Learn the Landscape -- Tactic #1

Originally published 10/23/10

The first and most important political skill any neutral or power player needs to have is an understanding of the alliances and important hot buttons those alliances are built around.

Political relationships are sometimes built on real friendships, but often times they are arrangements of convenience. Because of that, you can't just rely on who eats lunch with whom (although that's something to notice, too!) when trying to sort out the landscape. Most organizations have a handful of hot button issues that are central points along which battle lines are drawn. The web of relationships around those hot buttons are what creates the political environment.

An example might help -- In one organization I was involved in, there was a significant disagreement over centralized control versus decentralization. The battle over this issue was being played out in the way the purchasing organization was structured. Some people's positions were fairly predictable -- divisional operations VP's didn't much like a centralized structure, as it made getting their jobs done more difficult. Senior corporate management found a centralized structure more appealing because it was theoretically cheaper. But there were a couple of key senior corporate players who felt the decentralized structure led to better accountability and was worth the price.

In my example, the new vice president of corporate procurement made a lot of mistaken assumptions about who was on each side of the issue. In doing so the VP alienated potential allies, and solidified opposition. It was a big part of what led to the VP's eventual departure from the company.

So how do you figure all this out? First identify the hot buttons. There won't be more than a dozen or so of them in most organizations, and they tend to be the items people will talk about when they are having casual conversations. As you go along, gather information on who seems to be on each side of the issue. Try to base this mostly on what they say and do, and not who they are friends with or what their position title is, although that information can be useful at times. Then look for patterns.

People that tend to be in lockstep on most or all of the hot button issues, are likely to be allied. This will help you identify political camps and their captains. Bear in mind that this isn't a static picture. People, particularly fringe players or those who don't find an issue threatening or compelling, may shift their positions and alliances.

And whatever you do, keep your trap shut. Expressing your opinions strongly before you know where others stand is dangerous -- you have no idea who you might be making an enemy of.

Power Players

Originally published 10/17/10

If you aren't an Avoider or a Neutral, then you actively use the political environment to your advantage. Then you're a Power Player.

Power Players come in two broad categories -- Street Fighters and Maneuverers. They are very different in their approach, but both essentially do the same thing -- try to change the perceptions about individuals other than themselves. The difference is how they go about doing this -- a Street Fighter is overt, while a Maneuverer is covert.

Maneuverers are more numerous than Street Fighters for reasons I'll describe momentarily. To be a successful maneuverer, one must be keenly aware of the existing power structure, and be able to see how that structure can be manipulated to advantage. The work of a maneuverer is subtle. In many cases, the intended target is not aware they are subject to a political play. In others, they are aware, but aren't sure which maneuverer might be behind it. In almost all cases, the target is unable to do much of anything about it.

A maneuverer is a little like a stock broker -- market goes up, I win; market goes down, I win. They maneuver their targets into a position where they are faced with a bad choice or a worse one. Sometimes the objective is to directly help the maneuverer -- as in scapegoating, for example. If the maneuverer successfully identifies someone to take the blame for a mistake, then the blame doesn't fall to them. Sometimes the objective indirectly benefits the maneuverer -- the removal or discrediting of a competitor or opponent, for example.

I doubt there's any data supporting it, but I will assert that the higher level positions in most corporations are heavily populated with maneuverers. This is why some of the wildest political battles occur at this level. We can argue as to which is cause, and which is effect, but I believe maneuverer skills definitely help executives ascend the corporate ladder. At a minimum, they help protect them while on the way.

The primary reason I think there are more maneuverers than street fighters is, I believe, because it is lower risk. If your target doesn't know who is behind the political play, it's hard to expose them or fight back. Even if the target does grasp what's going on, its often impossible to do anything about it. Some of this is because of other maneuverer's admiration for a game really well played. I've seen this a couple of times behind closed doors where the entire scenario is well understood by the guys at the top, and they tacitly approve of the maneuverer's skills, and blame the hapless target for being so stupid.

Street fighters are rare breed, and I don't think they are necessarily present in all organizations. A street fighter openly identifies opponents and goes after them. The best example of a street fighter in my career successfully removed at least one competitor I knew of, and his boss tolerated it while he took aim at several others. It was only when this street fighter went after the boss himself, that he over-reached and was fired.

This is the primary reason street fighters are so rare -- they make a lot of enemies, and often times self-destruct. And I don't know of any large organization headed by a street fighter. I suspect the incongruity between the demeanor expected by boards and shareholders, and the street fighter's overt tactics, make it difficult for them to reach the corner office.

Just like other distinctions I've made while musing on this subject, I'm talking about the Power Players as if they had a bilateral choice -- maneuverer or street fighter. In reality, some maneuverers occasionally engage in street fighter tactics. Street Fighters are capable of maneuvering as well. There is every grade in between the two extremes.

Next I will start discussing some of the specific tactics used by Neutrals and Power Players (if you're an avoider you, by definition, don't use political tactics). Doing so will help further distill the differences in approach, and how the various roles shape the political environment of the corporation.

 

Neutrals

Originally published 10/10/10

I talked about political avoiders in an earlier post. Today, I'll comment on the fuzziest category of responses to the corporate political environment -- political neutrals.

There are a few characteristics that define a neutral. First, they are aware of and understand the political environment. They also typically are willing to engage in defensive tactics, but notoffensive tactics, for one of several reasons -- they don't understand how the offensive tactics work, they think those tactics are too risky, or they find them morally reprehensible. I'll talk a little bit more about defensive tactics in a later post, but for the most part, defensive political tactics involve managing your own image and the perceptions about you, but not attempting to negatively alter general perceptions about others.

An example might be helpful -- let's say (as was the case with one of my employers), you recognize the political reality that your commitment is being measured by your boss (or someone else higher up) by the number of hours you spend at work. An adept neutral would make sure that when the boss and other power players could see they were at work for long hours. A neutral might also cut out early or take an extra long lunch if they felt they were not being watched (that's more of a question of personal integrity). The neutral might engage in a conversation about how little of their vacation they used, or how much time they had to spend at home working over the weekend.

An avoider, by contrast, would whine about how it shouldn't matter how many hours you work, as long as you get your job done.

A power player, would take this one step further -- they might identify their organizational rival or target, and find a clever way to make sure the boss knew they weren't as committed. For example, they'd find a way to expose that three hour lunch, or the fact that their competitor was playing solitaire for an hour on the computer each day.

Neutrals run the gamut from ham-handed to skilled, just like power players do. I've personally witnessed some pretty poorly executed self-promotion over the years by political neutrals.

I don't know if this is a complete list, but I think Neutrals stay as neutrals, and don't venture into being power players, primarily for three reasons.

  1. They might be unaware of power play (PP) tactics -- I expect this applies to very few people. If someone was ignorant of PP tactics, they would generally be an avoider, but I can't rule out the possibility that they might know just enough to poorly utilize a few neutral tactics.
  2. They may see the power play (PP) techniques as too risky. There is little question that PP tactics are more difficult to get right, and more likely to create enemies. Some individuals probably do the math, and decide PP tactics are not for them.
  3. They see many of the things power players do as wrong or unfair. I personally fell in this category. While I had no problem trying to improve my own image, there was just something that felt wrong about trying to negatively influence someone else's image.

As I've mentioned before, these categorizations are abstractions. Probably nobody is a perfect neutral. Sometimes neutrals may fail to recognize a political reality, and other times, they may try a PP technique or two. I would also argue that the vast majority of corporate professionals and managers are neutrals. Unfortunately for them, in the organizations I've known, adept power players typically rise rapidly to the top.

Next subject: Power Players

The Biggest Power Player...

Originally published 9/17/10

As a follow up to yesterday's blog, I wanted to try something new. I want you to think of the biggest power player in your current organization. Make a list of the political plays he/she uses, and what one's are used particularly well.

For myself, since I don't have an organization, I will use one of my more recent employers.

My Power Player is a man.

He is very good at the following tactics:

  • Scapegoating.
  • Proving to everyone he's the smartest guy in the room.
  • Watching his own back.
  • Managing his boss.
  • Guarding and actively managing his own reputation, especially with his boss.
  • Associating himself with successes.Try this game out yourself, and see if you can distill the tactics of a power player.

I wonder if anyone can guess who my man is!

I wonder if anyone is brave enough to guess with a posted comment.

Try this game out yourself, and see if you can distill the tactics of a power player.

 

Do Power Players Beget more Power Players?

originally published 9/16/10

Here is another observation about politics in Corporations -- the more people playing politics in the organization, the more politicized it becomes. That is particularly true if the people playing are at a high level in the company.

Why would that be the case?

High level political players raise the ante for everyone in the organization. And Power Players (a term I'll better define in a later post), those people who manipulate the perceptions of others in the organization using politics, raise the ante a lot.

They do this by taking aim at other people either overtly or covertly, and causing them problems -- like damaging their credibility, maneuvering them onto bad projects, or getting them fired. The higher the power player is up the ladder, and the more skilled, the more likely it is that person will be able to successfully accomplish these manipulations. That's how they raise the stakes.

So what are the possible responses to the power player? People can either avoid them, or take them on. When employees develop their political skills in order to take on a power player, it raises the political intensity for everyone.

Kind of a "one bad apple can spoil the whole barrel" situation.

The Style of the Top Dog Does Matter

Originally published 9/12/10

As I discussed in a previous post, politics in the Corporation (indeed, politics anywhere), revolve around perceptions rather than reality. If you are politically active, then you are engaged in managing those perceptions -- either perceptions of you (which many people think of as -- okay), or of someone else (often seen as slimy, unless done in a positive way).

But why do we need to be worried about perceptions? Why can't we just rely on our supervisors to know the reality of of our behaviors and performance? Why isn't life in the corporation a meritocracy?

The answer to these questions are determined by the style top executive, his senior team, and the organization's past way of doing things.

First, let me reiterate a couple of concepts I discussed previously -- Large organizations are too big for the top executive to intimately know all employees and their performance, and politics acts like a gas to fill the space between the formal system and informal one.

In this context, the top executive's style can have a very significant impact on the political environment. Behaviors that fertilize the organization's politics include:

  • being detached from day to day operations and individual performance.
  • taking the word of other senior executives about employees who don't work for them.
  • making snap judgments about people the top executive really doesn't know well, on very scant information.
  • being unclear or vague in opinions or direction.
  • lying or knowingly allowing employees to operate with incorrect assumptions.
  • substantial consequences for mistakes (sometimes called "holding people accountable").
  • assuming every problem has a cause with a person's name attached to it.
  • scapegoating.

I'm sure there are other behaviors that contribute to a corrosive political environment, that I simply haven't thought of and listed here. And I'm not saying that all of these behaviors are bad (in fact, research shows that some of them correlate well to superior organizational performance), I'm just saying they increase politicking in the company.

On the other hand, there are other top executive behaviors that will reduce the level of politics in the organization.

  • adhering to the formal system, even if painful in the short term.
  • being hands-on and aware of the details of what happens in the organization, particularly in reference to employee performance.
  • respecting direct supervisor's evaluations of a subordinates.
  • being clear and consistent in direction.
  • being slow to judge employees further down the ladder.
  • taking personal responsibility for mistakes and failures.
  • believing that people usually try to perform well, and some issues can not be overcome by a simple swap out of people.
  • knowing who on the senior team is using politics to advance their image and not counting on their council, or even getting them off the team.

Again, I'm sure I'm missing a number of additional items that could go on this list, but you get the idea -- the top executive (along with the company's history) sets the tone for politics in the corporate environment.

How does Company History Impact Politics?

Originally published 9/8/10

Old habits die hard. At least in corporations they do.

If you've ever worked in a large corporation, you've probably experienced the inertia that exists there. Yes, the chief executive (and to a lesser degree, other high level executives) does influence the company -- he/she sets strategy, maybe refines the mission and values, and over enough time, may even change the direction of that inertia.

Sometimes that inertia is called Culture. I personally hate the Culture name, because it is overused and fuzzy in meaning.

Suppose the last Chief Executive (who was in place for 25 years, for argument sake), was a detached high flying strategist who allowed freewheeling politics to rule the organization. Now suppose the Chief Executive retires and is replaced by a hands-on CEO who hates politics. How long does it take to change the underlying environment?

The answer is -- a long time. And it will be a very painful period. Why? Because old habits die hard! The existing organization is filled with people who grew up in and flourished in a highly politicized environment. In their world, certain tactics and political maneuvering became a part of their management style and part of their survival tools. That is hard for people to let go of, particularly since it continues to work, despite what the new CEO is demanding.

Unfortunately, for the current team, the quickest way to change the highly politicized environment would be to change out the people. Since it isn't practical to fire everybody, what actually happens is a few people are sacrificed in the transition, and change plods along very slowly.

So is company history important to understanding the politics of the organization? Absolutely!

How do Formal and Informal (Political) Power Structures Relate?

Originally published 9/6/10

Just reading that title is a mouthful! And it sounds so intellectual too... But I don't mean it to be. Here's the basic thesis --

There are written formal rules, policies and structure in corporations that are pretty straight forward and pretty clear to everybody involved, and then there is a second informal set of expectations for behavior that take over where the formal stuff leaves off.
For example -- you don't fake your expense reports. Everybody know this. In most companies its written down, along with consequences for violating the policy. The policy usually says who is responsible for reviewing and approving the expenses also. In other words it delegates or confers power to those individuals for the purpose of reviewing expenses. If it wasn't written down, there would still be a prohibition against faking your expense report, it would just be part of the informal power structure.
I consider this entire collection of visible behavior regulating rules & policies as the formal power structure of the corporation. They tend to focus on things like -- spending authorization and approval, personal behaviors (like vacations, tardiness, allowable travel behaviors), organizational structure (who reports to whom), and performance measurement (that damned appraisal process).
Extensive though this collection might be, it falls far short of the informal behavior regulating rules, which I consider the political structure of the corporation. Some people also refer to this or some subset of this structure as the culture of the organization (although culture is one of those overused business-speak terms that, like an overused knife, has lost its edge).
My thesis is that the informal (political) structure, like a gas, fills the gap between the formal power structure and way things actually get done. And it's usually a big gap.
Unlike the formal power structure, the political structure is not necessarily obvious. For example, if there's no formal dress code, you learn that jeans are only acceptable on Friday by observation or asking. Another example -- Naming names during a high pressure meeting (i.e., who screwed up), might be just the right thing to do at Company A, but a political error at Company B. It can get very subtle and confusing, and often needs to be interpreted on the fly.
Politics, is about figuring out what lies within the informal rules or is outside, and managing the perception of your behavior in the context of those rules. Perception is more important than reality because your compliance with the political norms are only important in the eyes of other people. Their perception (correct or incorrect) is their reality, and they will treat you as such.
Playing politics, is about the manipulation of perceptions -- either perceptions about yourself or someone else. This is the part of the political world that most people find objectionable.
All other things being equal, organizations with less formal power structure, tend to have more politics, and often more playing of politics going on. When you hear someone say, we don't want too many rules, as it hinders creativity, what they are really saying is -- we let the political structure take care of that stuff, despite its messiness.

Other viewpoints or opinions?

Politics and Position on the Ladder

Originally published 9/4/10

Here is a second concept surrounding politics -- The higher up the corporate ladder you climb, the more important understanding and playing politics is to your success and survival.

Why, you might ask, would that be true? I think there are three primary reasons --

  1. Defining whether an employee is performing gets harder the further up the ladder you go. For an individual contributor, you look at what was their personal output, and how did it stack up against expectations. For a senior manager though, factors like: changes in the market, performance of subordinates, validity of assumptions, and trade-offs between choices, all tend to muddy the waters (I could probably make a much longer list). When you can't easily gage the persons output, there is a tendency to rely on watching what they do -- except you can't take the time to watch it all, so perceptions that are established by what others say. Of course, the little one actually sees become extremely important. That is the stuff of politics. Politics is all about developing and protecting perceptions of how you are doing, and potentially manipulating perceptions about others.
  2. There are more politicians at higher levels in the company, and they tend to have more skill. I'm not sure why that is -- a Darwinian survival characteristic, perhaps? Since a part of politics surrounds manipulation of perceptions about others, you need political skills at higher levels, if for no other reason to protect yourself. An individual contributor who has few enemies can probably get by at most companies by ignoring politics. Senior managers won't survive being a-political, no matter how nice they are. There are just too many sharks in the water up there.
  3. At higher levels you are a bigger target for the political machinations of others. This tends to happen for a couple of reasons -- senior managers are a more useful target of manipulation because they hold formal organizational power, and they have less time available to intimately know others in the organization thus making them more vulnerable to manipulation. For some senior managers, they end up surrounded by yes-men (or yes-women) who give the manager the sense that their perceptions are always correct, while at the same time subtly manipulating those perceptions. This seems to happen to the chief executive fairly frequently.

So kind readers -- what do you think? Do politics get thicker and more ruthless as you climb the corporate ladder? Or do the stakes just get higher? Or, do you totally disagree and think political games are played uniformly across the company?

 

Power and Politics in the Corporation

Originally published 9/2/10

I've been working on a "white paper" of sorts on the above subject, and I think I'll give some of the ideas their first exposure here on my blog -- that despite the fact that my readers don't tend to post many comments, and I could use comments and critiques of the concepts. If you're too shy to write a comment, please send an email. I'm hoping to use this forum to further explore some of the concepts.

So here's the first one -- I believe that politics are present in virtually all large organizations. And by large, I specifically mean enough people in the organization that the chief executive can't intimately know the specifics and the performance of all employees first hand. I think the line is somewhere between 50 and 200 employees, based on capabilities of the Chief Executive.

The white paper is now available by clicking this link: Power and Politics in the Corporation