Management Leverage Blog

I like to look on Technorati for blogs I haven’t discovered yet, and I finally found someone who put a positive spin on office politics—or at least a neutral one. The truth of the matter is that office politics is simply a tool to get things done in an organization. Politics has to do with strategic influence. It’s about how to make sure your ideas are considered. Its about how to have an impact at work.

Office politics and a knife have a lot in common. Both are useful tools or destructive instruments, depending on the intentions of the person using them. If the intentions of the user are ethical and beneficial for the organization as a whole, there is nothing inherently evil about office politics. 

You don’t have to like office politics, but you do need to accept it as part of organizational life. You also need to learn to use it for ethical purposes if you are going to be promotable. Employees who learn how to make politics work for them are promotable, pluggers aren’t.

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There was an interesting post on Ask a Manager yesterday. A reader with a
“just get it done, within budget, on time” work style, stomped on the
turf of a “dark bureaucratic force” in the HR department. Fed up with the obstructive service of the HR director, this manager now does his or her own hiring and follow-up. The evil HR director responded with a “deep-freeze” in all but public forums.

I see this a lot. What is the true source of the conflict? Incompetence? Turf -stomping?

I doubt it.

I suspect that the colleagues’ different political styles (see Survival of the Savvy by Rick Brandon and Marty Seldman for a great intro) are the true source of conflict. The frustrated manager seems to be extremely under-political. This type of results-oriented employee plugs away, head down, producing for their organization. They are ‘pluggers‘.

They have the greatest respect for other pluggers, and hold very little regard for those who don’t produce. They are promotable in the eyes of other pluggers, but only those that are aware of, and involved with what they do all day. Employees with moderate levels of ‘pluggerness’ can be very beneficial for your team. They get things done.

In a large organization, however, they can remain fairly invisible (most of the other pluggers who work there aren’t directly involved with their product). And at an extreme they are the ghost-people of the workplace. We see them walking around, but no one is really sure what it is they do. Eventually, pluggers become frustrated with the lack of respect people seem to have for their results, and may even give up putting forth so much effort.

The evil HR director in this case seems to be more political. At an extreme the overly political are slick, slimy, and extremely adept at controlling their environment. These are the Paris Hiltons of the work place–they are famous, but no one really knows why. But people with more moderate levels of political savvy can be a huge asset to your team. They know how to work the system of formal and informal rules to get things done. (In reality, people with moderate levels of both styles needed, and would benefit from learning some of the other side’s skills.)

Ask A Manager was correct in advising the less political employee to meet with the evil HR director…but with one caveat. It won’t do any good to logically explain how the HR director is getting in the way of results. This is not how to influence a more political person. The organization, as they see it, doesn’t work like this (they have different perspectives, as Ask a Manager points out). The more political person is a student of perception and informal power. When dealing with this type of person, drop the name of a powerful person in the organization, or point out how both of you are dependent on the other to look good in the organization.

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By its very nature, you shouldn’t have to look too hard to find an example of an employee with a robust personal brand. Let me introduce you to Dan Schawbel, a 23-year-old marketing specialist at EMC².

Poke around on his blog and figure out why Fast Company magazine calls him a ‘personal branding force of nature’. Like all examples, not all of what he does will fit your personality or situation (it doesn’t fit mine), but that doesn’t mean you should write him off completely. Study him and learn. What aspects of Dan’s strategy can you adopt into your own career? Tweak them to fit your own brand.

Where do you think Dan’s career will be when he is 33? I’ve been on this planet almost twice as long as Dan, and I am humbled.

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I taught two executive MBA classes this summer. One at SMU and the other at an amazing university called Universidad Francisco Marroquin in

Guatemala. The hard-work-fallacy seemed to frustrate the execs in

Dallas. They didn’t deny it, but habitually ignored it in their own careers. The Guatemalans, on the other hand, did not embrace it, but accepted it and worked within its confines. Every class has its own personality, and this difference between these two classes was startling.

If the world were truly just, a gifted writer would land a lucrative publishing contract. A talented actor, with the gift of moving us to tears or laughter, would be a shoe-in for the red carpet. A mind-blowing rock band in

Austin, TX would be an MTV staple (if MTV still showed videos).

And a hard-working, productive employee would be promotable.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

We know that hard work and talent don’t guaranty prominence in Hollywood, on Broadway, on iTunes… or in

Washington, DC. So why do we fall prey to the hard work fallacy where we work? Why do we think that if we just keep our head down, keep plugging away, one day we’ll get the recognition we deserve?

Is hard work, productivity, efficiency (etc.) necessary for career success? I sure hope so. But these qualities will only get you so far. Eventually, its not who you know, but who knows you, not what you know, but who knows that you know it, and, of course, who likes you. Only then are you promotable.

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Nope. But it will get you a job.

Cameron Martel has an interesting post today about the purpose of higher education. Like Cameron, the idealist in me would like to encourage you to get an education for your own personal growth, But realistically, yes, a business education will get you a job.

But it won’t get you promoted. People are usually hired for their technical skills–accounting, finance, marketing–the things you learn in business school. But promotions (at least eventually) depend on soft skills such as getting things done through others, strategic (and ethical) influence (aka office politics), and conflict management.

My advice is to stay current in your technical skills. But load up on training in soft skills.  Career frustration abounds when you follow the oh-so-logical path of getting better at you were hired to do in the first place. 

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Ok. So here is blog post number 1.5. I’m hesitant to call it my second post, because it probably should have been my first. But it is 6 years late anyway (did even blogs exist back then?), so half a post probably doesn’t make much difference.

Several years ago students started telling me I should blog all the (unsolicited) career advice I give class. Just like Penelope, I didn’t listen to them. I had always planned to write a book, but blogging? Now that’s a commitment.

If I had listened to my students, I would now be writing post number 1500, instead of number 1.5. I would have a much wider audience, enough material for a book, and most importantly, I would have stayed in much better touch with those students who have slipped away over the years.

I didn’t get married until I was in my thirties, and I don’t have any tattoos, but I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of commitment. I just respect it. And at this point, my commitment to this blog seems a little vague, at least in terms of the path this blog will take. In class, I can tailor my unsolicited advice to the business undergraduate, MBA, or executive MBA audience. Hopefully, I can find a common thread in this blog that will appeal to all three levels. Nudge me if you think I haven’t found that fine line yet.

So let the conversation begin.

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