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Don't avoid workplace politics

terriblesoftware.org

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Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#311

Post by some_guy_nobel »

eawgewag wrote: post #290
some_guy_nobel wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure,though this stands in contrast to the author's thesis: "It’s the loud person who’s wrong getting their way because the quiet person who’s right won’t speak up."

Politics involves understanding the hierarchy though. And understanding when you are overruled. If the hierarchy is saying "it's time for GenAI", you have the option to participate in a way that raises your profile and positively influences the company (involving politics), if you hate GenAI so much you can leave, or you can stay silently and opt out of the process. These are all choices. Personally I'm fine with my…

I will repeat again, this is in direct opposition to the author's thesis: "It’s the loud person who’s wrong getting their way because the quiet person who’s right won’t speak up."

Given that, I'm not sure what your message is in response to. I will say that 'learn to parcipate in the hierarchy' and 'everything is a choice, just quit!' are hardly solutions at all, and read more as truisms.

I'll add that I'm not sure what VCs have to do with anything here, though as someone who formally took VC funding, I wouldn't want them making technical or strategic decisions on my behalf, and I suspect the majority of founders (and others on my cap table) would agree.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#312

Post by Mentlo »

Great post. I’d just take it a step further and point out that this doesn’t stop at software or work.

A person can not “not be in politics”. You can only choose to have politics that affect you happen without your input. That’s how you end up with bad governments (in your mind).

The most important thing to learn about passivity is that it’s not a neutral position of exclusion. It is an active choice to not participate and be at the receiving end of the outcome.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#313

Post by Mentlo »

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…

If your c-suite is idiotic or nepotistic you can absolutely still influence them with good politics, you just need to understand their incentives and frame your arguments that way. You need to understand that you’re not playing meritocracy and get your outcomes done in the system you are playing.

In this case that means being in that golf game or figuring out a way how you can use corruption to get good outcomes done.

Or, more likely if your moral compass is sound, quit and find an organisation that isn’t like this.

While I agree with you that random corporate world does behave this way, companies where founders are still around - don’t - because they’re mission driven.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#314

Post by Mentlo »

alphazard wrote: post #35

This is not a great take. Politics shows up as a failure to construct an aligned organization. There will always be some politics, but it should not be the most significant thing going on at a company. In a well designed org, it tends towards zero. In a positive sum environment, with incentives aligned with the shareholders, everyone is trying to make the business more profitable, and the "more" that everyone wants c…

I find this take naive. First, to have a zero sum game or indeed a positive sum game you have to be playing with perfect information with rationally behaving actors. Given most organisations have high levels of uncertainty and are resource constrained you can’t rationally make positive sum game decisions as the interpretation of uncertainty is cardinal to it - and additionally the resource constraint means different views of that uncertainty will tend to bias towards the thing they know best - engineers will find more certainty in build, marketers in marketing, designers in design - take your pick.

This necessitates collaborative information synthesis to resolve uncertainty uniformly to then be able to play a positive sum game under constraints. This is possible but it necessitates exchange of information between different business functions.

As informational clarity is a communicative process with repetitive feedback cycles, it will tend to have a big delay in the overarching system of decision-making. Therefore a shortcut is to influence, i.e. use conviction processes to shorten the cycle, rather than repeat to arbitrary infinity in order to drive perfect information alignment.

Therefore influencing is a necessary component even in an otherwise perfectly healthy and incentive aligned positive sum system of rational actors - and politics are influencing.

The problem becomes when conviction isn’t used as shortcut for informational clarity but as a method of exploitation of irrationality of human actors - this is bad politics.

What I do agree with is that putting in place right incentives, processes and organisational structure minimises politics - and in an org with rational actors this is the goal.

But good luck hiring perfectly rational actors in each function, that will still behave rationally in an economic downturn :).

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#315

Post by xwolfi »

try_the_bass wrote: post #307
xwolfi wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No, what you said is what's called "pseudo-profound bullshit". Sounds deep; has no actual meaning--nor any specific relationship with truth at all.

Yup, these things are all a bit obvious, ofc the truth "is what it is", not very sure why that sentence is so special and probably why it had to be wrongly assigned to an old hero rather than to the random guy who actually produced it :D

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#316

Post by xwolfi »

judahmeek wrote: post #278
xwolfi wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What you're saying is that you're not fighting for the truth, but just for a better lie. While I agree with the basis of your argument, I don't think anyone wants to agree with it. Most people like to believe that they strive for getting as close to the truth as they possibly can. To the practical subject at hand, I would argue that means that the attribution to Musashi is the actual lie, not the saying itself, altho…

It is fragile because it does not matter - a better lie will obfuscate it quickly.

Let's imagine a simple truth: vaccines are efficient, work well, are tested seriously, produced immense good for humanity for at least a hundred years. Well just find 3 random kids who got autism randomly after taking one and you have entire slices of the population rushing to the lie like flies to a turd, that vaccines are more harm than good. You can brandish the truth a million times, the lie is better.

Truth is fragile, people are seduced by lies, because lies are crafted, they're targeted, they're intelligently designed. They give you what you want, that God decides our fate in this particular case, and that medicine is evil for trying to change it (or whatever is the deeper reason antivax are so desperate for these lies, I really don't get it, I'm more attracted to pro-medicine arguments, even if they are lies themselves maybe). The truth is dumb, simple, inelegant, uninteresting and, quite powerless: we often don't even want to hear about it.

You need countless proofs to even observe the truth. You need nothing to observe a lie, you can fabricate all the proofs you want.

Give me a counter example ? I'm so annoyed at people telling me the Americans didn't go to the moon because a flag was waving suspiciously, I don't believe a truth ever took over a lie now.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#317

Post by mlrtime »

Maro wrote: post #266
mlrtime wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brother, I'm in the same boat as you. This unhappiness that your wife has will not go away and you will deal with situation at some point. These hard conversations have a way of finding you. I won't tell you to tear up the pre-nup, but I highly recommend coming up with a compromise (over time) that meets both of your needs.

I know what you mean, I do think about how to soften this situation often. It'd be easier if she'd be rational about it, but she's not the rational type — which is even more reason to have the pre-nup..

> It'd be easier if she'd be rational about it,

My man, all of us would. I talk to my wife often about this. We are just built differently and that is what makes the opposite sex so attractive tbh. That irrationality comes out in different positive ways I'm sure (or you wouldn't have married), you can't just turn it on and off (unfortunately)

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#318

Post by mlrtime »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #303
mlrtime wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the point (or rather I read it differently). There WAS a resolution. By her asking the question out loud to him, made this situation real (which she has probably practiced a million times in her head). At that very moment she self-realized the resolution she needed. He didn't have to answer because she found it herself. But only by him being there for her to ask the question was it possible. She sa…

Well, do you think that if Duncan (the skater) thought about the question and got back to her with a yes or no answer, she wouldn't then feel worse?

I think that he is a different person now and the question is irrelevant that Phoebe very wisely figured out. The answer is useless, her realizing that is priceless.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#319

Post by lupusreal »

mlrtime wrote: post #258
lupusreal wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judges toss prenups all the time. You best keep her happy.

So? That means they're all worthless?

In the US at least, I suspect they're worse than useless because they start the marriage off by giving the woman something to feel bitter about.

Re: Don't avoid workplace politics

#320

Post by Brian_K_White »

bravetraveler wrote: post #309
Brian_K_White wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you come here to express the opinion that that sounds good?

The church door was open, that simple. Many conversions lately?

I walk by countless open doors. I only enter the ones that I have some interest in. This door contains other people, who you claim to have no interest in.
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