I sat in my office in a bustling business locality in Bengaluru, watching the summer sun shine hard on tinted window. The harsh afternoon heat was neutralized by the cool, darkened glass, creating a calm that stood in contrast to high-energy summit I had attended last week.
During the event, I had shared the stage with a veteran CTO of a global MNC. When it was his turn to speak, he didn’t rely on complex slides or technical data. Instead, he leaned into the microphone and gave the audience a piece of raw, lived-in wisdom that hit everyone hard, “Beware of Teflon Colleagues at work. They are like oil on a marble floor, they look polished and reflect a beautiful image, but the moment you try to lean on them for support, you find yourself flat on your back “.
As I watched the sun hit the tint of my window, I realized those people are exactly like that glass, they present a cool, polished surface to the world, but you can never truly see what is happening on the other side. The CTO’s words brought back the memory of Sameer from my days at a big firm in Hyderabad. Sameer was a master of corporate soft touch. He never disagreed, never frowned, and always carried himself with an effortless grace that made people want to trust him. While my lead developer, Madhu, would loudly argue about technical flaws in the middle of the office, Sameer ended every conversation with a warm pat on the back and a, “don’t worry, brother, I am here for you”. But behind that tinted exterior, Sameer was busy. While Madhu’s bluntness was honest and out in the open, Sameer’s influence was invisible. In meetings with the others and behind my back, Sameer wouldn’t launch a frontal attack, that was too messy. Instead, he would use helpful questions to plant seeds of doubt. He would ask if the team had considered the scalability risks, knowing full well that such a vague question would linger in the air like a bad smell, making everyone nervous without him ever having to say a single negative word about our work.
The danger, as my co-speaker had pointed out from the podium, was that by the time we realized we were being undermined, damage would already done. Sameer didn’t leave a trail of broken windows, he just quietly ensured the doors were locked when we tried to walk through them. The danger of slippery folks was that they didn’t leave bruises that one could show a doctor.
I watched a stray beam of light catch the edge of my desk and smiled. Over the years, I have finally learned that a colleague who openly challenges me is a person I can work with, because their cards are on the table. But the one who agrees with everything while sliding through the shadows of the office hierarchy is the one who can sink a career.I picked up my phone and sent a quick message to the Team Lead, “Document everything, and never mistake a polished tongue for a steady hand. Make sure every point is backed by hard facts and clear ownership. That is your only real defense against the slippery folks of the world”.
A honest enemy is a teammate you haven’t won over yet,
but
A smooth-talking pretender is a shadow you can never catch.
