When Your Colleague Steals Your Ideas

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Your boss has a certain amount of power over you, as you do over your subordinates, but it is supposed to be different with your peers. You are supposed to be on the same level. You are supposed to pull together and help one another. In the real world, some colleagues only pretend to do this.

These coworkers are so concerned with getting ahead and looking good that they do not want to admit that some of their actions make you look bad. Sometimes they even use your brainpower and claim it as their own. These colleagues exploit your ideas, stealing credit for and profiting from them. It is important to protect your career from this underhanded behavior.

Brain-picking colleagues are phony office friends who only care about information they can extract from you. Instead of suggesting that you team up and brainstorm some idea or activity to which you both contribute and claim credit, they probe your mind with delicately worded questions. Then they take your brainchild and adopt it or adapt it as their own.

What You Are Thinking

It was not just my imagination. Gene pumped me for information about the best way to organize the program so that we would have the cooperation of all the departments. Now I find my ideas in this email from the boss, praising Gene for coming up with a plan that will help our company. I cannot decide whether to expose him publicly or to just let it go. How could I ever prove that the ideas were really mine and not Gene’s?

What He’s Thinking

Wow, that was a great email the boss sent praising me for my idea. I will add this to my list to present to him when it is time for my next performance review.

Strategy

Obviously, you will not gain anything from a confrontation. This colleague has already convinced himself that your ideas came to him on his own. Learn from your mistake. Your objective now is to separate your concepts into those you want to present as your own and those that need the collective wisdom of a group to be properly developed. Then, direct the flow of your ideas.

1. Plug the leak. Once you have determined who wants to drain your brain, be polite but tight-lipped. Just stop supplying the information.
2. Welcome discussion when concepts affect other units. You should not work in a vacuum, especially when you need the cooperation of others. Still, do not limit yourself to a one-person audience with an individual who steals your ideas. Enlarge the group. Include other colleagues or bring up these matters at lunch or at staff meetings.
3. Include the boss by way of email. After dialogue, share your collaboration with this person while also copying the boss. Let the boss know you played a role before this colleague takes all the credit.

Tactical Talk

You: (Tight-lipped) Yes, Gene, that really will be a problem, but I haven’t thought it through yet. Why don’t you bring it up at the next staff meeting?

Or: (Group discussion) You know, the boss requested that we measure the change in…. I wonder if this approach could work well. What if we were to…?

Tip: Be glad this happened to you now. You will be wiser in the future when you come up with a brilliant gem. Then you will know how to nourish, protect, and present your prize-winning idea.

Copyright© 2024 Amy Cooper Hakim