Office Politics .....Uhhh No!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to We Lead Anyway. I'm Noelle, senior leader, career coach, and your host. Okay. Today we're gonna have a talk, a real one, about the thing that nobody puts in the job description or covers an onboarding. The thing that we all hate to admit is actually running things in our company. Office politics. I know. And I know some of you just made a face. You did. I felt it through the interwebs. I did. But listen, if you have ever said out loud or even in your head, I just want to do good work, okay? And I'm just gonna let that speak for itself. Honey. Lock in. Okay. I gotta say this very plainly. You can't outperform relationships. You can be hella talented, okay? You you could be the hardest worker on the floor, the one who clocks in early and clocks out late, or whatever. But much like a potato salad with raisins in it, at the cookout, you will be passed over, you will be passed around, and you will be passed up. You'll be overlooked for someone who simply knew how to work a room. That's not me being cynical, by the way. That is just the reality of how organizations, which are made of humans, allegedly, function. That is my experience. So we can either keep pretending that it's not true, it doesn't happen, you don't have to get on board, or we can get strategic. And I'm about strategic every time. All right. Let's talk about what office politics actually is. Because really, I think the word itself has a branding problem, which is why people's eye twitch a little bit when you say it. People hear office politics and you immediately picture someone fake laughing at the CEO's jokes or, you know, brown nosing a director. That's not what it is. That's not what it is. Now, those versions definitely exist, but that's not what we're here for today. What I want to talk about is the reality that in every single workplace, there are informal systems of influence and they run parallel to the formal org chart. Okay. There are relationships opening doors you didn't even know existed because you're not having these conversations. There are perceptions either working for people or quietly working against them. And there are conversations happening about budgets, promotions, who's gonna get the high visibility project. And you're either a part of that conversation or you're not. And office politics at its core is just understanding how influence actually moves in your organization. And navigating that well is a leadership skill, regardless to whether or not you have a title. So, what do you actually do? We're gonna talk about it. I'm gonna name a few things, okay? So, number one, you really have to know who the real decision makers are. We focus so much on the org chart. And yes, that's a thing, but every organization has two structures. There is the official one, the titles, the reporting line, the boxes on the chart that someone spent three weeks updating in Visio. And then there is the real one who people actually go to when something needs to get done. Who has the air of people at the top who can flip no into a yes with one casual conversation in the break room? Your job is to understand both and before you come for me about I don't really do that, I don't want to ingratiate myself. This is not about figuring out who to cozy up to for personal gain. This is about understanding the landscape you are actually operating in. Because you can have the best idea in the room, homie. And if you don't understand how decisions actually get made, that idea is going nowhere. So here's how you start. Pay attention. Who gets CC'd on emails that don't technically require them? Who do senior leaders stop to chat with in the hallway? Not just in a meeting, but in passing. Who gets asked for their opinion on things that they're not even a part of, a project that they're not a part of? It's not in their lane. Those are signals. Start mapping them. Now I'm not saying have your head on a swivel because everyone's conspiring. I'm not saying that. Just be aware. I ain't trying to stress you out. Number two, you need to invest in relationships before you need them. This is the one that people skip the most and they regret it the hardest. And I get it. We're busy, we're focused on the work, we have deliverables and due days. But here's the thing: relationships are not something that you can speed run the moment you need a favor or a sponsor or for someone to say your name in a room that you're not in. Okay. You are there to build relationships. Think about it from the other side. If someone you barely speak to suddenly starts warming up to you, scheduling coffee chats, being super collaborative and enthusiastic right before a performance review drops or something, you notice. Okay, everybody notices. It does not feel like relationship building. It feels like you're front loading for favors. And real professional relationships are built through consistency over time. It is the colleague that you check in on when there's nothing to ask for. What's in it for you? Nothing. I'm just gonna say hi. It's a stakeholder that you loop in proactively, not just when you need a sign-off, right? If you have a peer that you give credit to publicly because it was the right thing to do, that's building relationships. And here's a practice that I give my coaching clients. Identify like five people in your organization. If that's too much, identify three. These are people who are important to your career, to your work. And then ask yourself honestly, when is the last time you connected with any of them with zero agenda? No ask or update or deliverable, just a human being treating another human being like a person. And if you can't remember, that's your homework. Just send an email. Don't overthink it. Schedule a 15 minutes, but just start. Build relationships. Number three, you gotta manage your perception intentionally. I know this also makes people tense up. I always thought I shouldn't have to manage how people see me. And I agree with that to an extent because you can easily exhaust yourself and compromise your authenticity. My work should speak for itself. And look, I said that too for years. And for years, my work did speak. It just wasn't speaking to the right people in the right rooms at the right times. So here's the thing about perception: it is information. How people see you determines how they include you, how they advocate for you, and how much authority and opportunity they extend to you. And if you are not deliberately shaping that perception, other people will do it for you. And they may not be telling the story that you would tell. I've experienced this sitting in rooms with C-level executives. I've experienced HR and other senior leaders talk about what they think about other people. And let me just share it with you. It's not completely the Hunger Games, but is Hunger Games adjacent? Okay. Managing your perception doesn't mean being performative or disingenuous. It means making sure the actual you, your strengths, your thinking, your vision is actually visible. Because you cannot be known for what nobody has seen. Are you speaking up in meetings or saving the best ideas for the recap email that nobody reads? Are you making contributions visible or assuming leadership can somehow see all the work that's happening behind the scenes? Are you accessible to the people who matter? Or are you heads down in execution? And you can do that so much that you accidentally make yourself disappear. So visibility doesn't have to mean that you take up so much space that you suck the air out of the room. It's strategy. And I need to say this especially to the women, to the leaders of color, to everyone who has been conditioned to be quiet, stay humble, wait their turn. The people getting promoted are frequently not the most talented people in the room. They are the people who are known, they're trusted, and visible to whoever is making the call. Now, number four, learn how to disagree without becoming an enemy. I'll probably do another episode on this. But one of the things that makes office politics complicated is that people are terrified to push back on anything because they don't want to burn a relationship. So they either go completely silent, which means they hand over their voice, or they overcorrect and come in so hot that they blow up the relationship anyway. Much messier. There is a middle path, and it's a skill. And you can hold your ground, share a different perspective, push back on an idea, and still walk out of the room with the relationship intact. It's possible, I promise. A few things that actually help. Separate the idea from the person. I always say separate the problem from the person when we're doing disciplinary actions. I see this differently. It's not the same thing as you're wrong. One of those sentences invites dialogue. The other, when the other one starts a cold war. Acknowledge what is true in the other person's thinking before you offer yours. And when you need to push back, lead with curiosity first. Help me understand the thinking here before you lead with a disagreement. It changes the whole temperature of the conversation. And when there's real tension with someone, actual friction, not just a difference of opinion. Handle it directly and privately. Don't ruminate, don't marinate, and please do not start recruiting allies and building a coalition before you even had an honest one-on-one with the other person. That is the exact moment where healthy workplace disagreements turn on to full-on politics in the worst sense of the word. So disagreeing with integrity is one of the most underrated leadership moves there is. It signals that you're confident, emotionally intelligent, and not here to waste anyone's time. People respect that, even if they don't admit it. And lastly, number five, stop opting out of the game and start playing on your own terms. Look, I know some of you have fully decided that you're not doing this. You're too principled, you're too honest, you're too tired of watching people who are less qualified than you just smile their way to opportunities. I hear you. Office politics, when it is used as a weapon, is genuinely exhausting to be around. Toxic even. But here's what I need you to sit with. Opting out is still a move, and it has consequences. When you check out of relationship building, when you make yourself invisible, when you stop paying attention to how influence moves in your organization, you don't become neutral. You become someone who is easy to overlook. And easy to overlook people do not get promoted. They don't get resources. They don't get protected when leadership decides to reorganize the entire place and someone has to go. Playing the game on your terms, though, means that you get to decide who you are while you play it. So you can build real relationships. You show up visibly in ways that actually feel like you. You advocate for yourself without apologizing for it. And you advocate for other people because that matters too. You operate with integrity and you stay informed about what is actually happening in your organization because being the last to know is never a power position. You can be principled and politically savvy. I just want to clear that up. You can have values and still understand how the room works. The most effective leaders I have seen are not the ones who refuse to engage with the political landscape. They are the ones who navigated it without losing themselves in it. Office politics isn't going away. It's not like a corporate flaw that needs to be fixed. It is a feature of any system built by humans and it will outlast every re-org, every new CEO, and every all hands meeting where someone talks about a culture of transparency. The question has never been whether you will deal with it. The question is whether you will deal with it on purpose and intentionally navigate it to benefit you. You can't outperform relationships, but you can build ones that are real. You can show up with intention, manage your visibility, navigate conflict with your integrity fully intact, and refuse, absolutely refuse to be invisible. So speaking of relationships, I just want to give a shout out, a thank you, and a congratulations to someone who has been listening and supporting me from the very beginning. He's an old high school friend. His name is Dax Bambro. Dax, thank you. There have been so many times that you have just shown up with the perfect words at the perfect time. You share my podcast, you encourage me, and you really do give me the energy sometimes to keep going. And I appreciate you. And I know that you're starting a new role soon. I just want to wish you good luck, tell you congratulations, and I appreciate you. If you have a topic you would like me to discuss, email me at noelleleadsanyway at gmail.com. And if you are interested in personal or professional development, please visit leadwithnoelle.com. And until then, go take up space.