Cain and Abel at Work: How to Overcome Office Politics and the People Who Stand between You and Success

by Gerry Lange, Todd Domke

Overview

Do you know a Cain at work?

The back-stabbing liar who steals credit for your ideas...

The a**-kissing co-worker who worries about "face time" while you stay late working hard...

The gossipy colleague who spreads rumors just to create drama in the office.

If any of these people sound familiar, watch out: a Cain is lurking, ready to sabotage your job, your promotion, and even your reputation at work.

Written by two veteran media and political strategists, Cain and Abel at Work will help you survive the ultimate political arena—the office—and prepare you for the real-world interpersonal dynamics they don't teach you in business school.

In the Old Testament story that serves as the beginning metaphor for this book, backstabbing Cain kills the honorable Abel out of jealousy, and despite being punished with banishment, he goes on to marry, have a son, and build a city around him. All of a sudden, Cain gets to be a father, real estate developer, and probably the first politician of his day, while Abel's life is over in a flash. Authors Gerry Lange and Todd Domke have discovered that this type of injustice is still alive and well in the modern competitive workplace. Together, they have decades of personal experience and first-hand encounters with scheming, calculating Cains, and now they're giving readers an invaluable guide for coping with and combating Cain at work.

Using real-life case studies to illustrate how Cains operate, Cain and Abel at Work will teach you how to:

Identify the Cains before they make you their victim

Recognize the tactics Cains use to gain status and power

Win out over Cains without stooping to their level

With compelling new insight into human behavior and competition developed from the authors' experience in the political, media, and business arenas, Cain and Abel at Work explains what motivates both Cains and Abels at work. Not only does this book explore and deplore the behavior of Cains, it also explains how the simple naïveté of Abels allows Cains to get away with their shenanigans.

If anyone has ever stolen an idea from you or grabbed credit for your work, if they've taken advantage of or walked all over you, you need this book. Cain and Abel at Work is an office survival guide no well-intentioned Abel should be without.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780767908894
Publisher:	Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/18/2001
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	431 KB

About the Author

A writer, producer, and director in all media for more than twenty years and an experienced business and political consultant, Gerry Lange has prepared many well-known public figures, including Ronald Reagan, Alan Greenspan, and William F. Buckley, Jr., for televised debates. Lange wrote and produced several PBS specials, and he has been a political adviser for such figures as Governor William Weld and Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler. He and his wife, Caroline, live in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and have a son, Christopher.

Todd Domke is president of a media consulting firm specializing in strategy, public relations, and advertising. As a strategist, he's been a consultant to the National Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committees, GOPAC, and numerous campaigns. He is also the co-author of The Conservative's Dictionary, and the author of Grounded, a humorous novel for juveniles. He lives with his wife, Susan, and their daughter, Caitlin in Canton, Massachusetts; his son, Judah, is a writer and actor in New York City.

Read an Excerpt

Why Good Things Happen to Bad People

The Bible tells us that Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain, jealous because God seemed to favor his brother, "rose up against Abel . . . and slew him." As punishment, God banished Cain, so Cain "went out from the presence of the LORD and dwelt in the land of Nod on the East of Eden" where he married and had a son, Enoch.

The moral of the Cain and Abel story seems to be that evil will be discovered and punished. But that's not entirely convincing. After all, Abel was dead, but Cain survived. He not only survived but seems to have done pretty well for himself. He courted and caught a wife and had a son—a nice, supportive, traditional nuclear family—and he also "built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch."

So, it turns out that Cain was the first real estate developer, the Donald Trump of his time. And since Cain built a city and had the power to name it, we might also assume he ended up mayor of Enoch, making him also the first politician.

This unholy coalescing of business and politics by the Cains of this world is something that we have had ample opportunity to observe in our many years of experience in both fields. Over time, it has led us to ask a few simple questions about the way the world works—not how the world ought to work, not how religion and schools and motivational philosophies teach us the world should work, but how it all too often really works. Many business books have described what people do right to succeed; this book is about what people do wrong to succeed.

We use the names of the Old Testament characters Cain and Abel as a metaphor for the ongoing battle between cunning (Cain) and ability (Abel) in today’s workplace. But make no mistake: What we are talking about is no mere metaphor. There are real Cains in “the real world.” And, by the way, although we refer to Cains and Abels with only masculine pronouns—instead of saying “he or she” all the time—obviously we’re talking about both sexes.

WHY YOU NEED THIS BOOK

Cains operate in every kind of organization—corporate, political, academic, military, even charitable. This book will help you spot these manipulative coworkers at an early stage—hopefully, before they can corner you, con you, and make your life miserable.

This is a book about the politics of business and the business of politics--a set of observations about how people often get ahead in the real world. From these observations we have abstracted the principles that explain why Cains often succeed, all too frequently at Abels' expense.

Why is it that many intelligent, hardworking people of ability don't get ahead faster? What is it that these Abels fail to understand about the world of business and politics? Why do some people of bad character and less ability succeed so well? What tactics do these Cains employ to slay Abels in the everyday world of business, politics, academia, and other pursuits?

In short, why do good things happen to bad people?

This book tries to answer that question.

For all the Abels of this world (and that is probably you), it is critical to understand who Cain is, how he operates, and why he is so often successful. And it is just as critical for Abel to understand himself—to recognize the qualities in himself that make him vulnerable to Cain's tactics.

You may not think of yourself as a naive innocent in competition with cunning rivals, but if you are concentrating on your work while a Cain is focused on promoting himself at your expense, you are vulnerable to his conniving gamesmanship.

Cain is a backstabber and a liar. He is a self-involved, manipulative, and ruthless individual. He aims to control people and situations for his own advantage and advancement, using a variety of tactics to accomplish his goals. Almost everyone has run across and been victimized by a Cain in the workplace. Sometimes, we recognize (usually too late) what Cain is up to, but much of the time Cain's maneuvering and manipulation are so skillful and subtle that they go unnoticed. Cain can be charming, and his tactics—stealing credit, placing blame, lying in many different ways—can be hard to detect. Because of this, Abel can be victimized without quite knowing how or by whom.

Abel feels at a disadvantage in office politics because he isn't a master of the game. Cain and Abel at Work gives Abel the information and insights to spot a Cain early on. Also, it will help any Abel become more aware of how his own trusting instincts can put him at risk of falling for the traps set by Cain. Recognizing and understanding Cain's behavior and Abel's own vulnerability are the keys to avoiding harmful, even career-ending mistakes. They are the keys to avoid becoming Cain's next victim.

So, this book serves as a warning, and warnings can be invaluable: Forewarned is forearmed. But it is more than just a warning. Cain and Abel at Work also gives you practical answers to questions like:

How can I avoid confrontations with a Cain?

What should I do if a Cain tries to steal credit that I deserve?

When and how should I take action against a Cain?

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

This book has five parts to it.

First, we answer the question: Who is Cain? We reveal the lies Cain tells, his lack of conscience, his consuming ambition, his drive for power, his bag of tricks, and his destructive greed.

Second, we consider How to Spot Cain's Cons. We focus on how he uses language (both spoken and written) and images to deceive people.

Third, we explore Why Abel Is at Risk of being exploited by Cain. We explain why Abel's upbringing and education do not truly prepare him to compete with a scheming Cain; how, in some ways, they actually mislead him about the true nature of a competitive world.

Fourth, in Understanding Cain, we look carefully at Cain and Abel in action, and we let three professional therapists offer different perspectives on why Cain is so self-serving.

Fifth, and finally, we examine How to Cope with Cains, and we describe twenty-seven keys for identifying and combatting Cain and his tactics. These keys can give Abel the knowledge and self-confidence to deal successfully with Cain's maneuverings. With the insights gained from this book, Abel can win a battle of survival with Cain without compromising himself. If you are an Abel yourself, then (to paraphrase the Ghost of Christmas Present in Dickens' A Christmas Carol) learn these lessons and learn them well. After all, if Abel had been watching his back, Cain might not have been able to sneak up and stab him in it.

ARE YOU MORE OF AN ABEL OR A CAIN?

Throughout the book, true-life examples are used to illustrate Cain's tactics. Many readers will find these stories all too familiar. Names, ages, gender, and other specifics have been altered in order to protect the sources from Cain's wrath, but the essential facts of the examples remain faithful in spirit.

At times in reading these case studies you will see a little more of yourself in the Cain character than in the Abel one. Does this mean you are a Cain? Not really. The fact is, there is some of Abel and Cain in all of us—the overweening ambition of Cain warring for dominance with the altruistic innocence of Abel. Few of us are 100 percent angel or 100 percent devil. When we call someone a "Cain" we are talking about someone within whom the Cain part dominates the Abel part, someone within whom corruption outweighs conscience. These individuals are few in number, but their influence and the harm they can do to others is too great to ignore.

So, as the song says, let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, by asking the question: Just who is this Cain? What is he like? What motivates him? How does he operate? And how can he live with himself?

Table of Contents

	Introduction: Why Good Things Happen to Bad People	xi
Part 1	Who is Cain?
1.	The Lies Cains Tell	3
2.	Cain's Moral Indifference	17
3.	Cain's Drive for Power	22
4.	Cain's Measure of Success	28
5.	Cain's Calculating Caution	36
6.	Keeping Score, Stealing Credit, Placing Blame	43
7.	Cain's Itch to Be Rich	55
Part 2	How to Spot Cain's Cons
8.	Cain's Spoken Agenda	69
9.	Cain's Written Agenda	80
10.	The Power of Image	89
11.	How to Know a Cain	100
Part 3	Why Abel is at Risk
12.	Ability Redefined	107
13.	Abel's Miseducation	116
Part 4	Understanding Cain
14.	Psychoanalyzing Cain: Three Perspectives	125
Part 5	How to Survive in a World Full of Cains
15.	Why Cains Thrive	149
16.	Advice for Abel	161
17.	Don't Jump to Conclusions	202
18.	Words of Warning, Words of Wisdom	213
	Epilogue: One Last Case Study	218

What People are Saying About This

Stuart Varney

It's both entertaining and informative. Every manager, aspiring manager, and anyone who works for a manager can profit from reading it.
—(Stuart Varney, anchor, CNN)

Debra J. Saunders

Fascinating! The Peter Principle of our time! This book is bound to become the talk of the office.
—(Debra J. Saunders, syndicated columnist, San Francisco Chronicle)

Editorial Reviews

The biblical tale of brotherly revenge, in which Cain killed his brother, Abel, because God seemed to treat Abel better, holds lessons for everybody in the workplace, according to veteran political strategists and media consultants Lange and Domke. Senior executives, graveyard-shift assembly-line workers and secretaries alike need to be able to identify their enemies in order to succeed in the business world, the authors claim. For readers who think Lange and Domke paint too black-and-white a picture, they include numerous brief case studies showing how people can be sabotaged because they didn't anticipate the motives of a Cain. Those who can't look themselves in the mirror and truthfully confess to being a Cain or an Abel will find the authors' classifications eye-opening. For example, Abels think in terms of getting the job done, teamwork and loyalty to colleagues. Cains think in terms of title, status, getting credit, power over others and the loyalty of subordinates. When Cains use words like "frankly" or "confidentially," they are actually saying, "I'm about to tell you a lie." To fight the Cains, readers can use some 27 strategies, including avoiding mind games, not believing lies and not allying with a Cain. Despite the biblical gimmick, much of this book is both engaging and plausible. However, some employees may be daunted by the process of recognizing Cains and modifying their own behavior while simultaneously performing their jobs day in and out. Managers and team leaders may find this book most useful as they assess their staffs and work groups and mentor their employees. (Mar. 13) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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