Can there be “Münchausen syndrome by proxy” in the workplace ? A micromanager flutters about, feigning “concern” but actually causing the problems.

A/ by Drmoo2u /
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy at Work? … THE ANSWER IS – YES!!!

Harvard Business Review, I think many people will be able to relate to this … Called “Munchausen at Work,” it describes a phenomenon Georgia Tech management professor Nathan Bennett noticed when studying team performance in more than 30 companies in different industries. He relates to the workplace the psychological disorder commonly known as Munchausen Syndrome by proxy, defined as “involves a caregiver who feigns or induces an illness in another person, usually to gain power and control over the victim as well as attention or sympathy from others.” Bennett notes that in our performance-driven, layoff-paranoid workplaces, where people are valued for solving problems and try to make themselves irreplaceable, “a similar pathology occurs….when employees create fictitious organizational problems, only to solve them.”

He gives the example of a manager in a Fortune 100 professional services firm that had a reputation for getting people to work together. To reaffirm that status, he’d purposely drive people apart only to bring them back together.

Bennett offers a few questions managers should ask to try to identify people afflicted with “MAW”:

>>Is the employee disproportionately involved in identifying and fighting fires?
>>Is the employee unusually resistant to offers of help in addressing problems he or she has identified?
>>Does the employee deflect management’s efforts to understand a problem’s underlying cause?
>>Are the facts and coworkers’ accounts at odds with the employee’s claims about a problem’s existence or severity?
>>Arе problems wіth a machinate, a consumer, οr a process, οr between colleagues, frequently resolved іn thе employee’s absence?
Source(s):
Harvard Business Review
Bloomberg Business Week
Harvard School οf Medicine
Jena McGregor
Georgia Tech

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