you need to know to make the best selection possible. Also never forget the most important follow up question, "Why?" The why behind a person's actions is almost always more telling than what they did. Congratulations, if you read this whole post, you’ve just increased your interviewing IQ. Keep an eye on this site for more tips in the future.