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Don't avoid workplace politics

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Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#151

Post by BeetleB »

ryandrake wrote: post #145
BeetleB wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree with your description of "politics" as a negative/pejorative thing. That's just a difference in framing between winners and losers. If you get your way, you say it was due to influence, bridge building, teamwork, etc. If you don't, you say "politics". For every occasion someone says "politics" negatively, realize the other party is using the other framing. More importantly: For every time you get your way,…

The way I see it is: "Office politics" means getting work done, making business decisions, and/or advancing your career using means other than technical or domain expertise. It could have a good or bad outcome, but it's still politics. The key attribute is that the outcome is achieved through some other method besides actually doing or directing the work.

> "Office politics" means getting work done, making business decisions, and/or advancing your career using means other than technical or domain expertise.

s/other than/in addition to/

That's the fundamental disagreement in this thread.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#152

Post by jaymzcampbell »

ryandrake wrote: post #149
jaymzcampbell wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always used "we" when describing and presenting work done as part of a team, even if solo. There's a certain skill in knowing when to promote yourself, and how you do so. These days I tend to be positive in a group sense, and take direct specific ownership of failings. I may be lucky but I think this has led to a lot of respect from coworkers and c-suite that I've engaged with. I've never once felt like people d…

Everywhere I've worked, come annual review time, everyone is supposed to emphasize what they did, not what the team did. "We're considering promoting you , not the team, so tell us what you did!" Same with interviews: You're not supposed to say "I was a key contributor of Team X that shipped Product Y." You're supposed to say "I shipped Product Y." So you have this weird contradiction where you're expected to work as…

In these situations I will frame my contributions directly without the "we" part, speaking to how I contributed to a particular team output, or if it was 100%, I'll just say as much. My comment was in terms of general talk to stakeholders / presentations / casual conversations - then I default to "we".

E.g. if I add some new feature to a tool and deploy it, I'll say "we've just pushed X...". If I do 99% of some particular feature, I'll still say "we've added Y...". In an annual review I can still speak to what I specifically did. I have probably been lucky in the teams and team sizes I've been in, but I've not had a problem with this.

For context I've mainly stuck to small (<50) and medium (<500) companies. My one experience (due to acquisition) of directly working within a 5000+ company was certainly starting to feel like what you described, I got out.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#153

Post by wordpad »

bluGill wrote: post #148
johnfn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that a lot of the times conversations around this topic end up with some anecdote like "well, playing politics doesn't actually work because I work at a dysfunctional company where decisions are made by morons". If you have a C-suite that makes decisions based on golf games, this advice is not for you. You have a different set of problems. You should absolutely address those problems. But that doesn't mean tha…

If the C-suite makes decisions "based on golf games" then you need to learn how to play golf. You don't have to be good, but don't be so bad that you slow up the game. It is okay to be 1-2 over par every hole, but you need to nearly always find your ball and not hit too far into the rough. Take some lessons if needed. (there are swings that don't have as much power but are a lot easier to be accurate - perfect for yo…

Respecting and engaging with company politics in order to push good engineering decisions is one thing, but learning and playing a sport, I think falls outside of "other duties as assigned" for an engineer.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#154

Post by wavemode »

The HN title "what good workplace politics looks like in practice" is less clear than the article's actual title (and, the article's actual point), "Stop avoiding politics"

This isn't an article about improving organizations, this is an article about getting what you want within an organization by getting better at playing politics.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#155

Post by 6510 »

wavemode wrote: post #154

The HN title "what good workplace politics looks like in practice" is less clear than the article's actual title (and, the article's actual point), "Stop avoiding politics" This isn't an article about improving organizations, this is an article about getting what you want within an organization by getting better at playing politics.

If you are doing one thing (politics) you are not doing something else.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#156

Post by socalgal2 »

> I bet if you dig into what happened, you’ll find it wasn’t because the decision-makers were stupid. It’s because the people with the right information weren’t in the room.

Or, the people with the decision making power just had a different opinion made a decision irrespective of "right information"

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#157

Post by gnarlynarwhal42 »

bluGill wrote: post #148
johnfn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that a lot of the times conversations around this topic end up with some anecdote like "well, playing politics doesn't actually work because I work at a dysfunctional company where decisions are made by morons". If you have a C-suite that makes decisions based on golf games, this advice is not for you. You have a different set of problems. You should absolutely address those problems. But that doesn't mean tha…

If the C-suite makes decisions "based on golf games" then you need to learn how to play golf. You don't have to be good, but don't be so bad that you slow up the game. It is okay to be 1-2 over par every hole, but you need to nearly always find your ball and not hit too far into the rough. Take some lessons if needed. (there are swings that don't have as much power but are a lot easier to be accurate - perfect for yo…

Sorry to nitpick, and I know what you mean, but 1-2 under par on each hole you would be shooting ~45-55 which would basically be the best in the world :)

1-2 over par is shooting 90-100 which is much more achievable :)

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#158

Post by citizenpaul »

johnfn wrote: post #138
obviouslynotme wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this is an article on how to perform technical politics in large organizations. Functional, intelligent, non-nepotistic leadership is the exception , not the rule. It has been this way for a long time, perhaps forever. Dilbert became one of the most circulated comics for good reason. This article is the third guy. Pretending that identifying stakeholders' needs, communicating the solutions, and delivering them…

> Functional, intelligent, non-nepotistic leadership is the exception The majority of marriages end in divorce. This doesn't mean that I should treat all prospective partners as someone I will eventually divorce. That is not healthy for me, the people I interact with, or my future.

Survivorship bias. Get burned a bunch of times and see where your strategy lies. You'd be a fool to keep sinking all your effort into things that devastate your life time and again.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#159

Post by citizenpaul »

bluGill wrote: post #148
johnfn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that a lot of the times conversations around this topic end up with some anecdote like "well, playing politics doesn't actually work because I work at a dysfunctional company where decisions are made by morons". If you have a C-suite that makes decisions based on golf games, this advice is not for you. You have a different set of problems. You should absolutely address those problems. But that doesn't mean tha…

If the C-suite makes decisions "based on golf games" then you need to learn how to play golf. You don't have to be good, but don't be so bad that you slow up the game. It is okay to be 1-2 over par every hole, but you need to nearly always find your ball and not hit too far into the rough. Take some lessons if needed. (there are swings that don't have as much power but are a lot easier to be accurate - perfect for yo…

Also how do you get invited? When the invitee is specifically inviting the CEO without you to circumvent your influence?

Who is going to do your job while you stroke egos?

Victim blaming as usual. The problem is you don't do the CTO's job in addition to your own....f-off with that hustle life nonsense.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#160

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

johnfn wrote: post #64
citizenpaul wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual HN comments are more on point than the article. I've lost count of how many times something was proposed and rejected by everyone in the chain except the C-suite. Then the C-suite overrode the process decisions basically because they played golf with someone outside the company. I was once even part of a vendor assessment that was rejected and it turned out that the CEO had already given the green light and…

I feel that a lot of the times conversations around this topic end up with some anecdote like "well, playing politics doesn't actually work because I work at a dysfunctional company where decisions are made by morons". If you have a C-suite that makes decisions based on golf games, this advice is not for you. You have a different set of problems. You should absolutely address those problems. But that doesn't mean tha…

> If you have a C-suite that makes decisions based on golf games, this advice is not for you. You have a different set of problems.

Another way to look at it is that your role isn't in the decision making circle, even if you are on a project that is supposed to help make a decision. I was in this role evaluating vendors solutions, in hindsight I can see how I conflated the involvement in the evaluation process with the decision making, those aren't the same.

Think of it like buying a car. You could be on the project to evaluate car companies, features, test drive them and document findings but just because you did all of that doesn't mean you're a decision maker and shouldn't have any emotional attachment to whatever the decision ends up being. Yes if they make a decision with bad trade-offs, like a car with a lot of issues, you may be dealing with those and it may suck but that's your role.

I think part of politics around technical decisions is recognizing if your role has any attributes of being involved with the decision making or if your input is just one of many, potentially minor, inputs.

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