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The average HN reader is highly overrated for other reasons. > have detest for office politics The problem is that many people on HN believe any interaction with someone with an MBA, marketing background, manager, etc. is “office politics.”
> The average HN reader is highly overrated for other reasons. Possibly ... ;-)
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I think the problem is that people think that all office politics is necessarily bad.
I can't think of examples of positive activities in a workplace being best labelled office politics . Help me out? I understand politics , outside of government, to suggest deception or manipulation with hidden motives.
Politics in this sense is kinda negative but not really - acknowledgment that different people and groups may reasonably or unreasonably have different priorities, goals, perspectives, preferences, methodologies. I've spent most of my life under the Delusion of "reasonable people will agree if we just sit down and talk", but I no longer think that's the case (not the least because otherwise eventually you have to label everybody but yourself "unreasonable" :). As techies often we want full, comprehensive, correct unmutable requirements, full understanding for all issues encountered, and flexibility of schedule to reach out architectural and technical goals and standards, and everything else is "office politics".
Difference exists. Politics is trying to reconcile different perspectives priorities methods and goals. Hidden motives and deception are not necessary part of it.
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Yes, but derisively referring any interaction with another human at work as “office politics” is the problem.
It can turn into office politics fast. Maybe you say the wrong thing and now you and your coworker have an awkward tension. IMO it's almost never worth trying to make friends with your coworkers. Be nice, be helpful, and do a good job but keep your friends and work life separate.
These articles come out with some regularity, and yet no one ever says, "Yep! That's totally me! I'm a non contributing zero but I've made a living at making others think I add to the team!" Everyone knows people like this, but no one is one.
Yo. Ask me anything. Edit : I'm actually serious. I don't do most of the things in the article, or at least definitely not with the intent and detail - but I've been moved over time from being a pretty good and certainly respected hands on techie, to a middle to upper manager with massive imposter syndrome, and certainly feel I contribute less for more credit. Client loves me. My boss loves me. My team loves me. But…
I used to do that a lot until I got my first real not fully technical job and realised that all the technical stuff is actually much more learnable by many, much less impactful on the work than the dark art of working with humans. Maybe its the zeal of the convert but I think the technical contributions are not that important unless there is no margin for errors or its groundbreaking work and most of the time its not.
> Seriously. These things are a whole lot more transparent than the people who do them think they are Has anyone seen articles on how to effectively manage/coach people with these habits? Extrinsic motivation tactics tend not to work, and appeals to intrinsic motivators are often met hard with #6 and #7.
A quote I've seen in an article on management.
Some of the symptoms the article gave are painful to read, because that can also be what it looks like when a person is blocked outside of their control (e.g., another team not delivering, or up the chain has a problem), and trying to fix it. Before trying to assign individual blame to a part, try to debug the actual system problems in team and organization.
Near the end of the article there is a good antidote to this:
"These things are a whole lot more transparent than the people who do them think they are"
Yes, if you just look at one incident in isolation, it might be difficult to distinguish "productive but blocked outside of their control" from "unproductive but trying to obfuscate that". But over time, the difference will be clear to everyone in the organization who actually matters.
These articles come out with some regularity, and yet no one ever says, "Yep! That's totally me! I'm a non contributing zero but I've made a living at making others think I add to the team!" Everyone knows people like this, but no one is one.
Also, I'd have to say, if you're at a small company, being the person who sets up corporate/production accounts gets you in as an important person for new employees and really helps with being overrated, because everyone has interacted with you.