43 Chapter Four Dealing with the office politicians It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperilled in every single battle. Sun Tzu, The Art Of War D espite everything we said in Chapter 3 `Who is savvy?' it is important to remember that situations, as well as person- alities, drive behaviour. So you should try to avoid pigeonholing people, unless you have really good reason to do so. Just because you found out that a colleague not only claimed credit for your work but has also been criticizing your contribution to anyone who will listen, that doesn't necessarily make them a Barbarian. They have done it once, and they may well believe that they had good cause to act in the way they did. From your perspective, their motives are negative and, since you've found out what they've done, the chances are their methods haven't been that effective either. But perhaps it's a one-off. Wait until you catch them doing it again ­ to you or to others ­ or prove themselves to be untrustworthy in other ways, before writing them off as a Barbarian.