Games At Work

Understand the dimensions of office politics and join the discussion!

In this game, the player creates good rapport with many levels of subordinates through town hall meetings and other devices. During these meetings, the player sends very positive messages, but her actions often have a negative impact in the long run. Still, these efforts increase her popularity and make it seem as if she has the best interests of the whole at heart, often putting her direct reports in a tough spot.

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In “Games at work” we pointed out that senior leaders – and CEO’s in particular -  are vulnerable to game playing due to two factors:

(a)    the anxiety they feel resulting from great accountability and great privilege. Games can be seen by the games-player as a way of reducing anxiety in the short run (only).
(b)    They may possess ego’s that veer towards narcissism, hubris, and paranoia when under stress.

As a tragic example of this let’s examine what happened at Pfizer

A recent scholarly article (Clive Boddy, The Implications of Corporate Psychopaths for Business And Society: An Initial Examination And A Call To Arms) gives an interesting perspective on Games at Work, and the breeding ground that modern corporations can provide. A working definition of psychopaths is “manipulative, arrogant, impatient, impulsive and charming and have no conscience”.