Some workplace environments are intensely competitive—you must stand out more than others to reach a higher stage.
But amid such competitive interests, some people love sharing with others, while some think only about themselves and how to improve. Most of the time, when starting from a self-centered perspective, people ignore others' feelings, and such negligence often becomes a form of harm.
How so? Some people are smart but love to cut corners, taking shortcuts in how they approach things. These people usually move fast and are easily noticed—it's certainly one way of working, and in environments where you don't need to be very serious, just say something worthwhile, it works well. However, over time, a relatively superficial attitude and mindset are easily seen through and are not a sustainable approach.
In contrast, some choose to quietly work and cultivate, investing significant effort in the same work, developing their own perspective from shallow to deep understanding. Though they move slowly, perhaps they can go the distance. They may not stand out prominently, but for many, they become a reassuring, stable presence.
When these two types must collaborate on the same matter, smart people often "do everything they can" to extract the other person's true understanding of things. They may lie, pretend, or do what Chunghwa Telecom does—"don't know, unclear, no response"—appearing genuinely inquisitive while actually sucking the other person's blood, absorbing it as their own, making others believe they are not only smart but also conscientious. This is what I call "ignoring others' feelings and causing harm." Such harm damages not only collegial relationships but also the department's hard-built "trust."
In terms of opportunity cost, such damage is highly uneconomical.
First, it's not absolutely wrong for smart people to protect themselves and harm others for their own benefit. The only thing people object to is "dishonest" behavior.
Here I compare talent to commodities. Using the "lemon market" theory of information asymmetry, sellers possess more information about products than buyers—meaning sellers conceal information from the public.
Under such extreme circumstances, the market (enterprise) stagnates or regresses—this is adverse selection in information economics. Under such effects, good products are often eliminated while inferior goods gradually dominate the market, replacing quality goods, resulting in the market being filled with inferior products.
Take the used car market as an example: sellers have more information than buyers, and the two have asymmetric understanding. Therefore, buyers won't believe sellers, even if they make grand claims. The buyer's only option is to lower the price to avoid losses from information asymmetry. The buyer's low price also discourages sellers from providing quality products, resulting in inferior goods flooding the market and quality products being driven out, eventually causing market collapse.
Applying this to talent and enterprise, the more people in a company who only resort to petty tricks, the lower the company's quality becomes, trending toward mediocrity. When truly dedicated people go unnoticed, it easily leads to corporate self-destruction, high employee turnover, and widespread complaints.
The only tool to reduce information asymmetry is communication, and honesty is a mechanism. After all, conscientious people, once they know the full picture, aren't necessarily secretive—they may actually open up to you genuinely. Once one party fails to receive complete information, it deepens "distrust" between them.
People who choose to harm others first will conversely find it harder to be trusted. Beware—you may one day fall hard.
After all, you don't necessarily need friends in the workplace, but you certainly don't need enemies.
