The Credit Stealer

I am sure that we have all experienced bosses or colleagues who take credit, or perhaps you have heard about it happening to a colleague? I have had two such experiences and will share how I handled them without getting fired or getting my boss offside.

In the old days it was easier you could place your name on any printed documentation, and refer to ‘the original’ if need be. In the digital age and the pace of communications people often just pick up on headlines.

Getting back to the first situation where this occurred. It started with a challenge we were set as a brand team from our regional directors based in Switzerland to rejuvenate and grow a brand or delete it. This brand was important to our little division and it was in our interests to save it.

There were a number of us that worked really hard on growing the brand that had been hanging around at the bottom of the sales and profit portfolio of our company. The brand was outdated and old, it had been around since 1912, and in personal care markets that is a very long time. Personal care moves fast, with completely new ingredients and products launched to the market every month.

The brand had sold $12million a year for the prior 3 years and with inflation was going backwards rapidly in terms of profit. (inflation was around 7%). The brand had lost 21% of it’s value in real terms in three years.

The advertising agency and my brand team came up with a campaign that boosted sales and rejuvenated the brand within the following year to $36 million, not only that the excitement and relaunch gave the brand many new users and set it up for a much longer future.

We received a lot of recognition for what we as a team did. Our regional director sending us emails of how impressed he was. Little incentives that he wanted to give. My boss at the time was copied in on the email. His response to the regional director had none of my team, or I copied on the email, but he did forget that one of our sales team was copied on his response.

This was his response “Hi Georges I have been driving them very hard on this project.” This was a complete lie. He had absolutely no involvement with anything that we had done. he merely occupied a position higher than us in the company.

How do you handle a situation like this?

The way that I believe is best, is to get a third party to highlight the truth. This third party needs to be outside of the company or from a different division within the company. This Third party, let’s call them the ‘truth revealer’ will mention that you and your team are responsible for the success alone. They will send an email to the regional director in line with what I propose below.

“Dear Georges It was an absolute pleasure working with, and then name each of the team members, to drive this project. I heard that when the team reported their achievements to their boss (name goes in here) he was both surprised and impressed with what they had done. he never believed that they would be able to achieve what they did. Thank you for setting the challenge up, it was great to work with the team.”

The bosses name is conspicuous by it’s absence, other than to mention he was surprised. This undermines his credit stealing and you didn’t do it someone else did. Someone he has no authority over. This way you protect yourself and your career.

The second time it happened to me was at a food company I worked at. Our CEO was sitting at lunch chatting to an old colleague of his. I didn’t plan to be there but the timing was fortunate, he was taking credit for some innovation that our advertising agency and my brand team had initiated. He quickly back pedalled and gave me the credit, and I pointed out that it was not only me but the brand team and the agency.

Solution

Even if you did all the work and set up everything for a project, always give your team and anyone else who assisted you credit. This makes you look humble but competent. It also shows you are a team player and not just in it for your own glory.

Remember always that nothing in life is only due to your own efforts, there is always someone to thank, for giving you the opportunity or for helping you along the way.

We are often blinded by our ambition to achieve. If we take a step back and are sober minded, and think through everything, we soon come to realise that even if we played a major part. We cannot deny that we relied on others and received assistance along the way. Always give them credit. Be gracious in success.