How to Steal a Coworker's Idea and Sell It As Your Own [Evil Week]

Struggling to come up with new ideas at work? Worried you might get canned if you can't bring something brilliant to the next meeting? Don't worry, provided you don't mind being evil, you can steal someone else's great idea and sell it as your own.

As Pablo Picasso (or maybe Oscar Wilde, or who knows?) said, "Good artists borrow, great artists steal," and that same philosophy goes for all those ideas you have at work. As with all of our Evil Week posts, knowing how you could be swindled is part of the battle. If you don't want your ideas getting stolen, it's good to know how a thief would do it. Let's look at three methods.

The Easiest Method: Beat Them to the Punch

By far the easiest (and most nefarious method) of stealing a coworker's idea is to simply take it to the boss before they even get the chance. Of course, you have to know what their idea is first, and that takes some quality eavesdropping.

If a coworker is near you and regularly expresses their ideas out loud, then all you need to do is sit and eavesdrop on their conversations. If you're worried about getting caught, throw on some headphones so it doesn't look like you're paying attention to them.

If the rising star of the company is on the other side of the cubicle farm, you'll need to dig a little deeper. One method is to create a FM bug to eavesdrop on their conversations. If they store ideas on their computer, it's always good to know how to break into a Windows PC, or a Mac so you can recover any documents filled with great ideas. Granted, if you're caught, you'll probably get fired, but if a really good idea is worth it to you it might just do the trick. Photo by Tina Lawson.

Slightly More Complicated Method: Repitch the Same Idea, With a Snazzier Presentation

Ideas are all about presentation. Perhaps if Nikola Tesla was a better salesperson he would have beaten Thomas Edison in the War of Currents. With that in mind, hijacking a coworker's idea doesn't have to be about getting to the boss first, sometimes you just have to present it better.

We've walked you through creating presentations that don't suck before, and that's certainly a key part of the process. Jazz up your presentation with catch phrases, make a simple, but awesome Powerpoint, and learn how to give a great public speech.

Even if you deliver this amazing speech?which is selling the same exact idea as your coworkers?after your coworker delivers theirs, you'll get extra kudos for selling it better. Think about Apple and the iPod. All they did was repackage someone else's idea with a better pitch. Photo by Matthew Hurst.

Most Complicated Method: Figure Out What's Worth Stealing, and Make it Better

If you're not incredibly evil and willing to just totally rip off an idea, it's time to rework the idea into your own and make it better. This is certainly the least evil, but probably the most common. Even CareerBuilder suggests that stealing isn't all bad if you do it right. In his book, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, author Austin Kleon suggests one simple idea, expressed by this image:

His point is that stealing an idea is common, and it's not that bad of a thing to do. Think your coworker has the seedling of something interesting? Make it better, repackage it, and the pitch it as an all new idea of your own making (if you're not evil you can of course bring them in on this process).

If you want to protect yourself from your ideas getting stolen, consider working in a team, documenting everything, and talking to your boss. Or you could steal one of their ideas, make it considerably better, and show them up at their own game.

This post is part of our Evil Week series at Lifehacker, where we look at the dark side of getting things done. Knowing evil means knowing how to beat it, so you can use your sinister powers for good. Want more? Check out our evil week tag page.

Title image remixed from Ernesto Ochoa (Shutterstock).

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Kw124cRVwUo/how-to-steal-a-coworkers-idea-and-sell-it-as-your-own

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