亲爱的安妮：在我最近离职的公司，有几位同事权倾朝野，他们经常剽窃我的点子和改进建议，竟然屡屡获得嘉奖。为此，我炒了那家公司的鱿鱼。可我现在感觉，自己是刚出油锅，又进火坑。我最近刚去参加了一次会议，会上，我的老板夸夸其谈地讲述“他”新想出来的成本削减战略，却闭口不提这主意是我想出来。

    在我们公司，员工想出的好点子的数量对其绩效奖金和总体绩效评估影响很大，所以，我担心在这家公司，我的付出可能又无法得到承认了。我的一位朋友认为我不需要过于担心，因为只要我能让老板颜面有光，那就没有任何问题。他这种说法对吗？——匿名者

    亲爱的匿名者：答案是肯定的。现在，许多人都认为打造个人品牌和自吹自擂是职场生存的秘笈，所以，你才会对目前的情况感到不安，这很容易理解。而且，“拥有创造性思维”这样的口碑确实值得妥善维护。

    但彼得•韩铎认为，问题在于你防范的对象是谁？韩铎目前担任领导力培训咨询机构戴尔•卡耐基培训（Dale Carnegie Training）的CEO，他认为，点子被同事窃取（正如你之前的那份工作）与老板听从你的建议、并照此开展工作，两者之间存在很大差别。

    这是因为，同事之间是直接的竞争对手关系，而老板则不是。韩铎认为：“员工需要避免自己的灵感被同事盗用，但这种事情，必须采用友好、低调的方式进行处理。”

    其中一个方法就是：要学会韬光养晦，并抓住时机，在面对整个团队的时候，比如在集体会议上或者在群发的邮件中，提出自己的想法，做到一鸣惊人。他强调道：“通过这种方式能让所有人明白，好点子的主人到底是谁。”

    但如果已经为时过晚，那就不要犹豫，可以在开会的时候这么说：“我最先把这个点子告诉霍华德的时候，他提出了很好的建议……”韩铎表示：“要用委婉的方式表明自己的功劳。人们会明白的。”

    但如果是老板占用了员工的点子，却没有说明员工的功劳，这种情况下，员工应该如何面对？韩铎认为：“说句‘谢谢’就足够了。”

    毕竟，你前面提到的绩效奖金和评估都是你的顶头上司说了算。韩铎强调道：“他才是你应该努力打动的人。头儿在上司面前表现神勇，头儿倚重你提出好的建议，对你绝对没有任何坏处。”

    韩铎补充道，作为CEO，他自己有时候会主动让别人以为某些电子是他想来出的，但实际上它们却是下属的功劳。他解释道：“如果提出建议的人在目标受众中不太受欢迎——比如说，他（她）所在的部门一直与另外一个部门明争暗斗——那我可能会假称他（她）的主意是我想出来的。因为，我知道，只有这么做才能使这个主意得到更公平的评判。”

    他补充道：“当然了，我知道真正想出好点子的人是谁。你的老板肯定也知道。”

    罗伯特•赫伯德表示，另外一个需要考虑的因素是：“在大部分大公司中，到一个点子被付诸实施的时候，已经经过许多人的完善，所以，把它归功于一个人头上并不太现实。”

    赫伯德目前在经营一家名为赫伯德（Herbold Group）的高管培训公司，公司客户包括辉瑞制药（Pfizer）、戴尔公司（Dell）、百事可乐公司（PepsiCo）和惠普公司（Hewlett-Packard）等。赫伯德曾在微软公司（Microsoft）担任过首席运营官，并出版了《职场领地综合症：地盘之争的危害与治理》（The Fiefdom Syndrome: The Turf Battles that Undermine Careers and Companies -- and How to Overcome Them）一书。

    赫伯德表示：“员工需要确保两点。第一，确保老板认为你的工作做得非常非常出色。”为了保证这一点，他建议，员工应该每隔三到四周便向上司征求一次反馈意见。

    “第二，员工希望能在自己的绩效评估中看到，在改进工作方面，自己的贡献超出同事一筹。如果这两个目标都达到了，那就没有什么可以担心的。相反，如果一心只想着邀功，肯定会被折磨疯的。”

    换句话说，你的朋友说得很对。韩铎表示：“别忘了，最终的目标是要使公司向前发展，而不是因为无聊的办公室政治和个人纠纷而停滞不前。”

    或者正如罗纳德•里根办公桌上的座右铭，上面写道：“抛弃名利之心，你将无所不能。”。

    反馈：你是否遇到过自己的点子被同事盗用？你如何处理？欢迎留言评论。

    （翻译 刘进龙）

    Dear Annie: At the company where I worked until recently, I had a couple of colleagues who were master manipulators and who frequently got rewarded for ideas and improvements I came up with. That was one reason why I left that job. But now, I seem to have gone from the frying pan into the fire. I just came from a meeting where my current boss talked about his clever new cost-cutting strategy without once mentioning that I thought of the whole thing and laid it out for him.

    A big part of our performance bonuses and overall evaluations here are based on how many good ideas we have, so it makes me nervous that, once again, I'm not being recognized for what I'm contributing. A friend tells me not to worry about it because as long as I keep making my boss look good, I'll be okay. Is he right? — Too Anonymous

    Dear T.A.: In a word, yes. With all the palaver these days about personal branding and blowing your own horn as essential career survival skills, it's easy to see why this situation would make you uneasy. Moreover, it's certainly true that a reputation as an innovative thinker is an asset worth protecting.

    According to Peter Handal, the question is, protecting from whom? Handal, CEO of leadership development consultants Dale Carnegie Training, sees a big difference between peers who appropriate your ideas, as at your old job, and a boss who takes your suggestion and runs with it.

    That's because your colleagues are direct competitors in ways that your boss is not. "You do need to avoid letting colleagues steal your thunder, but it has to be handled in a friendly, low-key way," Handal says.

    One approach: Keep your best stuff under your hat until you get a chance to mention it to your whole team at once, either in a meeting or in an email to the group. "That way, there's no doubt about where the idea came from," he notes.

    If it's already too late for that, don't hesitate to speak up in a meeting with something like, "When I first brought up this idea to Howard, he made a really good suggestion about it…" Says Handel, "Find a subtle way to claim credit. People will get the point."

    By contrast, if it's your boss who's latched on to your idea and neglected to attribute it to you, how should you respond? "Say 'thank you,'" Handal says.

    Those performance bonuses and evaluations you mention are, after all, under your boss's control. "He's the one you're trying to impress," Handal notes. "Making him look smart to higher-ups and having him depend on you for good suggestions is certainly not going to do you any harm."

    Handal adds that, as a CEO himself, he sometimes lets people assume he thought up something that really came from someone else. "If the person who suggested it is not the most popular with the intended audience -- let's say, for example, that he or she is in a department that has been feuding with another department -- then I may pull my punches and pretend his or her idea is mine, simply because I know it will get a fairer hearing," he explains.

    "But of course, I still know whose it was," he adds. "Your boss does, too."

    Another factor to consider, says Robert Herbold: "In most big companies, by the time any idea gets put into practice, it's been modified by so many different people that the idea of any one person getting credit for it is pretty unrealistic."

    Herbold runs the Herbold Group, an executive coaching firm whose clients include Pfizer (PFE), Dell (DELL), PepsiCo (PEP), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). A former chief operating officer at Microsoft (MSFT), Herbold wrote a book called The Fiefdom Syndrome: The Turf Battles that Undermine Careers and Companies -- and How to Overcome Them.

    "The two things you want are, first, for your boss to think you're doing your job very, very well," says Herbold. To make sure of that, he recommends asking for feedback as often as every three or four weeks.

    "And second, you want your performance evaluations to note that you come up with more than your fair share of ways to improve things," he says. "If both of those are happening, you really have no worries. If you get too hung up on getting credit, it will eat you alive."

    In other words, your friend has a point. "Don't forget that the goal is to move the company forward, not to get bogged down in politics and personalities," says Handal.

    Or as a plaque on Ronald Reagan's desk used to say: "There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit."

    Talkback: Have you ever had a coworker who stole your ideas? How did you handle it? Leave a comment below.