Games At Work E-Book

Mauricio Goldstein

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 307

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

AS LONG AS PEOPLE HAVE WORKED together, they have engaged in political games. Motivated by short-term gains--promotions, funding for a project, budget increases, status with the boss--people misuse their time and energy. Today, when many organizations are fighting for their lives and scarce resources there is increased stress and anxiety, and employees are engaging in games more intensely than ever before. Organizational experts Mauricio Goldstein and Philip Read argue that office games--those manipulative behaviors that distract employees from achieving their mission--are both conscious and unconscious. They can and should be effectively minimized. In Games at Work, the authors offer tools to diagnose the most common games that people play and outline a three-step process to effectively deal with them. Some of the games they explore include: * GOTCHA: identifying and communicating others' mistakes in an effort to win points from higher-ups * GOSSIP: engaging in the classic rumor mill to gain political advantage * SANDBAGGING: purposely low-balling sales forecasts as a negotiating ploy * GRAY ZONE: deliberately fostering ambiguity or lack of clarity about who should do what to avoid accountability Filled with real-world, entertaining examples of games in action, Games at Work is an invaluable resource for managers and all professionals who want to substitute straight talk for games in their organizations and boost productivity, commitment, innovation, and--ultimately--the bottom line.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

The Marginalize Game

Games: An Under-the-Radar Problem

What This Book Will Tell You and How It Will Tell It

Who This Book Is for and How to Use It

CHAPTER 1 - Let the Games Begin What Games Are and How They Are Played in Organizations

The Theory and Practice of Games

The Traits: Signs and Symptoms That a Game Is Being Played

The Names of the Games: What They Are, How They’re Played, and Why They’re Harmful

A Range of Attitudes: Game Consciousness

CHAPTER 2 - Playing to Lose The Negative Impact of Games on Core Business Activities

A Finger-Pointing Environment

The Four Effects of Unmanaged Game Playing

Games—a Dirty Little Corporate Secret

Effect on Specific Leadership Functions and Tasks

Self-Assessment

CHAPTER 3 - Fertile Ground Why Games Are So Pervasive in Modern Corporations

Coping Mechanism: A Response to Uncertainty

Internal and External Factors Foster Game Playing

Portrait of a Game-Playing Team

Assess the Impact of Trends and Events on Your Group’s Games

CHAPTER 4 - Eyes Wide Shut Why People Don’t Deal with Games at Work

Four Reasons Not to Confront Games

Why Aren’t You Confronting Games at Work?

Bad Reasons, Good Excuses: Challenge Your Assumptions

CHAPTER 5 - An Eye-Opening Experience Awakening to Games

Sleeping Beauty: A Trance-Like State

Warning Signs: Interpreting What Game Players in a Trance Are Really Saying

Feeling Alarmed

Seizing the Opportunity: Accepting and Moving Forward

CHAPTER 6 - Count Me Out Choosing Not to Play

Needs, Anxiety, and Choice

To Play or Not to Play: That Is the Question

To Play: Opportunistic, Rationalizing, Internalizing

Not to Play: Exit or Choose Intimacy

A Choice You Make from Your Gut as Much as from Your Mind

Getting Ready for the Choice: Authenticity and Courage

CHAPTER 7 - Game, Interrupted Executing Your Choice

Positive and Negative Forces: Increase One, Decrease the Other

Interrupting: Knowing the Points Where You Can Intervene

The Steps for Interrupting a Game

The Steps Toward Open and Ongoing Dialogue

CHAPTER 8 - Interconnections How Games Are Linked In to an Ecology

The Invisible Links Between Connected Games

Identifying Your Game Ecology

A Diagnostic for the Game-Playing Aspect of a Culture

Organizational Games DNA

CHAPTER 9 - The Challenge of Change Toward a Games-Conscious Model of Transformation

A Dual Negative Impact

Anatomy of a Change: An Example of Games DNA in Action

Overcoming Games DNA and Inertia

A Games-Conscious Model of Transformation

CHAPTER 10 - Games at the Top The Impact of Playing in the Executive Suite

Why CEOs Play Games

A More Pragmatic Approach

A New CEO Responsibility: Maintaining a Low-Game Environment

CHAPTER 11 - A Sustainable Goal Transforming Organizations in Small but ...

The Evolution of Composite Corporation

Five Principles to Keep in Mind

APPENDIX - LIST OF GAMES

REFERENCES

Acknowledgements

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

INDEX

Praise forGames at Work

“What types of counterproductive games can you find in your organization? You are probably not aware of many of them, nor aware of the harmful long-term effects they produce. Reading Games at Work will increase your consciousness of the games played in the organizational arena and give you tips on how to neutralize them. An entertaining and insightful read.”

—Ney Simone Silva, head of human resources, Camargo Corrêa—Engineering & Construction

“Goldstein and Read have identified a very important and overlooked area within organizations. Their analysis underlines how organizational games can undermine performance at both a personal and organizational level. Vigilance is needed if high performance is to be achieved.”

—Norman Walker, senior advisor, TPG

“Outstanding way to describe in simple words and with a good sense of humor the real dynamics of corporate life. Games at Work is a must-read for newcomers and experienced people in global business who want to understand better how to identify and ‘play’ these unavoidable corporate games!”

—Mauricio M. Adade, president, DSM Nutritional Products, Human Nutrition and Health

“Deep insights into not only the corridors and meeting rooms but also the ‘minds’ of organizations! A must-read for everyone who wants to be aware of games played in big organizations but not necessarily abide by their rules.”

—Tarek Rabah, marketing company president, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Gulf region

“An entertaining and practical tool kit for recognizing and correcting dysfunctional behavior in the workplace. With their vast experience working in many countries around the world and grounded in their rigorous research, Goldstein and Read serve as cultural anthropologists in credibly describing the games that the reader may never have noticed before and now recognize as true. This book is a must-read for all who are committed to improving the communications and culture of their organizations.”

—Tom Gross, founder and managing partner, Genesis Consulting Group

“Games at Work will help you recognize and reduce the unproductive games employees play in your organization.”

—Eric Poll, founder, OrgInt—Organisational Intelligence; former corporate vice president of human resources, Leica Geosystems

Copyright © 2009 by Mauricio Goldstein and Philip Read

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Goldstein, Mauricio.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-45883-9

1. Office politics. I. Read, Philip. II. Title.

HF5386.5.G65 2009

658.4’095—dc22

2008055669

HB Printing

For Larissa, Yoram, and BennyFor Diane, Danny, and Natasha

FOREWORD

Games at Work can change your life—personally and organizationally. As leaders, it is crucial to discern the art of gamesmanship from the art of leadership. If we are equipped to do so, authenticity and sustainable results will be ours; if we don’t, the results will be devastating for ourselves, our teams, and our organizations. Understanding when we are leading with character, serving all constituencies, and when we are leading by coping, mainly serving ourselves and our personal ambitions, is the essential key to moving from self-focused to service-focused leadership. Games serve ourselves; authentic leadership serves others.

Games at Work gives us the tools to become aware of the games we all play. Why is this so important? Because without awareness of limiting behaviors, we cannot rise above them. While effective leaders elevate others to go beyond what is, we first must become aware of what is holding us back. Read and Goldstein give us the multi-dimensional resources to elevate our organizations to go beyond gamesmanship to authentic, value-creating leadership.

A while ago, I was advising a senior team in the midst of a major crisis. The COO had made a huge, visible operational error that the media was loudly clamoring about, and the analysts were heavily punishing the stock. In response, the COO put on his “game face.” In an attempt to alleviate his fear of organizational and personal failure, his “let’s look good” game kicked in. Presenting to the senior team, he painted a brilliant picture of the situation with impressive flair and analysis. He even identified a clear way out of the situation. The senior team was attentive and intrigued by the solution. You could hear a pin drop. There was just one problem—what he was saying was not true! Yes, it was a way out and, yes, it was tempting to the team, but no one said a word. Fortunately, the CEO stood up and with game-piercing directness said, “Bill, do you want to look good or do you want to make a difference?” Game over. In its place, a new pattern of behavior had been chosen: a choice for authentic conversations. The team mobilized around coming clean with the analysts and market about what happened and how they would not repeat their mistakes. The short-term result: the stock dropped even more and more courage was needed to stay out of spin games. The long-term result: the stock recovered and the company was repositioned for sustainable success. Trust and credibility were restored. The first step beyond organizational games had been taken.

If games in organizational life are so damaging, then why do they persist? Because they work. In the short term, people, teams, and organizations get what they want through games. However, in the long run, the cumulative effect of games can be devastating. Reducing games is directly proportional to improving organizational climate and increasing organization results. A leader who reduces his or her games becomes more authentic. A team that reduces games becomes more trusting and connected. An organization that reduces games becomes more believable, meaningful, attractive, creative, and productive.

Games at Work can literally transform individual, team, and organizational culture by reducing the life-draining aspects of games. Where do games come from? Why do they come up in the first place? Fear is the fuel of games. We unknowingly fill up the gas tank of game playing when we want something and are afraid we might not get it. Games are a way to cope with our stress in a reactive way to attempt to get what we want. Games are short cuts that don’t get us to our long-term destination; games are a kind of labyrinth with no end.

Fortunately, there are effective ways to transcend games: courage, character, and constants, to name a few. Having the courage to express the right thing, the character to do the right thing, and the constants (values/principles) to know the right thing are the prerequisites to go from gamesmanship to true leadership. This is NO easy task. Games at Work is so important to organizational leadership because it gives you the understanding and techniques to actually accelerate these transforming practices in your organization.

Since games are inherently self-focused, they can have huge ethical downsides. As author John Dalla Costa in his work on ethics puts it, “Ethics in others.” When John first shared this concept with me a few years ago, I thought it a bit simplistic, but as I went deeper into his core insight, I realized its profound simplicity. Leadership is the journey from self to service . . . the journey from coping to character . . . the journey from games to giving. When we are focused on authentic giving and service to others, games are perceived as superficial and self-promoting, both in ourselves and in our organization. Games are literally transformed through the alchemy of service and stewardship into a higher, more valuable mission or purpose. Moving our organizations from games to purpose is the real work of leadership.

Another dynamic that can transform games is awareness. We engage in games because we lack either an internal awareness of our fear or an external awareness of its impact on others. Engaging in games means our emotional intelligence is low. As Daniel Goleman, and others, has taught us, emotional intelligence is a heightened awareness of self and a heightened awareness of others, as well as the dynamic between the two. Emotional Intelligence reduces game playing and increases authentic human interaction. As Read and Goldstein so lucidly teach us, games must be significantly reduced to create organizations that are healthy organisms. If you put Games at Work into practice, you will increase the emotional intelligence and reduce the game playing in your organization.

Read and Goldstein have made a great contribution to organizational life with Games at Work. Imagine an organization with its energy fully harnessed onto leadership contribution, not diffused and distracted with gamesmanship. Imagine an organization focused on purpose, passionate about service, connected in relationship, and producing sustainable results. This is the world of work that Games at Work inspires us to create together.

February 2009Kevin Cashman Senior PartnerKorn/Ferry Leadership& Talent Consulting

Introduction

In any organizational environment, people play games. This is true of even the most enlightened companies. It is in our nature as human beings to play games when we are in groups, when stress and anxiety exist, and when “prizes” (promotions, the boss’s favor, funding for a project, winning a contract, and so on) are to be won and lost. It doesn’t matter what size your company is or how it’s structured. Although some cultures promote games more than others, just about every company possesses a game ecology—a pattern of games that form over time and that thrive in a particular environment.

Games take many forms and vary widely in their complexity. How people respond to them varies too: games can be positively reinforced, actively participated in, or minimized. Our purpose in writing this book is not to try to eliminate games. This is an impossible and, in a sense, inhuman task, akin to trying to stop employees from day-dreaming. Instead, our intention is first to describe what we have learned about both the damage games cause and the benefits of reducing games, and second to share practical ideas for reducing them.

This isn’t a theoretical study of game playing or a psychological treatise on the deeper needs being met by engaging in these activities. Instead, it is a practical guide to the world of organizational games, providing examples and analysis of the most common games played within teams and other groups as well as advice about the best ways to manage these games.

Before we explain how we became interested in this topic, we’d like to give you a sense of what a game looks like within an organizational context.

The Marginalize Game

Brendan was a twenty-seven-year-old whiz kid who worked at a top consulting firm. A Harvard MBA, Brendan was seen as someone who might become a future star. As a result, he was given a number of choice assignments early on, including membership on a new team that had been formed to analyze future growth possibilities for the firm. Brendan was the most junior member of the team by at least five years.

The Marginalize game was part of the firm’s culture. Marginalizing was originally directed at poor performers, a none-too-subtle message that they weren’t cutting it. Over time, though, it evolved and became a game used to isolate anyone who went against the group, who represented a threat from a job standpoint, or who made others uncomfortable because of his or her style or ideas.

Brendan represented a threat, so he was consistently marginalized by his colleagues and even by some of the younger partners. It wasn’t that Brendan was arrogant or off-putting in his behavior, but he did challenge the firm’s traditions with risk-taking ideas—ideas that other associates and younger partners saw as an indirect criticism of their more conservative approach. Even before this new team was formed, Brendan’s colleagues had made his existence difficult. More than once, someone “forgot” to brief Brendan before a key meeting. When they went for lunch as a group, they sometimes didn’t ask Brendan to join them, making a point of apologizing to him later for failing to include him (thus communicating that he had been marginalized).

On the new future growth team, the Marginalize game involved sometimes subtle but significant actions by other team members. For instance, Brendan received more than his fair share of low-level tasks, such as looking up articles and statistics—tasks that could easily have been assigned to someone in the research department. When Brendan came up with an idea that he was passionate about, team members grilled him mercilessly and nitpicked the idea to death. When Brendan complained about the way he was being treated, they talked to him about the need to be a team player and to learn to compromise—they marginalized him by making him feel guilty.

It shouldn’t have surprised anyone when Brendan resigned to take a job with another top consulting firm . . . or that he flourished in an environment where he was not marginalized.

Games: An Under-the-Radar Problem

Even Brendan might not have characterized his peers’ marginalizing behaviors as part of a game. Few managers or employees would. They might acknowledge that they work in politicized environments where they must be savvy about how to get what they want—that a certain amount of manipulation and alliance building is necessary to get ahead and get what they want—but game playing is often a subconscious activity.

For this reason, it’s a particularly dangerous and vexing problem. Games do their damage beneath the surface. They sap a company’s people of energy and commitment. They lock people into routines and rituals that hamper flexibility and thwart change efforts.

If not for our particular backgrounds, areas of interest, and involvement with change efforts, we probably would have never identified these game-playing behaviors. We came up through the commercial, supply chain, and human resources functions at major U.S. and European multinational companies based in South America and Europe (Mauricio) and in Europe, the United States, and Asia (Phil), and shared an interest in what was causing productivity losses in organizations.

In 2004, as we were discussing this subject, we started to realize that beneath the surface of seemingly normal work activities, games were being played. We began describing some of these games to ourselves, and as we did so, we noticed that they seemed to echo some of the cartoons of Scott Adams. We asked ourselves, “Why do people laugh at Dilbert?” and understood that these cartoons often derive their humor from the counterproductive games people play in the workplace, as the cartoon on the following page illustrates:

This cartoon is an example of a game we call Token Involvement, in which a manager encourages his direct reports to participate with ideas and suggestions, but the encouragement is in fact a sham, as he has already decided what he wants to do.

DILBERT: © Scott Adams/Dist. By United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

As we reflected on our experiences and those of our clients through this game lens, we realized that people regularly exhibited “weird” game-related behaviors in organizations, and everybody considered them “normal” (and, in some organizations, they really are the norm). Clearly, these behaviors hurt rather than helped groups in their pursuit of objectives.

At the same time, we were fortunate to meet some leaders who neither played nor facilitated these games. They inspired and promoted open, productive, and creative behaviors in their people. Unlike these leaders, the majority of the people we observed and worked with were unaware of their unproductive behaviors and the negative impact they had. The more we studied these behaviors, the more we saw the gamesmanship involved: how there were winners and losers, how people were manipulated to gain an edge, how hidden agendas were behind what people often said and did. So we began talking about organizational games with others—with more than one hundred executives from different industries, different geographical regions, and different levels. They were intrigued with the idea and were curious about how to deal with these games effectively.

For the past few years, we’ve been collecting and analyzing our game data and categorizing games by type. We’ve also created a method that can be used for reducing the frequency and number of games, a method derived from our experience and from observation of individuals and organizations that play fewer games.

We’ll be the first to acknowledge that our list of organizational games is incomplete and that our method isn’t perfect. This is uncharted territory, at least from an organizational perspective. Some game experts (most famously Eric Berne) have written about this subject from the individual psychological standpoint. We, in contrast, have focused on the organizational perspective, looking at the games that emerge within typical work groups.

As we began working on this book and interviewing business executives, we quickly learned five lessons:

1. This topic is more controversial than we had initially thought; many people were unwilling to be acknowledged in this book and gave us interviews only under the condition of anonymity.

2. The notion of work games resonated with many individuals; people told us that this is “exactly what goes on” in their organization.

3. The loss of productivity caused by games is huge and hugely frustrating for many managers.

4. Everyone is complicit in games; game playing is a part of human nature, and although some people play harder and more often than others, everyone plays some of the time.

5. No one had any idea about how to get game playing under control; we discovered a deep sense of helplessness, as well as a strong propensity to blame people at the top for the situation (in a way itself a game).

This book is an attempt to explain games and then help you in dealing with them—personally, within a team, as a team leader, or even as the leader of a whole organization. The good news is that simple awareness and understanding of games have an enormously positive impact. Once you’re conscious that they exist and you know what to look for, your odds of diminishing them increase significantly.

What This Book Will Tell You and How It Will Tell It

Expect to be educated and entertained. During our research and interviews, we learned a lot about this fascinating subject. We’re going to pass on that learning in the form of organizational game descriptions, stories about games, and suggestions about what to do to reduce them (and what not to do). The stories we’re going to relate are especially instructive, as they show how games play out in typical business situations: meetings, presentations, budget discussions, performance reviews, online communications, and periods of change. We did not name the companies where these games take place. We’ve also created fictitious composites based on real company games. We found that people didn’t like to admit that games were being played on their watch; others were afraid that their employer wouldn’t want them to talk about what was going on. At a time when increased productivity and growth are mandatory, game playing has especially negative connotations.

Chapter One defines common games and describes the traits which indicate that a game is being played. In Chapters Two through Four, we address the key issues surrounding games played at work: the impact games have on organizations, the environmental factors that make games so tempting today, and why individuals and organizations often ignore or downplay the negative impact.

Chapters Five through Seven offer a process for reducing game playing consisting of three steps: Awakening, Choice, and Execution (ACE). This process will help give you and your people the option of engaging in open, honest discussions rather than resorting to secretive, dishonest games.

Chapters Eight through Ten combine a broader organizational perspective with the individual manager’s viewpoint. Although it’s crucial for managers of small groups to manage the game playing within their area of control, it’s also essential that leaders look at the impact of games on the entire enterprise. We’ll focus on the ecology of games, the interlocking patterns of games that dominate different organizations. Next, we’ll address a subject near and dear to our hearts: how game playing thwarts any type of change and what can be done to counter this effect. After that, we’ll examine the role of the CEO and how what he or she does affects game management.

Chapter Eleven describes a company that has a very low level of game playing. What does such a company look like and feel like to work in? The description of Composite Corporation is built from the very best examples of departments and units we have seen in the real world.

As you move through these chapters, you’ll find that games reveal how people misuse their time and energy to deceive, manipulate, and cast blame . . . and how they do so with great creativity and Machiavellian skill. No one is perfect, and games reveal the flaws we all possess. As we examine these flaws, we gain invaluable insights into human work behaviors.

Who This Book Is for and How to Use It

Whether you’re a young professional just starting your career or a CEO at the top of an organization, this book is relevant to you. In our current high-stress and highly volatile environment, people are playing games more frequently and more intensely than ever before. If you don’t understand what these games are and how they affect your group and your company, then you will be powerless to prevent them from having a negative effect. Therefore, this book is an educational tool, bringing you insight into why people play games and what these games involve.

Whether you are an individual performer, or have only a few people reporting to you, or you’re running a company with thousands of employees, this book will provide you with a process for counteracting the impact of games on your particular group of people.

Whether you’re an active player of games or merely a “bystander” (watching while other people play), the process for minimizing games is essentially the same. Obviously, if you’re initiating or involved in games played in your company, you need to pull back from these behaviors. But even if you’re not, the ACE process we share in the book’s middle section applies. Awakening to games, making the choice not to play or facilitate them, and executing a strategy to substitute straight talk for games are what every manager and leader needs to do.

If you’re an organizational leader, this book is especially useful. As you have grown in different organizations, you have no doubt witnessed many of the games described in this book. You may well have learned how to play certain games—or you may have learned not to interfere when others played them—in order to survive. That was fine then. Why isn’t it fine now? Because we no longer have the luxury of wasting the time and energy that organizational games consume. Now, many organizations are fighting for their lives. Global competition, revolutionary technologies, scarce resources, widespread information, and many other factors have made it more challenging for organizations to be successful. On top of that, the increased stress and anxiety in the workplace cause more people to engage in more game playing than in the past.

Consequently, if leaders aren’t aware of the impact of games and fail to take action against them, their organizations are bound to suffer the consequences.

We should also note that we’ve written this book for professionals across the world, not just in one country. We’ve spent our careers working in a variety of countries, and we’ve found that work games have no borders. Although the traditions and cultures of certain countries may influence the type of games played there, playing games is part of the human condition. We are reasonably confident that games are being played in the offices of the largest Japanese automaker as well as in a family-owned business in Scotland.

Our hope is that through a better understanding of games, you can improve the ability of your organization to reach its objectives, satisfy customers, and win in the marketplace, and, at the same time, contribute to making the working life of the people in your organization more fulfilling.

With that thought in mind, we’d like to introduce you to the world of work games and some of the ones that are undoubtedly being played somewhere in your organization.

CHAPTER 1

Let the Games Begin What Games Are and How They Are Played in Organizations

Games would be easier for people to deal with if they were purely conscious activities, limited in number, and overtly played. Unfortunately, people are often unaware that they’re playing games, and a variety of games exist, many of which are covert and subtle in nature. Thus an understanding of organizational games is essential. If you’re aware of the particular games you or your people play and how they affect individuals and the organization, you’re in a much better position to handle them. A lack of knowledge about games allows them to thrive. The more you know, the better able you’ll be to limit their damage and turn the energy of your people in more productive directions.

Therefore, we want to focus here on helping you understand what an organizational game is and the common types. First, though, we need to define our terms.

The Theory and Practice of Games

At its most basic level, a game is a competition between two or more people in which the object is to win. No doubt, you’ve played board games, sports games, and the like, for which the rules of play are strictly defined. Games aren’t always so simple or transparent, however. A branch of mathematics is devoted to “game theory,” which was developed by John von Neumann in his book Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour ([1944] 2007, with Oskar Morgenstern). Neumann demonstrated that there was more to games than probability; he coined such terms as “zero sum games” and “payoffs.”

Of greater familiarity is the work of psychiatrist Eric Berne ([1964] 1996), the founder of transactional analysis, who wrote the book Games People Play. Berne suggested that many social interactions revolve around games—that is, the interactions seem to be about one thing, but beneath the surface are concealed motivations and attempts to gain payoffs. Berne posits that these games are dishonest and prevent more meaningful ways of living.

In short, the mathematical and psychological theorists recognize that games are more than they seem, that they are often driven by hidden agendas and personal payoffs, and that they can do more harm than good.

Now let’s bring this theoretical construct to life with the story of one particular game we observed being played in a large organization. The company had recently introduced a 360-degree feedback tool to foster manager development. Harold, a senior manager, received a significant amount of negative feedback from his team. Shortly thereafter, he contacted Stan, an HR executive in charge of the feedback program, and said he would like to have a meeting with his team. Harold explained to Stan that he wanted a better understanding of what behaviors he needed to change as well as more examples of behaviors that caused problems for team members. He emphasized that he wanted to communicate to his team that he cared about their feedback.

Given Harold’s comments, Stan thought a meeting would be productive. Nonetheless, Stan insisted that certain ground rules be observed during the meeting, including refraining from defensiveness or accusations. Harold agreed to these ground rules.

When the meeting started, Harold was humble and polished, and seemed eager to hear additional feedback. People opened up and shared their concerns. As everyone talked about possible solutions to the problems raised, Harold became a bit defensive. Still, he seemed committed to implementing some of their suggestions until he mentioned that he intended to talk to the company’s CEO, with whom he had a “close relationship,” about what might be done about team morale. Then Harold said that it was too bad that a few people were spoiling things for the rest of the team. Immediately, a look of fear appeared on the faces of several team members; they clearly took this reference to mean that he intended to get rid of or move out some people.

After the meeting, Stan debriefed Harold about how things had gone, and Harold said the meeting was useful because “I figured out who was behind this, and that these individuals were a serious drag on department productivity because of their negativity.”

In the following months, Harold created a tremendously antagonistic environment within his department, setting people against each other and focusing their energy on conflict rather than work objectives. Though Harold was eventually fired, his gamesmanship was very destructive.

The games Harold played included the following:

• Token Involvement. In this game, you pretend you want the input of others but are actually pursuing your own agenda. Harold suggested that he wanted to hold the meeting for the good of his team and for his own self-improvement, but in reality his goal was to identify people who were criticizing him, and he ignored the feedback.

• The Boss Said. In this game, you ally yourself with a powerful figure in order to intimidate others. Harold’s reference to his close relationship with the CEO had this purpose.

• Gotcha. In this game, the goal is to catch and punish people who have “erred.” Harold obviously used the meeting to figure out who was behind the negative responses in the original 360-degree feedback.

We should add that Harold may not have been playing these games on a conscious level; he may have initially wanted to use the meeting to become a better manager. Once the meeting started, though, Harold reverted reflexively to games he had played throughout his managerial career. In Harold’s mind, he may have rationalized that he was simply protecting himself and his team from negative influences, but in reality, he was playing his favorite games.

The Traits: Signs and Symptoms That a Game Is Being Played

Defining something as a game can become a question of semantics. You can make the argument that just about any organizational activity is a game of some sort. When you take a few too many watercooler breaks, you’re playing the “delay” game. When you spend one day working hard in your office and don’t do your usual socializing in the hallway, you’re playing the “turtle” game.

We don’t define games so broadly. Or rather, our focus is on counterproductive games—those that drain people’s time and energy, involve more than one person, and have ulterior motives and negative consequences for the organization. The following are the five traits that characterize these games:

1. Manipulation. People exhibit dishonest behavior to achieve their objectives. Sometimes this behavior is obvious and provocative; other times it’s subtle. It may involve hiding information from a boss—telling only part of the story to make someone else look bad. It may involve making a problem appear more serious than it actually is, in the hopes of creating false expectations—the professional service provider who convinces a client that a goal is almost impossible to achieve, so that when he helps her achieve it, he’ll come off as a hero. A person who is playing a game is not being straight; there is always some deceit and underhandedness.

2. Paradoxical consequences. Games often involve short-term gain for the player and short- and long-term losses for the group (a colleague, the team, the department, or the company). For example, an individual plays a game to gain power over a peer, but most of his energy is focused on achieving this goal rather than on achieving a larger work goal. He may find himself being promoted and having power over his colleague, but he probably failed to take care of business on other fronts. Ultimately, he and the organization will pay the price for this neglect.

3. Repetitiveness