Description

For every promoter you will have several detractors so you must be ready to deal with them. Compliment your enemies to disarm or confuse them.

Notes:

• As a leader, you should hopefully find yourself complimenting people all of the time.
• For example, when someone in your team does a great job, or indeed if the whole team pull together to deliver a great result.
• You must strike the balance however between not complimenting too much as the impact becomes diluted, or complimenting too little which can leave your team feeling - demotivated.
• I have seen both of these anti-patterns in my managers, which leads me to believe a lot of leaders get that balance wrong.
• The interesting thing about compliments however is that they can also be used to disarm people, even those that you might consider an enemy.
• Let me explain.
• If someone is publicly trying to undermine or ridicule you, one tactic you can use is to compliment them!
• This tactic might seem counter-intuitive, but it has a number of benefits:
  1. It demonstrates to others that you are taking the moral high ground: while they are nasty to you, you are complimenting them.
  2. It can disarm a person who dislikes you, and help to change their mind in your favour.
  3. It proves that from your perspective it is nothing personal, and you are willing to call out the strengths of the other person and not just their weaknesses.
• In addition, it has the added benefit of confusing the angry recipient, and keeping your enemies confused about your intent is always worthwhile.
• Is this tactic dishonest? Maybe, but if you are highlighting their real strengths with your compliments then it is honest, as you are not making anything up.
• Politics in a large organization is an unavoidable fact of life. If you pretend it does not affect you, your leadership career will be short-lived.
• For every promoter you will have several detractors so you must be ready to deal with them.
• Compliment them to win them over to you, or win the audience over to you, or at the very least confuse them.
• There are benefits in this approach, with very little costs.
• Remember that it is hard for someone to continue to publicly attack you while you are complimenting them, it just makes them look bad.
• Office politics are real, and as a leader you must acknowledge this and play to win.
• What I am working on this week:
  • I am experimenting with Reels on Instagram.
• Media I am enjoying this week:
  • The BlackBerry movie (2023)

Notes and subscription links are here: https://techleader.pro/a/660-Compliment-your-enemies-(TLP-2024w37)