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Once upon a time, there was an employee A who followed the leader K since joining the company. Leader K was responsible for the testing work of the entire department. Employee A was a reliable person who liked to create tools that truly improved productivity. Leader K intended to promote employee A and put him in charge of testing a module. At the same time, the entire department was in a period of rapid growth, so A was busy recruiting new employees and working hard to complete tasks, often working overtime. Leader K also assigned A to handle some management work for the department. At this time, A was relatively naive and only focused on managing the business without managing the responsible individuals. A was exhausted from working long hours, but the performance was not good in the end.

In 2020, A hired two new employees, and the management style remained the same. These two new employees admired A's technical and business abilities. With their abilities and technical skills, A managed to support the department for a year.

In 2021, there was a major personnel adjustment in the department, and leader K was transferred to another department. Another person, Z, took over the management work of the entire department, and Z assigned employee J to take over A's management work. A felt relieved for a while, feeling much easier as they no longer had to work overtime and deal with other business matters, only focusing on their own tasks.

It is necessary to introduce J here. J's strength was in managing and directing others, and they were good at handling conflicts. The people in the department were generally easygoing, but J's ability to handle conflicts left a deep impression on the leaders. J was also responsible for a business with guaranteed quality. Although J didn't personally handle the tasks, they recruited many people, around 20 partners. They managed the tasks by assigning them to the partners and checking the progress every day.

Since hiring two new employees, A's module did not hire many more people because the recruited employees had strong business capabilities. With overtime work, A was able to handle all the testing tasks.

In the second half of 2021, the performance of A's subordinates, under J's management, was poor, which led to employees leaving the company. As a result, A's workload increased again. At the same time, due to the poor performance of the department, the department requested a reduction in the number of partners. However, A's module already had few partners, and A had to handle most of the work alone. Further reduction of partners would only make things worse. But J's strategy was to reduce partners in proportion to the modules. This made A feel helpless.

In the second half of 2022, another employee under A was persuaded to leave based on their performance. At this point, A was left with only one employee and five partners to manage the module.

A had not received a promotion for four years. A communicated with J and was told that they would make every effort to promote A in the first half of 2023. However, the promotion opportunity in the first half of 2023 was given to H, who often smoked with J. A felt disappointed and realized that their future was not promising. Despite A's good performance in 2021 and 2022, they mistakenly believed that their future was secure, leading them to work hard for another two years. During these two years, most of the new features in A's module were assigned to H by J to familiarize themselves with. J claimed that this was to reduce A's workload, and A believed it.

At the beginning of this year, J apologized to A and said that they originally intended to promote A, but H was promoted by the higher-ups. J apologized and promised that A didn't need to work so hard this year, and they would still give A good performance reviews no matter what. Can A still trust J?

Now A has no reason or motivation to stay in the department. Looking back, J was indeed a talented person, and A had no chance of winning.

1. J used the strategy of "明修栈道暗渡陈仓" (míng xiū zhàn dào àn dù chén cāng), which means to secretly prepare for a major move while appearing to do something else. J reduced A's workload and assigned the features that A was originally responsible for to H, while letting H familiarize themselves with the old features A was responsible for.

2. J used the strategy of "温水煮青蛙" (wēn shuǐ zhǔ qīng wā), which means to gradually increase pressure or difficulty to make someone adapt to it without realizing the danger. J kept A stable, as the features A was responsible for were challenging. So, before H fully took over, J gave A good performance reviews, making A mistakenly believe that J trusted them.

3. J excluded A's trusted allies. Over two years, J got rid of the new employees that A hired. This reduced A's support within the department, so even if A complained to the higher-ups, they wouldn't have a chance of winning.

4. When the time came, J dug a pit for A. J made A fall into the pit themselves and then easily got rid of A, as A posed the biggest threat to J after the promotion.

A realized that they lost to J and didn't regret it.

1. A believed too much in hard work and technical skills. In the actual work process, especially after five years, smarter people focus on politics and building relationships. In the eyes of leaders, most employees are just replaceable pawns.

2. A wasn't tough enough. A was always a kind person, working overtime and covering for others. In the end, even the top leader didn't recognize their efforts. When A was in a management position, they didn't hold the responsible individuals accountable. In other words, A was too soft-hearted and didn't confront them. They took on all the problems themselves.

3. A trusted others too much. A has been with the company for eight years, and the first five years went smoothly because leader K helped them with many things. Most colleagues were polite to A because of leader K. So, A mistakenly believed that everyone was friendly. It wasn't until they saw the final outcome that they realized the truth.

This is just an ordinary workplace story. If you want to know more details, please leave a message. I will answer any questions that don't involve privacy.