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Don't avoid workplace politics

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Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#161

Post by pertymcpert »

alphazard wrote: post #131
dilyevsky wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the game theory aspect of it. Even in the positive sum game the spoils aren’t divided equally. Additionally not everyone behaves rationally, i find the opposite to be generally true

> I think you are missing the game theory aspect of it. That's actually exactly how I think about this, let me explain my analysis. I view it as the composition of two games. "Should we pursue the spoils?" is the first game, and the correct strategy is to play that game and coordinate with people to play it. The zero sum game is dividing the spoils, this is conditioned on having won the first game. As long as everyon…

I really don't see how your reply made a new point. What the other person was responding to was that even if you were to construct your positive sum game, you will have politics because reward distributions are not equal. The very fact that some people receive bigger bonuses, RSUs or promotions and others don't is an unequal distribution such that politics will be there.

Say everyone is compensated with equity. The goal is to increase share value. Yes every action that each employee takes in theory is going to be toward that goal because that's how they're incentivized through the compensation. But in reality you do a performance review and you have to decide how much some person contributed to the overall result, which isn't possible to objectively determine. And in that space of perception and subjectivity is were politics, or as I call it social arbitrage opportunity, exists.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#162

Post by skeeter2020 »

I don't think this is "politics" but even if it technically is, the term has such negative connotations that I think we're better off approaching the scenarios from a different angle, rather than trying to rescue "politics". Start by telling yourself "I will assume the best in motivations and most charitable interpretation." Now approach the "Why?" like a cultural anthropologist: How did we get here? What clues can I find that explain the current state? What artifacts are out there? How is communication organized? What's the hierarchy structure? Who or what are notable influences? Talk to lots of people. Ask lots of open questions. Listen. Sketch literal and conceptual diagrams of "how this all works".

It's likely to turn out everyone is NOT an idiot and there are very logical & understandable reasons for why things are the way they are. Or not, in which case you can run away secure that you've made the right conclusion.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#163

Post by skeeter2020 »

citizenpaul wrote: post #159
bluGill wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

if you're one or two strokes under par for every hole you'll be invited because you're a world class player, or more likely you don't want to get invited because who wants to play with people who suck that bad?

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#164

Post by quickthrowman »

citizenpaul wrote: post #46
rossdavidh wrote: post #24

"Think about the last time a terrible technical decision got pushed through at your company. Maybe it was adopting some overcomplicated architecture, or choosing a vendor that everyone knew was wrong, or killing a project that was actually working. 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.…

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 would guess that most (?) decisions involving salespeople and the c-suite are relationship based. My entire industry runs more or less on personal relationships (commercial construction). In my case, virtually all of the work I sell is to people that trust me to deliver because I have repeatedly done so in the past. Every time I get a new customer I aim to build a relationship and deliver the best possible product I can so I get more work in the future, there’s always another guy with his foot jammed in the door waiting for you to fuck up and swoop in.

When it comes to stupid decisions in the c-suite that affect me at work, I use Colin Powell’s advice to ‘disagree, but commit’. The COO isn’t going to appreciate me calling him an idiot because of some policy he put into place. I comply and move on with my life. If the bullshit stacks up too high, move on.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#165

Post by bluGill »

gnarlynarwhal42 wrote: post #157
bluGill wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Thanks, fixed that.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#166

Post by bluGill »

citizenpaul wrote: post #159
bluGill wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't play with the ceo normally, but you play with others who play with the ceo (might be another level).

the important point is to be known a few levels up. That will get you places.

i'm not good at this, but people who are have gone farther than me.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#167

Post by quickthrowman »

scarface_74 wrote: post #75
rossdavidh wrote: post #24

"Think about the last time a terrible technical decision got pushed through at your company. Maybe it was adopting some overcomplicated architecture, or choosing a vendor that everyone knew was wrong, or killing a project that was actually working. 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.…

I as a self interested actor as we all are see nothing wrong with: 1) Since around 2008 I’ve had 8 jobs after staying at my second job for nine years. Whether I was laid off or chose to get another job because of salary compression and inversion, being able to get a job quickly - and it’s never taken me more than a month even in 2023 and last year - was partially because at now 51, I have made damn sure I stay up to…

> The goal of politics in the office is not to do “the right thing”. It’s to stay in alignment with the people who control your paycheck and to make sure you can keep exchanging money for labor when time comes to her another job.

I fully agree with this after attempting to ‘do the right thing’ and getting nowhere. I don’t have all of the information the decision makers have, so I may not have the full picture. Even if it’s a bad decision, it’s out of my hands. Now I do what Colin Powell advised: “disagree and commit”. You can’t win every battle, so you’ll have to accept certain decisions and move on, and accomplish your goals regardless.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#168

Post by qu4z-2 »

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.

Do factor in that people in a healthy marriage don't have a lot of marriages.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#169

Post by andrewflnr »

Nition wrote: post #119
bartread wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for a software company that literally had "no politics" as part of its DNA. It was in the company handbook, it was in our values, people would say it when they talked about what it was like to work at the company. Hell, whilst I can't recall any specific instances, I guarantee that I said it and probably many times[0]. But, of course, it was never true. It might have felt true - certainly superficially…

Your Musashi quote reminds me of another relatively well-known quote from philosopher Eugene Gendlin: "What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it."

There's some interesting meta futility in that statement. It's true of course, as far as it goes. But no one avoids truth because they think it's a rational strategy. They do it because it avoids emotional pain[0].

This is a sort of hard truth about why people avoid hard truths. Telling a truth-avoidant person (which is most of us on at least a few topics) things like this will have very little impact. In fact they've probably already stopped listening.

[0] I was going to say "in the short term" but as someone suffering long-term emotional pain over facing relatively minor truths, well, I'm not sure that qualifier is appropriate.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#170

Post by johnfn »

qu4z-2 wrote: post #168
johnfn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do factor in that people in a healthy marriage don't have a lot of marriages.

For first-time marriages, the number is still quite high (~40%)
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