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Don't avoid workplace politics

terriblesoftware.org

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Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#171

Post by unlikelytomato »

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…

It's always golf... or something much more NSFW....

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#172

Post by dotgov »

gm678 wrote: post #2

> Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either above humanity, or below it; he is the ‘Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one,’ whom Homera denounces — the outcast who is a lover of war; he may be compared to a bird which flies alone. Sure, Aristotle wasn't talking about corporations, b…

There is a word in German: "vogelfrei". It means "free as a bird". Sounds romantic, but what it actually means is that the person who is free as a bird does not enjoy the protections of the law and hence there are no repercussions for killing them.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#173

Post by johnfn »

citizenpaul wrote: post #158
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.

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.

If I kept getting burned, I might think about the types of people I get into relationships with, the type of things I'm learning while dating, and I might talk with friends to see how their relationships are going and see if I could be doing something different. I don't think I would start telling everyone in a relationship to prepare for divorce.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#174

Post by rossdavidh »

roarcher wrote: post #150
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.…

> org needs a system using New Buzzword, to show to VC's or others, and this is the opportunity to use New Buzzword, whether it makes sense here or not Oh lord, I have seen some nonsense built because some prospective investor wanted to see us "do something with AI" lest we be "left behind" somehow.

The thing is, from the point of view of getting investment money, it is probably the "right call". It's just not the business of making technology decisions, it's the business of making technology cosplay. Not my business.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#175

Post by QuadrupleA »

dang wrote: post #109
daft_pink wrote: post #4

Should be titled Stop Avoiding Workplace Politics? It’s not a discussion of the toxic political environment we live in today.

We put workplace politics in the title above, and also switched from the baity "Stop avoiding" to a more representative phrase from the article.

Hmm, feel like the new title is pretty lifeless. I wouldn't have clicked this (very good IMHO) article with the current title.

"Stop Avoiding Workplace Politics" would represent it better - it's addressing people (like me) who sometimes fancy themselves above it.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#176

Post by garciasn »

johnfn wrote: post #173
citizenpaul wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If I kept getting burned, I might think about the types of people I get into relationships with, the type of things I'm learning while dating, and I might talk with friends to see how their relationships are going and see if I could be doing something different. I don't think I would start telling everyone in a relationship to prepare for divorce.

People change; especially over decades.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#177

Post by [deleted] »

andrewflnr wrote: post #169
Nition wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'v…

[deleted]

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#178

Post by anonymars »

brightball wrote: post #40

This is an excellent read and the title definitely made me assume the author wasn't talking about "office politics". What's more important than "politics" is your ability to communicate in terms that people making decisions will understand. I didn't get this nuance early in my career. I was always focused on shipping, oblivious to costs: Time Cost, Opportunity Cost, etc. Learning to make technical decisions based on…

> What's more important than "politics" is your ability to communicate in terms that people making decisions will understand.

Not to disagree with you overall, but I would argue that very much is politics! In other words, how do you influence "the system"? How do you sway people to your point of view, how do you get them to follow your ideas and plans?

You need your interests to be their interests, and that involves speaking their language. Some people you might persuade because they too think your idea is the right one, some you might persuade by trading favors, some you might persuade by convincing them it's the most cost-effective, etc. as described here.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#179

Post by Aeolun »

obviouslynotme wrote: post #128
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…

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…

> Pretending that identifying stakeholders' needs, communicating the solutions, and delivering them are the keys to succeeding in corporate politics is a joke.

I don't think that's actually true. Identifying the stakeholders' needs is absolutely something that will lead to success in corporate politics. Just don't expect their needs to be about building decent products.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#180

Post by scarface_74 »

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…

You don’t get promoted in any well functioning organization until you operate at the level you want to be promoted to.

That means that if all you did was work that only involved your own labor instead of work that involves being over an initiative that involved other people, you can’t be promoted above a mid level developer (no matter your title). You didn’t show that you can work at a larger “scope”.

You can look at the leveling guidelines for almost any tech company.

Even if you are a mid level ticket taker, you should at least try to talk to whoever your project manager is and take responsibility for delivering an “epic” or “workstream” that will show that you are coordinating a larger deliverable.

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