Abstract: A November 2026 survey of 1,014 employed U.S. adults found that 69% had experienced at least one form of workplace undermining in the past year, from being blamed for problems to having information withheld or credit taken. These findings arrive amid continuing layoff anxiety, AI-attributed job cuts, and record-low employee engagement. This article synthesizes research on social undermining, knowledge hiding, knowledge theft, job insecurity, and tournament-style incentives to explain why threat pushes employees toward zero-sum behavior and what that behavior costs organizations and individuals. It then outlines five evidence-based organizational responses: redesigning evaluation and rewards to value collective contribution, making credit and attribution visible, reducing threat through fair and transparent workforce decisions, enforcing conduct norms without regard to status, and building trust-based knowledge-sharing systems. Documented examples from Microsoft, Atlassian, Adobe, Nucor, Uber, Netflix, Pixar, Toyota, Virginia Mason, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Wells Fargo illustrate both effective practice and common failure. The article closes with three long-term capabilities for making cooperation the rational choice even when jobs feel uncertain.
Powered by the WRKdefined Podcast Network.
[00:00:00] Have you ever felt like a colleague threw you under the bus and wondered if it was intentional? Oh, I think we've all been there at some point, right? Right. You're definitely not alone. And today we're welcoming you to a custom-tailored deep dive to figure out why this is happening so much lately. Because it really is everywhere right now. It is. We're looking at a fascinating November 2026 article from the Human Capital Leadership Review by Dr. Jonathan H. Westover. Which is such a timely piece of research.
[00:00:27] Totally. Our mission today is to unpack why workplace undermining is skyrocketing, how it's linked to job insecurity and AI, and most importantly, how leaders can redesign their systems to make cooperation the safest bet. Okay, let's unpack this. I'm so glad we're getting into this with you because this topic is just absolutely critical right now. People are on edge. They really are. And the data kind of proves it, right? I mean, we've got this survey from November 2026.
[00:00:57] Showing that 69% of U.S. workers experienced workplace undermining in the past year. Almost 7 in 10 people. That is huge. Yeah. And the breakdown is wild. Like 30% were blamed for mistakes. 26% had their mistakes highlighted. And 22% were gossiped about. And then there's that stat where 77% think backstabbing is just common. Right. Which means it's not even a surprise anymore. It's just the culture. Exactly.
[00:01:26] But we have to establish the ground truth of why people are so anxious before we look at how they act out. Okay. Which brings us to the macroeconomic anxiety. Like by October 2026, there were over 617,000 job cuts announced. Right. And the AI factor in those cuts is the real story. It really is. AI was cited in over 121,000 of those layoffs. That's one in five. Which is terrifying for the average worker.
[00:01:52] Oh, for sure. Combine that with U.S. employee engagement hitting 29%, which is the lowest since 2011. And you've got this massive wave of insecurity. And that insecurity creates what psychologists call the zero-sum construal of success. Wait. What does that actually mean in plain English? It's basically the psychological belief that one person's gain is another's loss. If I win, you have to lose.
[00:02:17] Ah, I see. Which totally connects to this wild stat from the text. Like 60.7% of anxious workers secretly used AI to take on a co-worker's tasks. And the hiding part is what gets me. Yeah. 62.8% of them hid this AI use from their manager. It's like a high-stakes game of musical chairs, but instead of just running fast, people are secretly using AI to pull the chairs away from their co-workers. That is a perfect way to describe it.
[00:02:43] But let me ask, is this just human nature? Or is the corporate system actively turning good people into saboteurs? What's fascinating here is that it's really the system. It's all about job preservation motivation. So they're just trying to survive. Exactly. When the system makes people feel threatened, they protect themselves. Which makes sense. But how does that actually look in the office? Because we're not talking about cartoon villains here. No, not at all. It's much more subtle. There are basically three flavors of sabotage, starting with social undermining.
[00:03:13] Okay. What does that look like? That's intentional behavior to hinder someone's success. But the crucial part is that a study shows receiving support from someone does not neutralize the damage of their undermining. So it's like a toxic diet. Eating one salad, you know, the support, doesn't cancel out eating a whole chocolate cake, which is the sabotage. Right. You're still ingesting the toxic stuff. Your brain stays on high alert because you never know which version of your co-worker you're going to get today. That sounds exhausting. What's the second flavor?
[00:03:43] Knowledge hiding. And this isn't just for getting to CC someone on an email. Right. It's intentional. Totally. It's intentionally concealing requested info, like evasive hiding, rationalized hiding, or just playing dumb. And I'm guessing that's driven by distrust. 100%. Which naturally leads to the third flavor, knowledge theft. Oh, taking credit for other people's ideas. Yes. And this is so damaging because it actually teaches victims to hide their own knowledge in the future. Because they've learned it's not safe to share.
[00:04:13] Exactly. But wait, because these behaviors, like a missing name on a slide, are so ambiguous, how does a leader even begin to police this without becoming a micromanager? Well, the ambiguity is exactly the point. It's designed for plausible deniability. Ah, so you can just say, oops, I forgot. Right. And because of that, traditional misconduct processes completely fail here. You can't write someone up for a typo. Right. So management is kind of flying blind. They really are. And that requires a totally different leadership approach.
[00:04:43] Because if it's happening under the radar, the cost to the organization has to be huge, right? Oh, it is. It creates this thing called the reciprocal distrust loop. Okay, break that down for me. So hiding knowledge actually reduces the hider's own creativity. Really? Why? Because coworkers sense the hoarding, and they just stop sharing with them in return. You cut yourself off from the flow of ideas.
[00:05:06] Oh, wow. Here's where it gets really interesting, though. If I hoard my knowledge to make myself look indispensable during layoffs, doesn't that logically work for me in the short term? I mean, maybe for a minute, yes. But performance climates like that completely backfire on the organization. Because it distorts evaluations? Exactly. In winner-take-all systems, the most capable employees actually attract the most sabotage. Wait, really? Yeah. The best people get targeted the most.
[00:05:35] Yeah. Chen's 2003 model shows this clearly. Companies accidentally promote the best saboteur instead of the best performer. That is wild. And it ruins safety and well-being, too. Like the healthcare data in the article? Right. The Joint Commission found 40% of clinicians stay silent rather than question an intimidator. 40%. 40%. In healthcare, that's literally life or death. It is. And on top of that, coworker aggression is just as harmful to your health as supervisor aggression.
[00:06:03] Because you're constantly in fight-or-flight mode. Exactly. An organization that accidentally converts colleagues into rivals suffers massive drops in overall output and quality. Okay. So how do organizations call a ceasefire? We have to ditch the tournament, right? Yes. That is step one. It starts with how they evaluate and reward. They have to redesign rewards and eliminate forced distribution. You mean like stack ranking. Exactly. Exactly. Stack ranking is poison for cooperation.
[00:06:31] Stack ranking sounds like grading on a curve where you literally have to ensure your best friend fails just so you can get an A. That is incredibly accurate. And companies are finally waking up to this. Like Microsoft, right? They ended stack ranking way back in 2013. Right. And now you see places like Atlassian rating team contribution instead. Or Adobe doing their check-in system. Yeah. And my favorite example is Nucor. They use team production bonuses. So everyone wins together.
[00:06:58] Exactly. But fixing the money isn't enough. You also have to make credit visible. Which is hard because of egocentric bias, right? Like the study that showed group members' claims of responsibility routinely add up to more than 100%? Yes. Everyone remembers their own hard work, but not their partners. So if human brains naturally overestimate their own contributions to a project, how can leaders tell the difference between malicious knowledge theft and innocent memory bias?
[00:07:25] Well, the good news is intent matters less than the remedy. Oh, really? How so? You just have to build systems that trace the work, like Pixar's Brain Trust. Where they share unfinished work openly to trace ideas? Exactly. If everyone sees the messy middle, no one can steal the final credit. That makes total sense. Another great tactic is asking people to name others' contributions first before they talk about their own. Oh, to reduce that overclaiming bias. Right. And if theft does happen, leaders have to repair that credit publicly.
[00:07:54] Because a private apology doesn't fix a public reputation. Exactly. Publicly affirming ownership cures the resentment, regardless of why the theft happened. Okay. So fixing paying credit is a great foundation, but what about psychological safety? That's the glue that holds it all together. If employees still fear arbitrary layoffs, the cooperative culture will just collapse anyway. Like Almeta handled their 2025 cuts. They labeled people as low performers, which just bred fear and distrust. Right. It creates panic.
[00:08:25] Compare that to Nucor, who just reduces production days, so everyone shares the pain. It's a totally different vibe. But what about enforcing norms on the stars, the top performers? Oh, you have to hold them accountable. Uber had to rewrite their values in 2017 to remove toe-stepping. And Netflix has their famous no brilliant jerks policy. Exactly. And look at Vanderbilt's CORS peer reporting system.
[00:08:51] Yeah, that data was fascinating. They showed less than 1% of doctors get repeated complaints. Which means it's not everyone. It's a tiny fraction causing the problems. But let's be real. Is a company actually going to fire its top-performing salesperson just because they're a brilliant jerk to their co-workers? This raises an important question. Because if you don't fire them, you send a very clear message. That results matter more than people. Right. If you promote the jerk, every employee learns the real rules of the company.
[00:09:20] Yeah, that makes sense. You have to build trust systems instead. Exactly. Like Toyota's Andon cord. Anyone can stop the line for problems without blame. Or Virginia Mason's patient safety alerts, where they blame the system, not the person. Contrast that with Wells Fargo, where extreme pressure just totally overwhelmed trust. Right. So you can't just buy a knowledge-sharing software platform and expect people to use it. No, absolutely not. You have to build a blame-free climate first, or they'll just hide everything.
[00:09:51] So what does this all mean? Well, it's a big paradigm shift. It really is. Whether you're a manager designing a team workflow or an employee navigating a highly competitive office, the key takeaway is that undermining isn't a personality flaw. No, it's a predictable reaction to a poorly designed environment. Exactly. So leaders really have to step up. They do. And as we wrap up, I'd love to leave you with a final thought, building on that AI task absorption data. Oh, yeah. Secret AI usage.
[00:10:19] Right. As AI continues to seamlessly and quietly absorb tasks in the background, will the invisible work of human collaboration become even harder to track? Wow, that's a great point. The mentoring, the team building. Exactly. Yeah. And if so, how do we prevent the workplace of the future from becoming an entirely zero-sum gig mindset battleground hiding behind our screens? That is such a heavy but important question to ponder. It really is. Well, thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive. Yes, thank you.
[00:10:49] We warmly encourage you to keep questioning the systems around you. Next time you feel like you're being thrown under the bus, remember, it might just be how the route was designed. Catch you next time.
Sponsors
