1081: How to Deal with Credit Stealers at Work with Andrew Palmer

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to talk about credit stealing today. But first, I want to maybe zoom out and hear, you spent years working on the business section of The Economist. Can you share any wildly fascinating and surprising discoveries you’ve made over the course of your career in that unique spot about work?

Andrew Palmer
My favorite interview ever was with Bill Gates. And I think, just as a kind of mind working at hypersonic speed and sort of processing information, coming back with coherent arguments, kind of that felt like a different level. It felt like, you know how you worry that like rich people don’t deserve it? That was a reassuring interview. Like, this person was operating at a different level.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s really fascinating. So, in your experience of speaking with many humans, is Bill Gates, you think, the smartest in one sense of the word that you’ve ever spoken to?

Andrew Palmer
Well, his range was really interesting because, obviously, he had the Microsoft bit to his career, and then the Gates Foundation, so that kind of ability to move from public policy to private sector, from computing to battling malaria, that was particularly impressive. So, yeah, I think he would jump out to me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now I’m curious, is there any actionable wisdom to be gleaned from the life and career of Bill Gates or he’s just a lucky duck with special genes and we’re all just stuck with what we got?

Andrew Palmer
There was a point where he decided to move. I think he was somewhere in, like, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, I can’t remember, initially very early on in the history of the company.

And he’s decided to move to back to Seattle, in part so that no one could kind of poach people, so that they could sort of operate in this little hermetically sealed environment. Still a big city, but there wasn’t all of that sort of rival startups around creating noise, potentially poaching his best people. And it’s a reminder of how, like, being outside of the main centers of commerce can really be a smart strategy for a startup in particular.

And we spent a bit of time, we’re doing a podcast here called Boss Class, which is about how to be a good manager. We spent a bit of time with companies that are in small towns and have really turned that to their advantage, and Gates comes to mind.

Pete Mockaitis
So let’s talk about credit stealing. You wrote a piece in The Economist, a very catchy title, “The Behavior That Annoys Colleagues More Than Any Other,” and, apparently, that’s credit stealing.

So, I was thinking that’s striking in and of itself. I mean, we might name any number of annoying behaviors from microwaving fish in the office microwave to vocal pauses, interrupting folks, but credit stealing is the tops. Can you tell us a bit about the underlying research that supports that assertion?

Andrew Palmer
Yeah, so I wouldn’t say that this was like academic quality research. This is basically a series of surveys where, in various places around the world, that question is asked of workers. Credit stealing is kind of very consistently at the top or near it.

So, I don’t know that we need to worry too much about whether it’s the single most irritating or the second or the third, but it’s right up there. It is something that irritates the hell out of people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And now, when it comes to credit stealing, can you share with us the main categories or flavors of credit stealing, because I think it’s often not super explicit? Like, you said something brilliant. I loved it and I went into someone else, and said, “I had this amazing idea. Praise me.” But that does happen too. But can you share with us kind of the main flavors or types, varieties, categories of credit stealing?

Andrew Palmer
I think, basically, they all fall into one category, Pete, which is, you know, you come up with an insight, an idea, you share it with a group, someone else then passes it off as their own. And they might do that publicly in front of you, which is particularly irritating, or they might be doing that privately, going off and saying, “Well, I’ve had this thought,” etc.

But there’s no particular sort of set of subcategories. It’s just that, like, “That was my thought, and you are the one now vocalizing it and pretending that it is yours.” That is the definition.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so tell us, when this occurs, what’s really at stake for professionals? So, we’re irritated, but is it, “Yeah, no big deal,” we brush it off and move on and it’s all good? Or is it quite epic in terms of negative consequences for those who are victims to credit stealing?

Andrew Palmer
Well, there are two ways to think about the negative consequences. So, one would be like, is it bad for the organization that you work for? So, should your managers and bosses care about this? They may be credit stealers themselves. And then the second is like, is it good for your career? So, on the organizational front, credit stealing does seem to be bad.

And there’s a particular piece of research outside of China that looked at how people, they basically asked a bunch of employees to rate their leaders in terms of, you know, “Did they pass off your ideas as your own?” or, “Were they good at giving credit?” And then they asked those leaders to rate employees in terms of their performance.

Both groups didn’t know exactly what the other was answering, so it was all done blind. It was done in the proper way, and there is absolutely a correlation there. So, people who believe that their boss is a credit stealer are regarded by their boss as working less well. So there seems to be a performance impact from cultures of credit stealing.

And then the second transmission mechanism here is the career one. It’s difficult to know. I’m not aware of really good research on this, but self-promotion is definitely a part of making your way up the ladder. It does matter that you show to the people above you that you’ve done this and you’re the person who deserves the kudos for things.

It’s not the only way to get up the ladder. And, in fact, it’s important to be seen to be giving credit, as well as claiming credit for things. So, it’s absolutely not the only strategy, but that does suggest that self- promotion matters. So, if you can get away with it, it’s good for the credit stealer, and even more galling for the person whose credit has been stolen.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so let’s get into it. So, let’s say this is happening to us in our workplaces right now, what should we do?

Andrew Palmer
One thing to do is kind of try to calm down about it, which is easier said than done, because this is something that is super ingrained in us, that it’s unfair. And plagiarism is something that you don’t notice when you’re four, but when you’re about five or six, the research suggests that you really do notice an idea being stolen and credit being unfairly claimed.

So, it’s very, very deeply ingrained in us. We are hardwired to feel like this is a bad thing. This behavior is unfair. So, it’s much easier said than done to say, “Darling, try and ignore it.” But the point of the column I wrote was to try and get you to, if not a Zen-like state, at least able to kind of reconcile yourself to some of this behavior, the less egregious sort.

So, one way to think about this is, “You hate other people stealing credit for your ideas. Are you doing it yourself?” And there is a ton of research about something called cryptomnesia, which basically is credit stealing when you’re not aware of it, involuntary claiming of credit. And the research there is all about setting things up so that people are asked to generate a ton of ideas around novel uses for a product.

Then they come back a week later, and they’re asked to recall both their own ideas and to come up with new ones, which didn’t, in any way, replicate things that had already been generated during this process. And on both scores, people do really badly. Without meaning to, they do claim some other person’s idea is their own, and they also sort of think this is an entirely new idea, even if it’s been brought up before.

So there seems to be something about the way that we operate, where you actually claim credit, you’re not aware of it, and that might help people to reconcile themselves a bit to this extremely irritating form of behavior.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I think it really can in terms of, and still, our emotional minds are not always, like you said, easier said than done, like, “Oh, well, that person might not have realized it. Okay, well, now I feel totally fine.” But in that internal dialogue, it’s nice to know this is, in fact, a common situation about the human experience, that that is something that unfolds there.

You know, I think another reason credit stealing can really be, I think, some of the most vicious is when you’re in a meeting and you say something, and then someone else says almost the same thing, like seconds later, and what you said got very little response, but what the other person said got quite a bit of response.

And again, it might be just because, “Oh, well, you know, hey, their language was more kind of clear and resonant to some people, and so it’s not necessarily meaning that.” But it really is a blow to our sense of status in terms of it’s like, “Oh, okay.” Like, it’s semi-rare in modern United States culture, as far as I’ve observed, to just get an explicit message from people around you, “We all think that person is of higher status and importance than you.”

You know, like that’s a kind of a message that is received, it’s like, “Oh, am I invisible?” And so, there’s, like, a double whammy there. Do you have any pro tips for that scenario?

Andrew Palmer
Well, I don’t think, like, raising your hand and saying, “Well, hold on, I just said that. Why aren’t you all applauding me?” I don’t think that’s a good idea ever. That does make you look a bit petty. And so, if that’s happening, that it might reflect actual status differences within the room, which is very hard to counteract.

It might just reflect the way that you are actually articulating ideas, and so there’s probably a bit of kind of self-reflection that should go on there. But it does happen. I mean, you’re absolutely right. It’s super irritating to people if it does. I think the main thing, if that happens, is absolutely not to throw your toys out of the pram in public.

So, reflect a bit on like, “Did I articulate this wrong? Should I have done a better job? Or, actually, is this because this person is the boss and everyone always sort of nods and sort of looks impressed, whatever that person says?”

Pete Mockaitis
Or, even if it’s a peer, it’s like, “Oh, the message I’m getting here is that peer is more well received, or of higher status, or viewed as superior to me based on this.” And, of course, that may be a false interpretation. It could be any number of other innocuous things, but with self-reflection, that’s interesting.

In a world where, now, so many of our meetings are recorded and/or transcribed with our little Zoom plugin assistants, which sometimes can embarrass people, so, everyone, public service announcement, be careful with those, and when they’re on and what you’re saying. But that really does make it, perhaps, all the easier to say, “Oh, hey, well, let’s reflect on exactly what I said and what they said.”

And then perhaps share that with a friend, a coach, a mentor, and dig in, “Hmm, might there be something about their presentation that was more effective and compelling than mine that I can learn from in this encounter?”

Andrew Palmer
Yeah, maybe that’s a good idea. I mean, maybe you could hope that people are poring over the AI summaries and sort of seeing this sequencing. That seems unlikely to me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, they won’t. I think that you’ll need to bring it to someone and ask them to help you out as a time together.

Andrew Palmer
I mean, I suppose, you could do kind of passive-aggressive things like, you know, as I was just saying, but it seems passive-aggressive. So, I think, probably, it’s better to just go away, either kind of try and think yourself into the like, “Was this deliberate? Was this some sort of Machiavellian thing going on? Or was it just much more innocuous?” And then try and calibrate your response, because, often, it really isn’t meant.

There’s also the way that ideas come together. The fact is that very, very few people are having eureka moments where they’re kind of like being struck by something that has never occurred to anyone in the history of humanity.

And almost everything is a kind of combinatorial process where an innovation is building on things that have gone before. So, before one gets very, very sort of self-righteous about “That was my idea,” it is worth reflecting on whether your idea is actually yours or is somehow building on the work of others. It almost certainly will be.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, isn’t that the expression, “There’s nothing new under the sun”? And we had a guest who said a few times, that creativity are feats of combination, in terms of we take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, put them together and, oh, and now it’s new.

Andrew Palmer
Yeah, I mean, very occasionally, something would be entirely novel, but almost always it’s a combination of preceding ideas or this idea of convergent innovation where you are kind of taking things that have already been developed. You put them together in new patterns, which is the same sort of process.

So, yeah, some people will sit in a darkened room and have some incredible brainwave. It’s almost certainly not going to be you. So, you will be working off the ideas of other people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, understood. So, that’s the first piece is let’s try not to be so upset about it. And then what?

Andrew Palmer
Well, I would think a little bit about, also just on the why not be upset because it does matter, is credit stealing doesn’t necessarily work. So, you might want to sort of fight fire with fire and try and steal credit yourself. That’s not a brilliant strategy. So, it does look like people have, they do better if they combine self-promotion and being generous in acknowledging the work of other people on the team.

So, this was work done by someone at Vanderbilt University, which looked at those strategies and found that both together is effective. You want to toot your own horn, but also be careful to say, “And these people did great work, too.” So that’s one thing.

And then the other thing I point you to is a very fun piece of research that came out of Wharton, which looked at, if you start bragging about something, you’re sending a kind of weird signal, which is that whatever you did, you think is really, really good, right? You are saying, like, “I am really proud of this.”

So, what they did was they set up this competition where programmers were entered into a tournament, and people who got identical high scores reacted in different ways to a bunch of observers. So, one was like, “I can’t believe how well I did. It was unbelievable. I totally smashed it.” And the other looked vaguely disappointed.

And the one who was really proud of their performance was signaling to the observers, “This is the ceiling,” they didn’t expect to do this well, and they’re probably not going to again. And then the one who was vaguely disappointed was signaling, “Okay, my ceiling is way higher, and I can do much better.”

So, that’s a sort of code, I think, in the context of credit stealing that, like, someone who’s really saying, like, “And that was my idea,” that’s fine if it’s a brilliant idea. If it’s a pretty kind of blah one, that’s not necessarily good too. So, again, it’s like a little coping strategy.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now you’re bringing me back to one of my favorite scenes ever from the TV series, “Parks and Recreation,” when Ron Swanson crafts a wedding ring out of a sconce on the wall, and he says, “It’s very simple.” And he describes, “I simply removed the sconce. I melted down the metal. I formed it into a ring. I polished and sanded, and I replaced the situation, blah, blah, blah. People who buy things are suckers.”

And what I love about that is, I think, there’s so many levels of wisdom actually in this silly little scene, is that it becomes abundantly clear that what is an impressive feat of craftsmanship and ingenuity to most of us is totally no big deal to this guy. Thusly, Ron Swanson must be a super amazing craftsman. And I think that’s really a great reminder in terms of if you are…now, there’s so many implications to that.

I guess, in some ways, we want to be ourselves and be enthusiastic and share our joy when something really is special. But I guess we also need to watch ourselves, like, “Okay, you’re sending that message that if you think what you did is amazing, and that suggests that it’s near the limit of your capabilities, and folks pick up on that, so you might want to consider sharing that joy in more select circles.”

Andrew Palmer
Completely right. And so, if you’re going to toot your own horn, do so in a way that suggests you haven’t maxed out, or only do so when you’ve come up with an idea or have achieved something, which is genuinely good. Otherwise, there’s something subliminal there which is potentially not such a great signal.

Pete Mockaitis
What’s intriguing, though, is I think if we’re tooting the horn of a team, it’s like, “I’m so proud of my team. They worked so hard to do this,” I suppose that probably still applies, in terms of it’s like, “Okay, your team had to work hard to accomplish this because none of us are that impressed. Maybe your team is not that good.” I suppose that sequence still works, yet it doesn’t feel as risky. That seems like a safer move.

Andrew Palmer
Yeah, I think there is probably a danger in overpraising, generally, right? I mean, you’re sort of normalizing mediocre performance at some point. So just being intentional about when you’re going to praise someone or compliment your team is worthwhile. But at least, there isn’t the added filter of, like, “Is this person taking credit for bad ideas?” which is like doubly bad.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, within this realm of research, do you have any favorite words, phrases, scripts, tips, do’s, don’ts that you personally follow within this vein?

Andrew Palmer
If not tackling this kind of at the time in the room is good advice, then there’s a point where you would want to bring it up directly with the person who’s taking credit. So don’t do it in public.

But if it really feels like someone is just routinely ripping off your ideas, then you start to get into the kind of fairly standard playbook about having difficult conversations, bringing stuff up quickly. So, privately, but quickly after an incident of credit stealing. And then if that doesn’t work, and it really feels like a pattern of behavior, then you’re probably going above someone’s head and talking to your boss or their boss if need be.

So, I think sort of calmness at first, reflect on what’s gone on, “Is it a pattern of behavior?” And if it really is and it feels egregious, then you have to start to act.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious then, what if we are the ones who have cryptomnesia, we are inadvertently doing this credit stealing to other people, what do we do then?

Andrew Palmer
Well, I suppose that’s just the natural kind of process of feedback, right? It’s the Kim Scott playbook where, if you want to give feedback to other people, you have to ask for feedback yourself. And if you’ve got those mechanisms running within an organization and they’re reasonably healthy, then there should be an opportunity for people to tell you if you’re taking credit for things.

But the other way to do this is not just to wait until an incident occurs and then you have a conversation. It’s to try and avoid this happening in the first place. Clearly, this is a behavior that is common and it irritates people. So, what do you do to head it off at the pass? And that might be things like having very settled recognition norms.

So, whatever the work is, understanding upfront and being clear how you’re going to credit that work. So, on a project team, these are all the people who are involved. They are going to be named in the slides or the meetings when it comes time, and these are their roles. So, you can, I think, be clear upfront how you’re going to apportion credit.

And you can sort of immediately diffuse that worry amongst team members if they think that this is some sort of behavior that’s common. So that’s an obvious, I think, way to handle it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, to that theme of  looking at ourselves in the mirror and being open to that feedback, I’m now thinking that we might be giving ourselves too much credit in terms of we think someone stole our idea, but, I suppose, I don’t know the name, I don’t recall the name of this cognitive bias, but we often tend to think that our own contributions or efforts are instrumental or special, when sometimes they’re not. So, do you have any wisdom for folks who might be patting themselves too much on the back prematurely?

Andrew Palmer
Well, if they’re suffering from a cognitive bias, they’re not going to be aware of it, so that is problematic. I mean, again, I think, probably, if you can define roles upfront, which forces people to acknowledge, like, “Okay, we are all working together on this thing, and we have some kind of role clarity, which defines what we’re each bringing. We all have a contribution to make,” that is helpful. And doing that upfront is particularly helpful.

Putting it on all the documentation might seem so stupid, but it’s actually a way of immediately signaling to the world and the people on the team that we’re all in this together in some way. So, I think good team presentations will always have a kind of, like, it’s the thing you flick through, but it’s important, the kind of first or second slide, which is like members of the team, and it just signals outside and inside that you’re taking this seriously.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, it’s a simple practice and it feels good. And there it is, wherever that PowerPoint deck might land, you know, forwarded across continents and across years, there those names are, right on it. So why not? That’s just good practice.

Andrew Palmer
Yeah, I mean, no one pays any attention to PowerPoint slides, of course, so that’s the slight weakness in the advice, but at least you’re thinking about it. You’re probably reassuring within the team that that’s not going to be a problem they have to deal with. That sort of just takes the temperature down a bit.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Andrew Palmer
I guess, to the extent you can being really clear about not taking credit for things yourself, so we’ve talked about cryptomnesia, some of this you’re not aware of. But once you know that this really bugs the hell out of people and you hear the words coming out of your mouth, like, “My idea was,” that ought to be some kind of, like, trigger to reflect, “Well, was it really, really my idea?” So, just again, the sort of reflectivity.

And, yeah, I suppose the other thing is, given that this problem exists, that recognition doesn’t necessarily come your way, how do you kind of manage your career in an effective way? So, the obvious example here is for academics. And it’s the difference between male and female academics getting tenure.

And if male academics co-author or solo-author papers, it doesn’t matter for their chances of getting tenure. But if female academics co-author, it does hurt their chances of getting tenure because there is bias in the people assigning that position, which tends to assume that their contribution to a project is less important than the male. So that is a real problem.

And the only way you can do that, beyond changing societal biases, which is a tough ask, is to be quite thoughtful about, “Do you want to co-author? If you do co-author, how are you going to handle this upfront with your colleagues? Is there a way of being the corresponding author for recognition to be doled out even more explicitly?”

So, I suppose there are certain situations, particularly if you’re kind of at important points in your career where you want to think about, like, “Is there a way for recognition to be unfairly apportioned. And can I head that off at the pass?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Andrew Palmer
This is a quote that Reid Hoffman gave me that he got from his professor at Stanford. And it is a definition of management, which is “Management is about poetry and prose.” And the reason I like that is that is a very, very succinct way of summing up what you have to do if you’re to be a good boss.

So, the poetry element of this is motivating people, inspiring them, making them feel like there’s a shared mission. And the prose bit of it is the kind of structure and process and the sort of velocity of one-to-one meetings, the kind of quite practical administrative stuff that actually makes things work on time.

So, some people are good at one, some are good at the other, but actually it’s the bringing of the two together that really matters within organizations.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Andrew Palmer
I mean, there’s one that just comes to mind recently because I’ve just read about it. So, the limits on free speech in the US. There’s this canonical example which is you shouldn’t shout fire in a crowded theater. That is where free speech ends.

So, someone did a paper which came out very recently, which modeled crowd behavior if someone shouted fire in a crowded theater, and found that actually you can kind of get out generally pretty safely. So even that may not be a very good example of restricting free speech.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Andrew Palmer
Middlemarch.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Andrew Palmer
Okay, so this is this thing that I’m really, really at sold on right now to restrict myself to one sweet thing a day. I swear by it. At least I do for the next month.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect or resonate with folks, or is there an Andrew Palmer sound bite that you’re known for?

Andrew Palmer
I don’t think I’m known for it, but the thing that comes across from almost all of the interviews that I do and the writing I do on this topic within the organization is that there is no substitute for being explicit about things.

So, whatever it is, it might be the mission of the company, the values, the culture holds dear, it might be the way that you choose to work, it might be the purpose of a meeting. But, like, saying it out loud, writing it down, goes a long way.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Andrew Palmer
You should subscribe to The Economist. So, you just search for The Economist, that’s where my work is. And you can also look for Boss Class on any streaming platform.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Andrew Palmer
Reflect on what it is that you are good at and bad at, and reflect on how you work. And if you can document that, you’re probably halfway to solving those problems.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Andrew, thank you.

Andrew Palmer
Thanks, Pete.