Beware the green-eyed monster — envy can destroy office karma

Envy is a democratic vice, as common in politics, Brown v Blair, as on the football pitch, Terry v Bridge. It bedevils the meanest of offices as well as a man's crowning achievements. Hillary and Tenzing were the second pair sent up to the summit of Everest during the 1953 expedition — the first pair did not get there but when they went off to try, Hillary wrote that he was consumed by "secret thoughts of envy and fear" that the glory would be theirs, not his.

In business, envy can reveal itself in acrimony and non-cooperation, in contempt for others and a failure to be objective. Envy can destroy teams and morale, and lead to bad financial decisions. Energy which should be spent improving a product or taking on competitors is instead wasted on internal feuds. Social networking sites have given us even greater insight into the lives of others, who their friends are and where they go on holiday. An envious person could go mad surfing lives on Facebook.

Two American academics, Tanya Menon and Leigh Thompson, have now released the results of a study on the effect of envy at work and how it might be mitigated. Envy, they say, has the effect of a microscope. Once it takes hold, every small thing starts to count. The way someone dresses or speaks, their behaviour in meetings, the car they drive. The slightest tic becomes an annoyance and, before long, you are unable to function in their presence because all you can think of is how much you resent the other person.

Paul McCartney once described the barriers to working with John Lennon: "I would bring in a song and you could sort of see John stiffen a bit. Next day, he'd bring in a song and I'd sort of stiffen. And it was like, Oh, you're going to do that, are you?'" The Rolling Stones were similarly afflicted by rumours of envy. Success can exacerbate its presence.

Menon and Thompson tested their theories about the business consequences of envy by giving managers from various industries a set of design innovations for a restaurant chain. They were then asked what portion of a $10,000 budget they would allocate to find out more about the innovations. The participants who were told the plans came from external rivals were more willing to use them and allocated, on average, $2,470.

The participants who believed the plans came from internal rivals allocated just $1,740.

The explanation for the difference turned out to be concerns about status. "When we copy an idea from an outsider, we're seen as enterprising; when we borrow an idea from a colleague, we mark that person as an intellectual leader," write the academics. The managers who thought the ideas were internally generated were frightened that by adopting them they would be boosting a colleague's career.

So what is the answer? Instead of wishing for others' failure, we should practise what Buddhists call "mudita", or rejoicing in the good fortune of others. It may be tough at first to be thrilled by your colleague's promotion or your neighbour's new car but it's the only way not to become an envious drag.

Menon and Thompson offer three steps for, as they put it, "stopping the downward spiral". The first is to pinpoint what it is that makes you envious. Is it that they are more charming, better at office politics, more effective, or more highly compensated? Once you have that down, you can start to think what you can do about it by focusing on your own assets. What are you good at? Why might other people envy you? Sit down and consider how far you have come in life, how you have changed for the better in recent years. Then give yourself a pat on the back. In one experiment, the academics asked people to consider a rival and how they might evaluate his or her latest idea. But before doing so, half were asked to make a list of their own accomplishments. They might be decent tennis players, or cooks, or be in a happy personal relationship. The other half plunged straight into the assignment.

The ones who had done some self-affirmation beforehand were more likely to give the rival's idea fair consideration. In fact, they were ready to give 60 per cent more time to it than those who didn't go through the affirmation list.

Four golden rules for dealing with employee envy
*Don't hog the power and glory.
*Give your team plenty of whatever it is they're fighting over. Money may be non-negotiable. But if they are fighting over your attention, set aside an hour a week with each employee.
*Separate the envier and envied by giving them separate spheres of influence. By differentiating their tasks, they will be in less direct competition.
*"Beware of linguistic triggers". Many companies hone in on certain words such as "leadership" and "innovation", giving the impression that diligence, honesty and friendliness are worthless. This stokes envy among those who do their job well without necessarily being leaders or innovators.