This Thanksgiving, revenge is a dish best served.......?

Do you have a little black book which lists out the people you will never work with again? Am I in it? Hopefully during your career you have had many wonderful colleagues, some of whom have turned into friends, but we have all worked with people that we would rather not work with again. It could be due to their performance or personality or whatever other reasons, but there is often a small subset of individuals who you will not work with again because they have truly hurt you or ‘done you wrong’.  I sincerely hope this list is very short….if it goes into multiple pages you may want to consider whether you are part of the problem in these work relationships!!

At this time of year, many people are writing blogs about all the things they are thankful for. This year, I am taking a different tack to talk about revenge. Specifically, when is the best time to exact revenge against those that you believe have wronged you in the corporate environment. Now, right up front, please note I am NOT talking about illegal actions - if you have been unfairly dismissed at work, you should take it up through the appropriate legal or union channels. If you have been harassed at work, you should take it up through your HR partner or with whatever appropriate channel to resolve. I am talking about the day-to-day arguments, disagreements or fights that are a resulting part of a stressful corporate life. Such as the time you were passed over for a promotion because a colleague stabbed you in the back……or when your boss gave you a poor performance review that you didn’t deserve.….or when someone criticized your work in front of your team…..or when someone was late in delivering their part of the project and the entire project team was negatively impacted.  

When someone ‘wrongs’ us, the natural reaction is to immediately begin to plot our revenge and figure out how we can get justice. In the movies we are told to bide our time to serve our revenge…..to wait until the right moment to exact retribution.  In GoodFellas, Tommy DeVito gets whacked years later for killing Billy Batts just as he is about to become a ‘made man’ – and serving this revenge at one of proudest moments of Tommy’s life, makes it even more impactful. If this has spoiled the ending of GoodFellas for you, I’m glad!! You only had 32 years to watch one of the greatest movies of all time. But this blog is not a guidebook on how to seek revenge – in fact, it is the exact opposite. There are at least four reasons why processing these relationships and not focusing any of your energy on revenge is the heathiest and most appropriate path forward. 

Plotting your revenge will distract you from your day job

Most of us are motivated by a higher purpose in our jobs. Many of you reading this blog are in the healthcare industry and the focus on the patient is such a critical foundation of why we work and how we motivate our teams. Spending your time and energy focused on how you can plan your revenge or imagining the various scenarios where you would feel the appropriate level of retribution or schadenfreude is taking time away from your day job. Your work will suffer, and you will not make good decisions on your project. In addition, even if revenge is a good short-term motivator for you, it is a REALLY poor motivator for your team. No-one is interested in working hard to help their manager resolve grievances with other people!! During my career I have sometimes been used as a pawn in other senior leader disputes – it has never been a positive part of my career journey and one I am proud of. Finally, we have all seen organizational conflicts where each side continually escalates the rhetoric and negative actions – this type of arms race never ends well but requires at least one party to move on and focus back on their primary day job. 

Fixating on revenge is not good for your soul, your mind, or your body

There is extensive research that internalizing hatred against other people or using all of your emotional energy in the pursuit of their downfall has a significantly negative impact on you. It impacts not only your stress levels and your emotional health but can also affect your physical health too. The concept of karma is embedded in Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism - Christianity has forgiveness of people who have hurt you as a cornerstone commandment. Regardless of your personal belief system, there is a consistent theme that letting go of your plans for revenge is the healthy and right thing to do. We all have more than enough stress in our lives – letting go or turning the page past these grievances is one component of stress that you have complete control over. It is certainly not easy, and it often takes time (meditation, counseling, prayer, mentoring, etc.) but will help you longer-term.

You may not actually have been wronged….and may be too blind to see that

Please have an open mind to the possibility that you may not actually have been wronged. It is possible that the person that you view as your mortal enemy, is not thinking about you at all. It is possible that you misunderstood someone’s actions and leapt to the wrong conclusion. It is possible that you may have deserved that rating or termination. This is certainly not always true and there are many unfair outcomes in work (and our personal lives), but over time, you may come to see the other person’s perspective or rationale. The vast majority of people do not make stupid decisions – if you do not understand why someone is making a specific decision or action, you do not fully understand the broader context or information that person is using to make that decision. I can almost hear you yelling at this blog ‘but you don’t understand what they did to me!!!’ and you’re right, I don’t. But as I reflect on a number of times during my career when I have been furious at someone I worked with, over time I can look back and much better understand the reason why they behaved that way in many of the situations. 

Focusing on revenge prevents you from learning from the experience

Let’s assume that someone has truly wronged you….I hope that you are able to forgive them and turn the page for your own mental, spiritual, and physical health. But this does not mean that you should leave yourself open to be taken advantage of the next time. ‘Fool me once, shame on you…..fool me twice, shame on me’ is how my mother would describe this. Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting and we would be foolish to trust the same people again to the same degree during future interactions. We should all learn from these experiences and when similar situations arise in the future, either with the same people or different people, we should be able to respond in different ways.  How will you pre-empt the possibility of someone stabbing you in the back for that promotion? How will you respond if someone criticizes you in a public setting about your work? How will you prevent one individual impacting the overall performance of your team? If you are 100% focused on revenge, you will be too blind to grow as a leader and consider how you should behave in the future. 

This blog may offend you. You may think it is overly simplistic or naively pollyana. I certainly do not know or understand every situation you have been in and the challenges with specific individuals or circumstance. I do not always practice what I preach and have moments/days/weeks when I find myself spending too much time and emotional energy looking backwards in a negative way. But as the great philosopher Pumbaa once stated,  "You've got to put your behind in your past.". You will be a healthier, happier and more successful leader if you do.