Point Lookout: a free weekly publication of Chaco Canyon Consulting
Volume 19, Issue 15;   April 10, 2019: Career Opportunity or Career Trap: II

Career Opportunity or Career Trap: II

by

When an opportunity seems too good to be true, it might be. Although we easily decline small opportunities, declining an enticing career opportunity can be enormously difficult. Here's Part II of a set of indicators that an opportunity might actually be a trap.
Gold ingots

Gold ingots, one symbol of sudden and unexpected wealth. When an opportunity arrives with promises of sudden financial wealth, declining it can be difficult.

Some once-in-a-career opportunities aren't opportunities at all — they're traps. For these opportunities, accepting what has been offered can be a career-ending move. We began last time with a vignette and a challenge. The vignette described how Terry, a project manager, received an offer from Paul, a program sponsor, to accept a position leading Marigold, a large but troubled project. Terry would become the fourth person to try to "bring Marigold home," as Paul put it.

The challenge last time was to identify as many indicators of trouble as possible — indicators that would lead Terry to decline Paul's offer. Before reading further, you might want to review the vignette.

I'll continue now with six more indicators of trouble.

The "pitch" is accompanied by anomalous deference or charm
When the offer is expressed unusually deferentially, or when the person making the offer is behaving in an uncharacteristically charming manner, most of us might be taken aback, at least a bit. When the deference or charm goes beyond ordinary politeness and respect, and when it is counter to the relative organizational ranks of the deliverer and the recipient, the probability of entrapment is elevated.
Entrapment is even more strongly indicated when the person delivering the pitch is not known as charming, or worse, is known as abusive, disrespectful, gruff, or ruthless.
The person making the offer has "researched" you
In the vignette presented last time, Paul mentions more than once that he's familiar with Terry's talents and achievements. That might be flattering to hear, but coming from a potential organizational psychopath, it can be a strong indicator of risk.
The danger lies not in the good things Paul knows about Terry, but in what else he might have learned about Terry in the course of Paul's "research."
There is turnover in other closely related positions
Apparently, Paul has a new assistant. Because the story doesn't explain why he has a new assistant, we don't know if turnover in the assistant position is significant. But we do know that Paul is trying to recruit Project Manager #4, and it's possible that the problem is Paul, rather than the previous project managers or the previous assistant.
Turnover in positions that work closely with the position being offered, or in positions that work closely with the supervisor of the position being offered, could indicate that the trouble isn't — or isn't only — in the content of the work. Such turnover could indicate that part of the problem lies in the difficulty of forming the stable professional relationships that are needed if the group is to attain its objectives.
The offer has unusual financial and status attractants
The immediate skip-level promotion is highly unusual in most companies. Promotions are usually incremental (step-by-step), and typically occur at only one time of the year. Most of us want to be regarded as exceptional, but a very few need to be so regarded. Immediacy and skipping levels appeal to people who have that need.
Organizational psychopaths are among that very few who intensely need to be regarded as exceptional. They are more likely than nonpsychopaths to expect that granting exceptions to the rules would be a convincing element of any offer.
Upon investigation the opportunity looks even better, if a little different
If Terry notices some of the elements of the entrapment pattern, he might become skeptical enough to investigate the situation in more detail, looking for confirming or disconfirming evidence of entrapment. Some of what he finds might indicate that the situation is different from what Paul described to him. For example, three people might tell him that the terminated project manager had misrepresented the state of the effort in status reports to the Executive Committee, making it seem less troubled than it actually was — an item that Paul omitted (see "The project is in big trouble" in Part I). And Eunice (the tech lead in the vignette) might tell Terry that she's been with the project only four months, and she can't answer most of his questions.
Paradoxically, one sign of entrapment is the absence of disconfirming evidence. Truth is complex — no situation is completely homogeneous. Looking closely, we would expect to find factors (the positives) that make the situation seem more promising than we were told; we would also expect to find some factors (the negatives) that make the situation seem less promising than we were told. The absence of negatives is consistent with someone having "scrubbed clean" the situation by hiding negative data, or terminating or transferring people who might be too willing to reveal inconvenient truths. As a result, based on the evidence available, the situation looks more promising than we expected. And as a result of hiding disconfirming evidence or transferring people, the situation is a little different from what we were led to expect.
If the person who The absence of evidence
that the opportunity is a trap
might be evidence that it is
set the trap (Paul in the vignette) is an organizational psychopath, one strategy might be to encourage the target (Terry in the vignette) to do some investigating. Paul expects that Terry won't find any disconfirming evidence, because the situation is scrubbed clean. Consequently, Terry will emerge from the investigation phase confident that the trap is not a trap.
So remember: the absence of evidence that the opportunity is a trap might be evidence that it is.
The offer is unexpected — even sudden
The more anticipated is the offer, the more likely is the target to be prepared to receive it. A prepared target is likely to know more about the opportunity than the probable psychopath would like the target to know. For example, if the situation has been scrubbed clean, the target might be able to determine the timing of any transfers or terminations, and might find ways to contact these people, even before the offer is made.
Targets who don't anticipate the offer, and who receive the offer suddenly and with a short timeline for acceptance, are less able to conduct investigations that might reveal the opportunity to be a trap. Organizational psychopaths know this, and some might exploit it.

Probably the most significant indicator of a trap is difficulty in obtaining objective advice about the accepting the opportunity. If the time-scale for a response to a request for advice is too short, or if potential advisers are wary of providing wisdom about the opportunity, then question the opportunity closely. First in this series  Go to top Top  Next issue: Gratuitous Complexity as a Type III Error  Next Issue

303 Secrets of Workplace PoliticsIs every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info

Your comments are welcome

Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.

About Point Lookout

This article in its entirety was written by a 
          human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Workplace Politics:

Hiding from the truthThe High Cost of Low Trust: II
Truly paying attention to Trust at work is rare, in part, because we don't fully appreciate what distrust really costs. Here's Part II of a little catalog of how we cope with distrust, and how we pay for it.
Elia Kazan, award winning film directorOn Snitching at Work: I
Some people have difficulty determining the propriety of reporting violations to authorities at work. Proper or not, reporting violations can be simultaneously both risky and necessary.
A meeting of people and their laptopsExploiting Functional Fixedness: I
Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that creates difficulty in seeing novel uses of things that have familiar uses. Some devious moves in workplace politics exploit functional fixedness.
Tree rings, "documentary" evidence of past environmental conditionsOn Reporting Workplace Malpractice
Reporting workplace malpractice can be the right thing to do. And it's often career-dangerous. Here are some risks to ponder before reporting what you know.
Guardrails in a track bed as a rail line crosses a bridgeTime to Go to Plan B
We had a plan, and it was a good one. Plan A actually seemed to work for a while, but then troubles began. And now things look very bleak. We have a Plan B, but people don't want to go to it. Why not?

See also Workplace Politics and Devious Political Tactics for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

A meeting in a typical conference roomComing April 3: Recapping Factioned Meetings
A factioned meeting is one in which participants identify more closely with their factions, rather than with the meeting as a whole. Agreements reached in such meetings are at risk of instability as participants maneuver for advantage after the meeting. Available here and by RSS on April 3.
Franz Halder, German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942And on April 10: Managing Dunning-Kruger Risk
A cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect can create risk for organizational missions that require expertise beyond the range of knowledge and experience of decision-makers. They might misjudge the organization's capacity to execute the mission successfully. They might even be unaware of the risk of so misjudging. Available here and by RSS on April 10.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

Reprinting this article

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Follow Rick

Send email or subscribe to one of my newsletters Follow me at LinkedIn Follow me at X, or share a post Subscribe to RSS feeds Subscribe to RSS feeds
The message of Point Lookout is unique. Help get the message out. Please donate to help keep Point Lookout available for free to everyone.
Technical Debt for Policymakers BlogMy blog, Technical Debt for Policymakers, offers resources, insights, and conversations of interest to policymakers who are concerned with managing technical debt within their organizations. Get the millstone of technical debt off the neck of your organization!
Go For It: Sometimes It's Easier If You RunBad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? Learn what we can do when we love the work but not the job.
303 Tips for Virtual and Global TeamsLearn how to make your virtual global team sing.
101 Tips for Managing ChangeAre you managing a change effort that faces rampant cynicism, passive non-cooperation, or maybe even outright revolt?
101 Tips for Effective MeetingsLearn how to make meetings more productive — and more rare.
Exchange your "personal trade secrets" — the tips, tricks and techniques that make you an ace — with other aces, anonymously. Visit the Library of Personal Trade Secrets.
If your teams don't yet consistently achieve state-of-the-art teamwork, check out this catalog. Help is just a few clicks/taps away!
Ebooks, booklets and tip books on project management, conflict, writing email, effective meetings and more.