Welcome to My Blog

At one point or another in your career, you’ll encounter a manipulator.

Unfortunately, people who use manipulative tactics to get what they want aren’t just in movies like The Devil Wears Prada — they exist in real life, too.

It’s often difficult to spot a manipulator. Manipulative behavior is inherently sneaky and dishonest. Perhaps your manager undermines you in meetings, but then tells you it’s necessary for your career growth. Or, maybe you’ve noticed manipulative behavior playing out on your team recently, with a higher-level coworker blaming junior-level employees for mistakes that weren’t their fault.

You might even recognize manipulative behavior in the client you’re working for, who often lies to you about his colleague’s wishes in order to get what he wants.

While manipulative behavior might seem like just “petty office drama,” it isn’t, and it can have negative and far-reaching consequences on your team’s culture and productivity.

Over time, manipulators can inhibit coworkers from doing their best work, and create a toxic and self-serving culture. It can demoralize your team, and lead to higher levels of employee turnover.

Fortunately, there are a few initial tactics you can try before reaching out to HR or considering more drastic action. Ultimately, it’s imperative you learn how to spot manipulative behavior among your employees or coworkers, and determine the best course of action to help your team operate with openness, honesty, and mutual respect.

Manipulative Behavior

It can be difficult to spot manipulative behavior, particularly if you’re the one being manipulated. The manipulator might compliment you often, or try to get close to you, so you don’t recognize when this “friendly” behavior becomes threatening to your work life.

Here are a few classic signs of manipulation:

1. They try to maintain control by having conversations on their terms — in their office, or on their time. They might also give you little time to make a decision, with the hope that the time pressure will force you to say yes to the manipulator’s ideas.
2. They ask you probing questions and take initial interest in getting to know you. This “special” attention could be so they can use personal information against you later.
3. They lie often or make excuses and either exaggerate or understate facts, and present information in a biased or one-sided way.
4. They show aggression by yelling or showing negative emotions to get you to do what they want. They hope your fear will make you follow their orders.
5. They tend to make critical remarks or jokes meant to undermine you or point out your flaws. They focus on the negative when providing feedback to you, and make comments to make you feel inadequate.
6. They make you feel guilty with the hope that you’ll bend to their demands if you feel bad for them.
7. They “play dumb” to get you to do what they want, by insisting they don’t understand or know how to do something. Or, on the flip side, they pretend to be an expert in something to seem superior to you.

It’s important to note manipulative behavior doesn’t necessarily mean someone has a manipulative personality. It’s likely we’ve all, at one time or another, put our own needs before someone else’s, and used manipulative tactics to make sure we got what we wanted.

Think about your childhood. Let’s say when you were younger, you really wanted the last cookie. You knew your sister loved Santa Claus, so you told her, “If you let me eat this last cookie, Santa Claus will still come. But if you eat it, he won’t come and he won’t bring you any gifts.”

By knowing your sister’s weakness, you were able to lie to her to get what you wanted. This is a manipulative behavior, but it doesn’t make you a manipulative person.

In the workplace, people make mistakes. Certain situations might encourage less-than-ideal responses, and your coworker might use manipulative behavior in a moment of crisis or desperation. While this is never okay, it’s often reversible if handled appropriately.

Manipulative Personality

It’s important you learn how to identify if your coworker, manager, or client has a manipulative personality — which is different from occasionally exhibiting manipulative behaviors.

Ultimately, someone with a manipulative personality is someone who often, and repeatedly, uses strategy and calculation over truth and ethics. They put their own needs first, and use your weaknesses against you to ensure they get what they want.

Essentially, someone with a manipulative personality is someone who exhibits the aforementioned manipulative behaviors, but displays them in various situations or with different people, often.

You’ll likely identify someone with a manipulative personality when you feel a disparity between your actions and your morals when you’re around them.

For instance, maybe you swore to yourself you’d never willingly steal a project from a coworker, but then the manipulator guilts you into it or tells you she can’t possibly do it herself. Perhaps the manipulator points out your flaws and insists you overcome them by doing her this favor. You’re uncomfortable and don’t believe it’s the right thing to do, but she convinces you anyway.

If your comfort takes a backseat to the other person’s wishes, or if you feel that person is encouraging you to do something unethical, you are probably dealing with someone with a manipulative personality.

How to Deal With Manipulative People

1. Call it out privately and attempt to get to the bottom of it.

If you see the behavior occur during a team meeting or in the hallway, but it’s the first time you’ve noticed it, you might consider initially calling out the manipulator in private.

For instance, let’s say your employee James has become close with another employee, Rebecca. He often undermines her and “jokingly” points out her flaws during meetings, which you see as both inappropriate and detrimental to Rebecca’s confidence and ability to openly offer her ideas.

You might start by calling James into your office and saying, “James, what is going on here? Do you have an issue with Rebecca or is something about her work behavior bothering you?”

It’s important to directly call attention to James behavior and acknowledge that it’s unacceptable, while initially giving James the benefit of the doubt. You want to try to get to the bottom of his behavior. Perhaps you’ll find that James is angry or frustrated with Rebecca, and while his reaction to his frustration isn’t appropriate, it creates a fuller picture for you.

Of course, James might lie or play dumb, but as a third-party viewer to the manipulation, it’s critical you take initial steps on behalf of Rebecca.

However, this course of action only works if you’re a superior to the manipulator, or if you’re someone the manipulator isn’t manipulating. If you personally feel undermined by the manipulator, you don’t want to handle the situation privately. Instead, you want to point out the situation publicly, which we’ll discuss next.

2. Call it out publicly to show it won’t be tolerated.

Calling a manipulator’s behavior out in public will do two things — one, it will diminish opportunities for the manipulator to lie or play dumb about the situation, and two, it could earn you some allies. Additionally, it shows everyone what’s really going on.

For instance, maybe your coworker purposefully left you out of a project meeting and then gossiped to coworkers that you weren’t pulling your share. If this is the case, you could email the manipulator, cc’ing your boss and teammates, and include information you would have shared in the meeting. End the email by asking to please be included in the next meeting.

Ingrid Goldbloom Bloch, principal at Mosaic Career Services in Boston, advises being “really transparent in your communications.” You want your manipulator’s actions on file as much as possible, so if the time comes, you can show various paperwork to protect your own career. You don’t want your boss hearing you have begun skipping meetings when really, you were never invited.

If the behavior happens in public, such as during a meeting, you might turn to the manipulator and say, “Your comment makes me think you don’t like the solutions we’ve offered during this meeting. Is this true?” By pointing out the behavior you’ve shown it won’t be tolerated and will continuously be questioned if continued.

3. Take your concerns to someone higher up.

Manipulative behavior puts your team’s work culture and productivity at risk, so it’s important, if the behavior continues, that you let someone higher-up know.

Bring objective facts and situations to your boss or director’s attention. Point out how the manipulator’s behavior has hindered your team’s ability to complete a project or cultivate a strong relationship with a client.

For instance, maybe your manager continues to take the credit for your team’s work during meetings, even though she privately applauds you. If the problem is persistent, you might mention to a higher-up that by taking undeserved credit, your manager is deteriorating your team’s morale.

If you keep the conversation business-related, your boss or director will likely see the critical nature and intervene.

4. Invite a mental health professional to your workplace.

If you feel that manipulative tactics have begun infiltrating your team or workplace culture, it might be time to hire a professional to identify these behaviors for you.

A mental health professional who specializes in dealing with manipulation can help you identify manipulative behavior, and can observe relationships between colleagues and make unbiased assessments. The professional can also consult and train your team and provide long-term preventative and management solutions to the problem.

Ultimately, if the manipulator is under your leadership, you’ll need to provide consistent behavioral feedback until they stop their behavior, or make it clear to them that they won’t be tolerated at your company.

Welcome, one and all, to another Wednesday: the day that marks the halfway point — almost — to the weekend.

Here in our Cambridge HQ, the days are slowly starting to get shorter. So, as we hold onto to these summer days and nights — and know that, perhaps, you are, too — we’ll try to unriddle this week’s tech news in double-time.

It’s our Wednesday tech news roundup, and we’re breaking it down.

Unriddled: The Tech News You Need

1. New Time Management Tools on Facebook and Instagram

One grievance that’s often aired about social media is the amount of time people spend on it. Now, Facebook will be rolling out “tools to manage your time” on both its core app, as well as Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

In the context of many other changes made by Facebook this year — like its January News Feed algorithm update to prioritize content from friends and family — and the recent scrutiny it’s received over data privacy, this move makes sense. The (desired) message is clear: Facebook wants people to have a safe and positive experience on its various apps.

At the same time, however, Facebook has also unveiled certain new elements that seem to emphasize and encourage more time spent on the app, especially when it comes to video like Watch and IGTV. 

Once the tools are released, Facebook says, they’ll let users know the average amount of time they spend on the given app and the device they’re currently using, as well as the total time they spend on it per day. Additionally, users can set timers for how long they want to spend on the app and receive a reminder of the limits they’ve set, as well as new settings to suppress notifications. Read full statement >>

2. Speaking of News Feed Changes: Redesigned Facebook Business Pages Are Coming

With organic Page reach declining — a  possible result of algorithm changes, combined with what Josh Constine of TechCrunch calls a “natural side effect of increased supply paired with plateauing demand” — Facebook says it will redesign the look-and-feel of Pages for local businesses to help people discover and engage with them. 

Among the changes, Facebook says, will be new tools to do things like make reservations and see each business’s Stories, similar to the way brands can reach audiences on Facebook with ephemeral visual content. The redesign will also feature listings of “related” businesses to boost discoverability, Constine reports. Read full statement >>

3. Leaked Documents Point to Google Building a Censored Search Engine in China

Last week, The Intercept reported leaked documents indicate Google is building a censored version of its search engine for Chinese markets which will restrict pages and search queries pertaining to topics like democracy, human rights, and protest.

At present, Google’s search engine can’t be used in China, as it’s banned by the country’s “Great Firewall,” which has also blocked such sites as Facebook, YouTube, and certain news outlets (including the New York Times) and coverage. It also blocks access to information pertaining to the categories that would be restricted by Google’s censored search engine, as well as topics like free speech.

According to The Intercept report, the new censored search engine will “automatically identify and filter websites blocked by the Great Firewall,” with a note within the search results indicating that  “some results may have been removed due to statutory requirements.”

Along with Google, Facebook has also struggled to gain a foothold in the Chinese market, after recently withdrawing its registration to open a subsidiary in Zhejiang. Read full story >>

4. New York City Will Put a Cap on Uber

After years of controversy around the impact of ride-sharing apps on the taxi industry (and its drivers), New York’s city council will vote today on a one-year cap for new license applications for ride-sharing vehicles operating for Uber and others. It’s one of the city’s attempts to regulate car traffic and the effect that such ride-sharing apps have had on it — as well as the dwindling income of drivers, according to Bloomberg. Should the council vote to approve the app, New York will be the first U.S. city to establish such regulations. Read full story >>

5. More News From Google You May Have Missed

Beyond the controversy, Google was in the news for a few other notable items last month. Check out “What You Missed Last Month in Google”: our monthly roundup of the top stories from the search giant you may have missed. Read full story >>

That’s all for today. Until next week, feel free to weigh in on Twitter to ask us your tech news questions, or to let us know what kind of events and topics you’d like us to cover.

Featured image credit: Facebook

It seems like bitcoin’s value is on a constant rollercoaster ride. After its share price skyrocketed to an all-time high of $19,346 on December 17, 2017, it lost 33% of its value just five days later. By February 6, 2018, bitcoin’s share price plummeted to a low of $5,967, losing over 69% of its peak value.

But a month later in March, bitcoin seemed to be recovering: its share price shot up 92% to $11,432. Since then, bitcoin’s value has fluctuated in the same pattern: the month after its price soars, it plunges. And the month after its price plunges, it soars.

Bitcoin’s value is mired in uncertainty, which begs the question: will bitcoin ever completely crash? Before we answer this question, though, we need to understand why bitcoin is so volatile, why it’s so popular, and what could bring it down.

Why Is Bitcoin So Volatile?

Even though bitcoin is technically a currency, it trades more like a commodity. There’s a limited supply of bitcoin in circulation and a ton of consumer and investor demand for it. So just like gold, market forces set bitcoin’s share price.

But the main difference between bitcoin and a commodity like gold is that the cryptocurrency’s market capitalization of $120 billion is tiny compared to the total value of gold mined, which is a staggering $8.3 trillion.

With such a small market size and significantly less volume of buy and sell orders, relatively small changes in the demand for bitcoin can significantly influence its share price.

What Drives Demand for Bitcoin?

Scarcity and Utility

Items that are both rare and useful have value. Gold is expensive because it’s rare, hard to find, and has utility — you can make things with it.

Bitcoin is in a similar boat. It’s relatively rare because there will always be a limited supply of bitcoins in circulation: about 17.2 million bitcoins today, and 21 million set as the maximum amount of bitcoins that will ever be available. Most of the public knows about this cap too, which increases the cryptocurrency’s perceived scarcity even more.

Bitcoin is relatively useful because it’s a currency and an asset. With an estimated 2.9 – 5.8 million bitcoin users and thousands of merchants accepting it as a form of payment, bitcoin is the most widely accepted cryptocurrency in the world.

Everyone also knows about bitcoin’s meteoric share rise, and with five percent of Americans currently investing in bitcoin and an additional 21 percent considering adding the cryptocurrency into their portfolios, bitcoin is one of the hottest assets on the market.

Network Effects

Since bitcoin’s value doesn’t depend on a corporation’s financial health and performance, their value and potential to thrive depends on the growth of its network, like users, miners, and developers. According to Metcalfe’s law, the more connections users make with each other in bitcoin’s network, the more valuable it becomes to its users and the general public.

A good example of the power of Metcalfe’s law is the adoption of the internet. At first, no one used it, so it didn’t provide a lot of value to people. But when the internet grew in popularity, people started using it more, connected with each other on it, and even did business on it, making it more valuable for its users and increasingly necessary for the people who weren’t using it.

If the majority of the world’s consumers and merchants start using and accepting bitcoin, the cryptocurrency would do what the internet did to society: become commonplace and necessary to buy everyday things.

Blockchain

Another thing that gives bitcoin value is the public’s faith in its underpinning technology: blockchain. Blockchain is digital, public ledger that no one can edit or delete, making economic transactions faster, safer, and more transparent.

Even though the majority of businesses haven’t adopted blockchain, the world’s biggest corporations believe it will happen soon — all ten of the largest U.S. banks have collectively invested $267 million in six blockchain companies and one consortium.

Speculation

In most market bubbles, like the dot-com bubble or the financial crisis, the public thinks a company’s stock or an asset will guarantee lofty returns in the future — investors are willing to buy these assets at a much higher price than its real value. This increases the asset’s perceived value, demand, and, ultimately, price. But if these companies or assets don’t perform up to their expectations, their share price will plummet as fast as they soared.

For instance, in 2000, Amazon had sales and earnings that really couldn’t justify its peak stock price of $113 per share. Like most internet companies, the meteoric rises in their stock was unsustainable. And once these companies started to fail and bursted the dot-com bubble in late 2001, Amazon’s extremely overvalued shares decimated its stock, which dropped 95% to $5.51.

Bitcoin has strikingly similar characteristics to Amazon during the dot-com bubble. Its share’s meteoric rise seems unwarranted and driven by optimism — in fact, 96% of economists believe bitcoin’s soaring price is due to speculation.

Bitcoin isn’t a legal tender backed by any government, a tiny fraction of the world’s customers and merchants transact with it, and blockchain isn’t widely used. So why does it have so much value?

Its because the public has great confidence in bitcoin’s potential. They think countries will start accepting bitcoin as currency and every business will adopt blockchain one day. And this optimism makes them more willing to buy bitcoin at a higher price now to reap the sky-high rewards later, which also raises the cryptocurrency’s demand and share price. 

But if bitcoin and blockchain don’t live up to their potential, bitcoin’s demand will drop and its price will plunge into a free fall, bursting its bubble.

Things That Can Thwart Bitcoin From Reaching its Potential

Along with speculation, there are three main factors that could stunt bitcoin’s growth:

Bad Press

Headlines of bitcoin crashes and leaders of the largest financial institutions in the world questioning its validity hamper the cryptocurrency’s public perception. In fact, after the CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, said he would fire anyone who traded bitcoin at his investment bank in 2017, bitcoin’s value immediately fell by 6%.

Increased Government Regulation

Bitcoin is a decentralized currency with no central authority overseeing it, letting you avoid banks and traditional payment processes to purchase goods and services. This attracts a wide spectrum of supporters — from people who love the idea of a currency with no inflation or central bank, to criminals who love the idea of dealing illegal items without having to leave a digital footprint.

Banks and financial institutions are concerned with bitcoin’s ability to help criminals launder money and commit crime, so no government has adopted it. And recent news on cryptocurrency regulation makes any government adoption of bitcoin even more unlikely:

• In February, India’s finance minister said that the country won’t recognize cryptocurrencies as legal tender and would be proactive against its widespread use in illegal activity.
• Facebook now requires bitcoin and cryptocurrency advertisers to go through an approval process. The social network has also banned initial coin offering ads.
• UK prime minister Theresa May said that they will heavily scrutinize criminals who leverage cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin.
• US treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said that the US economy will impose more regulations on cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin.

Lack of Security

If bitcoin wants to be the currency for the world, consumers and merchants need a safe place to store their funds.But cryptocurrency’s security issues could destroy the trust and use of bitcoin.

Last year, two exchanges went bankrupt after hackers stole the majority of their funds. And in the last few months,cyber thieves have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from cryptocurrency exchanges.

Yo Kwon, the CEO of Hosho Group, a company that specializes in securing applications that leverage blockchain, estimated that cyber thieves have hacked about one third of all cryptocurrency exchanges at one point and will prey on more.

Will Bitcoin Crash and Burn?

A lot of people believe in blockchain technology and bitcoin’s potential as a global currency and asset. But unless the business world adopts blockchain and merchants accept bitcoin as a form of payment, only time will tell us when bitcoin will completely crash and be forever known as the biggest bubble in economic history.