Peer Pressure at Work: When Being a Team Player Means Betraying Your Integrity

Compromising your values at work almost never feels like a big decision while it’s happening. It feels like keeping the peace, not making things weird with the people you sit next to every single day, and telling yourself it isn’t really your business anyway.
 
A friend of mine got asked to log fake test drives at the dealership where she works, and when she hesitated, her coworkers told her she was the reason nobody was hitting quota.
 
We talked through what integrity at work actually costs you when the whole team is already in on it, and how to say no to your coworkers without turning yourself into the difficult one. Most people hand their line over to somebody else at some point without ever noticing they did it.
 
Topics in this episode:

• The two very different reasons you might feel relieved after making a decision, and why one of them is a red flag 
• Why “everybody else is doing it” and “the customers don’t mind” fall apart the second you look at them 
• What staying quiet in a moment that actually matters does to your self-trust and your self-respect 
• The difference between what’s right and what’s legal, and why people mix those two up constantly 
• Why your coworkers don’t get to draw your line for you, even when they’re the ones covering your numbers 
• Why fitting in at work and keeping your integrity can’t always both win, and what to do when both of them matter to you 
• The two questions I give people when they can’t figure out what the right move is 
• Something small that happened on a bus 15 years ago that I still think about 
• Where my friend landed in the end, and why I wouldn’t recommend her approach to anybody

 
If you’ve ever gone along with something at work that didn’t sit right with you just to stay on good terms with everybody, this one’s for you.

Transcript

  What would you do in this situation? So this is something that happened with one of my friends. Let’s call her Lizzie. She works at a car dealership, and at some point, she realizes there’s some seriously shady stuff going on, because her coworkers are booking test drives that never actually happen. They get the customer’s information, like their name, their driver’s license, and all of that, and then they enter it into the system as if that person took a test drive when they didn’t.

And now they want Lizzie to do the same thing.

So let’s pretend this is you. This is your job, and these are the people you have to work with every day. What do you do?

Now, maybe you’re listening right now and you’re thinking, “Well, what’s the fucking problem? Just tell them no.”

Or maybe you’re on the other side and you’re like, “Just do it. It’s your job. Of course you gotta keep your job.”

But me, I don’t think it’s actually that simple. Or maybe it’s one of those things that is simple, but it’s not easy.

So if you’ve ever run into a situation where your own sense of right and wrong is different from the people around you, like your coworkers, and they want you to do something you believe is wrong, how do you figure out what the right move is? What do you say?

Stick around for this episode, because that’s what we’re getting into today.

Okay, the show intro just played, so you’ve had a little bit of time here to think about what you would do.

So do you have your answer? And maybe you’re thinking this is stupid easy, which maybe it is.

But now I’m going to give you another piece of information.

It turns out there’s a team sales quota, so the team has to log something like 100 test drives every week, and the salespeople at the dealership can’t hit the quota without fudging the numbers, which is why they’re logging these fake test drives.

And because the 100 test drives are a team goal, the coworkers are looking at our gal Lizzie all like, “Hey, we’re all doing this. Why aren’t you? Your numbers are the lowest on the board, so every drive you don’t log, one of us has to pick up that slack. You’re making the rest of us work harder to cover for you.

We need to meet the quota, and you’re not being a team player.

So let’s pause here and see what you think.

Now you as the listener, remember you’re still putting yourself in Lizzie’s shoes. I’m curious, does this team goal thing change anything for you?

Because earlier you already decided what you were gonna do, but now you know that if you refuse, the people on your team think you suck and that you’re hurting the team.

So would you still give them the same answer?

And maybe you’re thinking, “Well, I’d look for another job.” Okay, sure. But you know you’re just dodging the question, right?

Because Lizzie already knows this isn’t her forever job, it’s a temporary thing until she finds something better. But she hasn’t found that something better yet, which means she still has to show up to this job and figure out how to handle this situation.

So the first thing I told Lizzie is that she’s thinking inside their box.

Her coworkers created this definition of what it means to be a team player, where either you help us log these fake-ass test drives or you’re not a team player.

And I asked, “Well, is that something they get to decide for you? There are many ways to be a team player, and just because you won’t do this particular thing, especially when what they’re asking you to do is probably fraud, that doesn’t mean you’re not a team player. You have the right to choose what you will and will not do.

But before you start worrying about whether you’re a good member of this team, you might wanna decide whether this is a team you want to belong to.”

Now, before I tell you, what do you think she decided? I’ll wait a few seconds.

Lizzy tells me she decided to go along with the scheme. I ask why. She says that they’re not stealing anybody’s information. The customers give it to them willingly.

She says, “The customers really wanna help us. We don’t pressure them. We don’t take their info without permission. They’re offering it.”

And I say, “Okay, but why does that matter?”

So let’s pause the story here because I wanna know what you think given this information.

This time around, you know the customers consented to these salespeople using their name and their driver’s license to log a test drive they didn’t actually take, and they’re fine with it because they wanna help these people hit their quota.

So does that change your answer?

For me, it wouldn’t make a difference because the customer agreeing to it doesn’t make the test drive any less fake, and you probably think I’m being a stickler hardass, but for me, I’m like, “You’re still entering false information into the system.”   And what’s scary is that these test drive numbers they’re not just disappearing into an abyss somewhere.

The dealership uses this data to help decide whether it should expand and open more locations. Do you see where I’m going here? The company is making actual business decisions based on test drives that never happened.

For me, honestly, this is giving Wells Fargo vibes like back in the day when we found out the bankers were opening up accounts in customer names just to hit their quotas. Yeah, I don’t like this.

So with Lizzie, I’m like, “You know what? You told me you consider this to be wrong, but now you’re saying stuff like, the customers don’t mind, everybody else is doing it, this is just how things work here, every store does this.”

And I ask again, “Why does that matter?”

She says, “At the end of the day, this isn’t my business. Who am I? I’m just a small employee.”

I’m over here thinking, uh, just a small employee? Hi, hello. The business is expanding because of what a bunch of you small employees are reporting. It’s kinda like when people say, “Why bother voting? I’m just one person.”   Okay.

But then Lizzie says, “I feel relieved now.” And maybe this is just me, but I was just like, “Oh, no.”

Because there’s “relieved” because you really thought this through and you decided this is a choice that makes sense for who you are and your values.

And then there’s “relieved” because you don’t wanna be uncomfortable anymore. 

These are two very different things, and I’m pretty sure she’s in the second category.

This is where we get to the first crux of the problem, which is when you compromise your standards or your values or your sense of right versus wrong, this is not a small decision.

I told Lizzie, “Hey, you seem to be allowing their opinion of you cause you to second-guess yourself, and it’s your choice. You do whatever you wanna do, but I think you wanna make sure you know exactly why you’re compromising what you believe is right and whether it’s worth it.

We usually compromise our standards for the people we love or for other issues that are really important to us. And from everything she’s told me, I just don’t know that this company or these coworkers meet that bar.

She’s already told me this isn’t the job she’s gonna stay in. She’s planning to leave.

So I’m confused why she cares so much what these people think of her.

And I think this is the second crux of the problem, because what was happening is that Lizzie had outsourced where she draws the line.

She knew that what they were doing didn’t agree with her own sense of right and wrong, but she was willing to compromise that to preserve harmony.

This is giving red flags because this is the kinda choice where you start abandoning yourself. 

I’m speaking from personal experience here.

The reason why I’m so strong on sticking to my values or my principles is because every time I haven’t, man, I have regretted it so hard. 

And it’s usually not even anything big. Like, I remember one time 15 years ago, I was riding the bus. It was totally full with every seat taken and people standing, just clogging all the aisle, like all the way through.

I see a guy sitting in a seat, and he had his motorcycle helmet taking up another seat. There was a little old lady standing right in front of him. He didn’t offer his seat, and that is the part that still burns my soul to this day. He didn’t move his fucking motorcycle helmet. 

But did I say anything? Nope. And I still regret it to this day. 

See, this is the kind of encounter that stays with me forever because that’s not the person I wanna be. Like, staying silent in that kind of situation, it goes against my value of speaking up for what’s right, especially for other people.

Every incident like this one on the bus here, I remember because each and every one of these moments eroded my sense of self-trust.

So not only do I regret them, but I’m left with this terrible feeling of being weak, like I’m a coward. I start to hate myself, which is how I lose self-respect.

This is why I say that compromising your values or your standards is not a trivial thing. It’s one of those things where you make a decision like that, and if you keep making decisions like that, you change the shape of your character.

Now, I don’t want this to feel all scary and heavy and intense, but I do think it’s a reminder that when you feel that conflicted in any situation, that’s probably your cue to take a beat and think about what’s going on and what is making this so hard for you.

Like, if we look at Lizzie, she did not wanna participate in something she thought was clearly wrong, to her anyway.

But she also valued helping people and harmony in her work relationships, which I don’t blame her for.

The problem is, when you have a conflict of values like this, if you can’t find some middle ground, then you have to choose which one takes priority.

And what makes this harder is that there’s no objective right or wrong standard here, only what’s right and wrong for you. Now, quick side note here. I wanna point out something that people confuse all the time, which is what’s right versus what’s legal, because they’re not always the same thing.

Sometimes your sense of what’s right will say one thing, but the law isn’t on your side. So just remember that you get to draw the line on what’s right wherever you want, but you don’t get to change the legal consequences, and that is a real thing.

Hopefully, I’m showing you that what’s right and wrong isn’t objectively or universally true. Like Lizzie’s coworkers at the car dealership, you know they’re not losing sleep over this because they believe that what they’re doing is right.

So going back to conflicting values, there are people who are going to value their friendships over everything else. They’re the kind of person where they’re gonna be the getaway driver if their friend wants to rob a bank.

On my side, I value honesty and bravery pretty much over everything else, which is why I can’t stand it when I allow my fears to keep me from doing what I really wanna do.

The point is, every choice or decision you make is yours and no one else’s. I believe you wanna be really careful about letting other people tell you what right and wrong is, because you’re the only one who can draw the line for you, and you’re the only one who knows what that line is and where you should put it.

So if you’re ever in situations like this where you’re just not sure what the path forward is, here are two questions I give people to help them cut through the noise, depending on which one resonates better.

So the first one is I ask: What would you tell your kid? What’s the one thing you’d really want them to understand here?

The other question I use is: Imagine yourself 10 years from now, and you have everything you want, and you’ve grown into exactly the kind of person you wanna be.

And then imagine that Future-You travels back in time and stands right next to you today. What would Future-You tell you to do? What would Future-You say you should tell these co-workers?

I know for me it would be something like, “Hey, I totally get why you’re doing this, but this thing you’re doing, I just can’t follow you down this road. I can help you out with other things, but logging test drives that didn’t happen, I just can’t do that, and I hope you understand.” And then I would wait to see how they respond.

Now, before I close out the episode, here’s the final chapter with Lizzy and where she landed. She’s told them she was gonna go along with the scheme, but in reality, she’s not going to do it.

I don’t love this because I see this as kicking the can down the road, like creating future problems for yourself. Because people aren’t that dumb, and eventually they’re gonna see, hey, this person said one thing, but the results don’t reflect that. And then they’re gonna have a problem. So then you’re back at square one again, but now you’re a liar: you’re the person who said one thing and did something else.

This is why I wouldn’t recommend this approach to anybody, but you know, I’m not Lizzie. It’s her decision.

Anyway,  if you only remember one thing from today, let it be this: You’re the only one who can hold your line.

You’re the one who has to decide where to set it. It’s your responsibility to figure out what that means. The tricky part is if you hand the line over to somebody else then you’re probably not gonna like where you end up.

And I don’t know if you’ve ever faced something like this yourself, I know it’s happened to me, and honestly, I wasn’t proud of how I handled a lot of these interactions because I didn’t know what to do and no one ever taught me how to think through something like this.

But what about you? I’m curious, did anything in this episode change how you see this or not, and why?

I would love to hear from you. And for real, I’m not just saying that because seriously, I would love to get a message just so I know that somebody out there is listening and that I’m not just shouting into the void, okay? So please, if you feel like being generous, then hit me up, text the link in the description, or send me a message on LinkedIn. I would so appreciate it.

As always, thank you so much for listening, and remember, I believe in you. See you next time.