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By assigning a task to two or more impossibly incompatible people, the political operator creates a three-legged race. Perhaps you remember the races from picnics long ago -- participants pair up, and standing side-by-side, the right-hand partners tie their left legs to the right legs of the left-hand partners. The pairs then run a race, and comical spills are inevitable.

Three-legged races might be funny at picnics, but in business they're extremely dangerous, because the political operator who selects the race partners has likely arranged for failure. By exploiting a past history of conflict, leadership ambiguity, organizational tensions, or contention for the same promotion, the operator ensures project sabotage, or damage to one or both careers.

(From Chaco Canyon Consuting's Point Outlook eNewsletter.)