A workplace conflict with extraordinary consequences...

When people hear stories like this, they usually assume there must be something dramatic behind it... ideology, money, espionage, or some grand cause.

In reality, this one began with something familiar to all of us: a workplace squabble.

In this clip, I tell the story of Joshua Schulte, a highly skilled CIA cyber warrior whose actions caused huge damage to his employer, one of the most secure organisations in the world; not because of politics or principle, but because of a badly handled workplace conflict that left him feeling humiliated, sidelined, and resentful.

The outcome was extreme: he leaked 34TB of top secret information, which resulted in Schulte getting a 40 year jail sentence.

The outcome of these events were catastrophic for both Joshua Schulte and the CIA, but the feelings that powered the disaster were quite ordinary.

This is the second short video from a reading at the launch of my book, and it explores a difficult idea, which is that organisations often underestimate how ordinary workplace feelings, when ignored or mishandled, can escalate into behaviour with very real consequences.

👉 It is tempting to see this as an exceptional case, but that temptation is the problem.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/fa4b34_64adad63fcf84957b2f234a1cbbc4b88/1080p/mp4/file.mp4