If someone’s bugging you, change yourself

, ,

Here’s a fascinating piece about an Amazon tribe that has no ability to use numbers. Even when the tribe members asked anthropologists to teach counting, the tribesmen couldn’t learn. The tribe is good at other things — fishing and making jokes, for instance — but not counting.

This immediately reminded me of couples therapy with my husband. My biggest complaint, for five or six years, was that my husband doesn’t understand tone of voice. For example, he says, “How was your day?” with the tone of voice that someone uses for “I’m going to kill you.”

It’s startling and disconcerting, to say the least. But our third couples therapist finally said to me that there’s nothing I can do. My husband’s brain just cannot learn tone of voice. I need to work around it.

So I do. I separate the meaning we typically attribute to tone of voice from what my husband is actually saying. The Amazon tribe works around the problem, too – they have a word for “a small amount” and a word for “a bigger amount”.

You need to do this at the office. The people you work with are not idiots. It is just that some people are unable to see things like you do. You need to figure out how they see things, accept it, and work around their deficits.

For example, some people are not very empathetic. Like not knowing numbers or tone of voice, these people don’t understand how some else is feeling. You have to take that into consideration when the person says something inconsiderate. Some people just cannot learn empathy.

So I’m recommending two books that are about getting along with people at work. Both are premised on the idea that you have to adjust yourself in order to get along. You Want Me to Work With Who? is very hands on and self-reflective. Working with You is Killing Me has a lot of case studies and examples. Both are good if you want to take a step in the direction of getting along with everyone at work without relying on them to change.

/14 Comments

Google Guy: Dressing for success — don’t do it all the time

, ,

By Jason Warner — One of my direct reports told me I’m wearing VP shoes. Apparently, my Eccos are the most popular shoe brand among vice presidents at Google.

It’s not surprising that I dress like a VP. Because dressing like what you want to become is an important part of an overall career strategy. What surprises me is how many professionals don’t recognize this or simply choose to ignore it.

But it’s not as simple as dressing for success. This is one of those times where too much or too little can make all the difference. The key to dressing like that which you want to become is to only do it 75%. If you go overboard, you’ll distance yourself from your peers, which is why the discussion about VP shoes threw me. I never want to distance myself from the people on my team. You have to be careful about this.

Here are some guidelines you should follow.

1. Don’t look like you’re trying too hard.
It is part of our corporate culture that you don’t have to dress up to be serious, but the groups I support are sales and operations, and they all dress in a business casual. They wear nice slacks or khakis, nice shoes but they wear quality clothing. So I choose to dress like them and buy nice stuff. I try and invest in nice shoes and belts, and also nice quality shirts. You can get away with buying inexpensive pants — Dockers, for example.

2. Don’t put yourself on the wrong side of the middle.
I see lots of people screw this one up. They see that some of those above them dress casually, so then they choose to dress casually. If you choose to dress like those above you, aim for the right side of the bell curve and dress like the successful people. If everyone dresses casually, then you are on your own, but I’ve found that there’s usually at least a light correlation between the best dressers and the best performers.

3. Don’t dress more than 30% above your level.
Okay, so some of you can swing the Rolex watch in your first job out of college, and to you I say, “Great choice in parents”. For the rest of us, the fastest way to distance yourself from peers and those above you is to overdress the part. It creates awkwardness all the way around. The CEO doesn’t want to see you wearing the same watch she does, nor does your counterpart in the next cube who has been with the company twice as long as you. It’s okay to step it up a little, but show some restraint. It is best to be slightly more done out than your cube-mates.

After all of this, I do have to admit that my new career experience at Google (week six as I write this) has got me a little wrapped around the axle however, as the vast majority of Google employees simply wear jeans and t-shirts to work. And those really bad boots — I think they call them Uggs. So now I’m thinking I may have to adjust my strategy some in this new world of work that is filled with Generation Y.

On this, and my VP shoes, I will keep you posted.

Recommended by:

/60 Comments

The secret life of salesgirls

, , ,

Who makes the best salesperson? A cheerleader.

The drug industry is so systematic about recruiting cheerleaders that the New York Times writer Stephanie Saul wrote a feature about it, spotlighting women like Onya: “On Sundays she works the sidelines for the Washington Redskins. But weekdays find her urging gynecologists to prescribe a treatment for vaginal yeast infection.”

There are some suggestions that the cheerleaders became the substitute for the now-illegal freebies that drug companies used to give doctors (like trips to Tahiti). Now drug companies persuade doctors to prescribe drugs by lending them the presence of a hot salesgirl.

Lynn Williamson, the cheerleading coach at the Univeristy of Kentucky, says that it’s not just that the woman are dreamy. Williams thinks that cheerleading talent does, in fact, correleate with talent for sales: “Exaggerated motions, exaggerated smiles, exaggerated enthusiasm – they learn those things, and they can get people to do what they want.”

Williamson is not alone. Spirited Sales is a recruiting firm that specializes in cheerleaders. Here’s a quote from their web site: “Spirited Sales Leaders has a database of thousands of self-confident, outgoing, responsible and enthusiastic young men and women from around the United States with varying levels of B2B sales experience.”

The web site also talks about how cheerleaders have a track record of leadership and success. This actually rings true to me. I mean, athletes are coveted by many recruiters because athletes do better in business than non-athletes. And cheerleaders are, in many aspects, just like these athletes; but cheerleaders, unlike athletes, are consistently outgoing and good-looking. And good looks give people an edge in business, as well.

So who’s the smartest hire you can make for your sales team? A cheerleader. As long as she can meet the demands of the job.

And what happens when the best girl for the job goes to work every day? She gets hit on. Constantly. And even when it’s not a direct hit, it’s a guy who is married and bored and not bored enough to cheat, but definitely bored enough to take too much face time from the salesperson while he’s making a purchasing decision.

Not convinced? According to the Times article, an informal survey showed that 12 of 13 medical saleswomen said they had been sexually harassed by physicians. And if you think it’s only physicians, you’re wrong. It’s even Hewlett-Packard board members.

So here is advice to women in sales:

1. It’s not your fault.
It is totally common to get hit on at work, especially if you are a cheerleader type. You are not provoking this behavior. You are being you, and men like you. Do not feel bad about this. And, definitely don’t wear dowdy clothes just becuase the men are hitting on you. Anyway, women who totally downplay their sexuality are seen as less competent.

2. Use it to your advantage.
Men who are attracted to you are more likely to buy from you. So what? Men who like to play golf are more likely to do business with other men who play golf. People have been given unfair preferences forever. Be glad you are the recipient of some of this. If the guy wants to talk with you for too long, fine, as long as he buys something. That’s what salespeople get paid to do: Connect with the customer and talk until they buy.

3. Don’t date someone who is married.
The truth is that the guys who will be most interested in you are the ones who are married. They are not going to leave their wife and kids. They just want something a little more interesting for a little bit. This is a waste of your time. This person is not emotionally available and he is a sponge for the fun, exciting, full-of-possibilities stage of life you are in. Don’t let him ruin it. Sell him something and leave.

4. Dating good dating material is fine.
If you are selling to a really good guy, and he’s single, dating him is fine. But then try to give his account to someone else on your team. Otherwise things get too messy.

5. Don’t put yourself in danger – from the guy or from human resources.
If the guy touches you and you don’t want it, tell him a clear no right away. Don’t worry about losing the sale. If, after you tell him no, he touches you again, leave and don’t go back. Ever. Do not tell human resources if you can help it. The job of human resources is to protect the company, not you, and when you have a harassment complaint, you are a problem to the company. This is not good news. I hate to have to tell it to you, but it’s true. Here are some ideas for what to do instead.

The good news, though, is that outgoing, good-looking women can have great careers in sales — or anywhere else they want to go. So go into the workforce with talent and ambition and create the life you want. Really.

HT: Ben and Dennis

/25 Comments

The Madison update (and the Britney update)

, ,

A lot of people ask me how living in Madison is going. For those of you who don’t know, I moved from New York City to Madison, WI about six months ago. I can’t believe it’s already been six months, because I still feel like I’m in culture shock.

It is shocking, for example, that five blocks from where I live, people go ice fishing. Or that the town seems to revolve around schedules for the University of Wisconsin athletic teams. But the most shocking thing is the lack of advertising.

In New York City, the bombardment of advertising is so extreme that it all adds up to a reliable source of information about what’s going on in the world. Everything has an ad on it. The streets are literally lined with advertising. And there are newsstands every block, so the world’s headlines, too, are impossible to miss.

In Madison, we pass one or two billboards a day, if we drive across town. When this blog was mentioned in Business Week last month, I spent an hour driving around Madison trying to find a copy of the magazine. That’s when I started thinking about how isolated I am from the advertising world.

But it really hit home tonight when my brother sent a link to me about the mess in Iraq.

I wrote back: “The most interesting thing in here is the reference to Britney’s head. What’s up with her head?”

He wrote back: “She shaved it. Do you live in a cave? Did you know Anna Nicole Smith died? There was commercial-free round-the-clock coverage on the major TV networks.”

In fact, I didn’t know about the incessant coverage. We don’t have a TV. I have never had a TV, although I have a lot of respect for the content on TV. That’s why I don’t have one — because I know I’d watch it all the time. I’d watch it all the time because it is actually useful for finding out what a large segment of the world is doing.

As a kid, I went to other kids’ houses to see what I was missing. As an adult, I have always lived in big cities where you end up knowing what’s on TV even if you don’t have one. Probably in a large part because of the ubiquitous advertising. And when I found myself falling behind in those big cities, I could easily pick up a magazine.

Now that I’m in Madison, I need to take drastic measures. I am not buying a TV, but I am doing the next best thing: A subscription to People magazine. I know a lot about this magazine because it is laying on every available table top in New York City even though no one wants to admit to actually paying for it.

Knowing what’s going on in popular culture is important. It’s the world we live in. To be oblivious to popular culture is to snub one’s nose at the majority of society. And how can you claim to have good social skills if you are not interested in the majority of the people in this world? Good social skills means being interested in what makes other people tick.

Think about this in terms of work. It is clear that in order to get along with your co-workers you need to know how to understand what they want and how to give it to them. And in a large study of workplace preferences, Terry Bacon, reports in his book, What People Want, that good management means good social skills. “Most people leave a job because of their boss,” says Bacon. What makes a good boss? Someone who is concerned about what other people care about.

So either you need to know why Britney’s head is interesting this week, or you need to start caring more about popular culture. Being socially competent isn’t about just the brainiacs, or just the culture snobs. Social competence is being able to relate to anyone, and that means caring about a wide range of people.

I had a teacher in college who spent a semester convincing the class that reading the Iliad is important because all other college freshman are reading the Iliad and it is part of the common experience of college life — something to talk about. People magazine reflects the common experience of adult life. You can say that People isn’t that good, but you know what? Neither is the Iliad unless you like wars.

/31 Comments

What Obama means for the workplace

flagmedium-border.jpgBarack Obama is dissing the baby boomers. But he’s doing it tactfully. So he’s got a wide range of people talking about generational issues in politics, and I’m eagerly anticipating spillover into the workplace, which also needs this frank discussion.

One of the companies I founded was an online marketplace for city governments. My business partner was a fiftysomething guy who had been dealing with city governments forever.

Our investors in the first round were all his friends, most were over 50, and some assumed I was dating my partner because why else would he start a company with someone so young.

Investors treated me like it was an impossibility that I could have learned things fast enough to get into a room with them. And one investor asked me to leave a meeting at such an inappropriate moment that even my partner was shocked.

Then, about a year later, when I was looking for a job, the guy I interviewed with said, “Kids now think they can learn on the job and they don’t need an MBA. What do you think of that?”

I couldn’t believe it: He was calling me a kid in my job interview, even though I had already launched two companies.

He did this because he thinks it’s culturally acceptable to treat someone like they don’t know anything just because they’re young.

I’ve been holding off writing about Obama because the first (and last) time I took a leap into politics with my column was when I campaigned for Howard Dean, the week before he imploded. I told myself I learned my lesson: Politics is too volatile for a workplace writer to forge a path through.

But here I am again. Writing about politics. Writing about Obama and hoping he doesn’t implode next week. I have to write about him because while this is not an official endorsement, when he talks about leading a new generation I get giddy over the idea that we could be wrestling ourselves out from under the clutch of the baby boomers.

Obama talks about teamwork and community and the end of the me-me-me in-fighting that has characterized the recent history of baby boomer politics. A report in Newsday says:

“Obama represents the transition from the Baby Boom to Generation X… He spoke of a post-boomer sensibility, of moving beyond the divisions exacerbated by undue self-focus.”

I have this conversation with my (baby boomer) agent, and she says, “Everything to you is about generations.” And okay, there’s truth to that, but there’s also some hot air, because the baby-boomer generation is so huge that everything has been about them by default.

I am from a generation that had very limited power to do anything, anywhere, except live in the wake of the boomers. Even when it came to the Internet revolution in the 90’s, most of the people who got rich were the baby boomers who invested in companies that Gen-Xers operated.

This is why I get excited about Generation Y. It’s amazing to see this group, with all their demographic power, open up the world to change.

For the most part, I focus on change in the workplace. There were a lot of things that my generation wanted at work — for example, flexible hours, personal growth and the abandonment of competitive, ego-focused hierarchy in favor of team work. But we had trouble pushing through these workplace values because there were too few of us. The baby boomers could always just say no.

But generation Y wants so many of those gen-X things, and generation Y has the demographic power to make it real. It excites me to see this happen at work.

Obama is the political corollary. Finally there are enough voters, maybe, to vote for someone who is not a baby boomer. I don’t know if it will happen. But just that we’re talking about it is exciting. Because once we talk about baby boomers giving up control of politics, the talk of baby boomers giving up control of corporate life cannot be far behind.

But there’s a workplace lesson from Obama as well. He’s very tactful as he disses the boomers. He makes it clear that he is a bridge builder. That he is respectful of the fact that everyone has a place in history. And he is, above all, someone who has empathy for diverse backgrounds. These are all the same kinds of skills we need in the workplace today.

We are all engaging in a generational discussion at work, even if it is not as overt as an interviewer calling you a kid. We all come to the table with preconceptions and biases, but we all have to work together. So, in the near future, at lest, it’s the people who are best at building generational bridges who will succeed. This is something I personally work on every day, and Obama is a great role model.

/44 Comments

The ill-advised but often-sought business-trip tryst

,

When I was younger and traveled more for business, I got hit on by just about every man I traveled with. This is not uncommon among women I know.

Of course, most times it’s not that bad. The guy usually looks a little silly, and the next day the girl usually feels a little more powerful in the client meeting because her counterpart showed such pathetic judgment the night before.

Please do not write to me about how this situation is sex harassment and can get very bad and whatever. I know. But let’s be real, men hit on their travel partners all the time and it’s mostly just a fumbling bunch of absurdities like, “I’ve never asked anyone this before….” Or “I’m so attracted to you I can’t help myself…” Lines the men think are original but actually are standard fare for dark corners of hotel lobbies.

Last week, I was in New York City to talk to editors about my book (coming out in May, hooray). Each day, I looked really good for the meetings, and I had a swanky hotel room and an expense account to boot.

Now I can see why affairs happen so often on business trips. If you are single, a business trip is just an extension of your single life, and if you don’t sleep with random guys in real life, it’s unappealing to do it on a business trip.

But if you’re married with children, a business trip is like an escape to Disney Land. There are no kids to feed and bathe. There’s no husband for annoying talks about checkbook balances and the next day’s school lunch. There is only freedom and fun. And what does anyone want to do with freedom and fun except have sex?

I wish I could tell you that I’m too busy with my great career and big ideas to think about a little one-night stand. But really, I was consumed with the idea.

A lot of people send emails to me to ask about issues related to marriage. Mostly because people who have a career and young kids don’t really have time for the marriage. And they think that because I have career advice I have marriage advice. And I do, sort of: It’s very hard to do kids, career and marriage. And be on guard that often the easiest thing to let go is the marriage.

I know what you’ll tell me: The best thing to do to save the marriage is date night. But the thing about date night is that the best time to do it is on a business trip. When there are only inappropriate dates.

Instead of acting on my fantasies and destroying my marriage, I did what all good journalists do: buried myself in data gathering.

This cheating issue is widespread: Sixty percent of men and forty percent of women have an affair during marriage. And these are not long-term events. Ten percent don’t even last twenty-four hours. This screams business trip to me, but maybe because I was just on one.

The Des Moines Register reported, in an article that I can’t link to, that thirty-two percent of people feel like they are married to their co-workers, and in fact, people do better work when they have this sort of relationship with a co-worker. So it’s not that big a leap to cross the great divide and suggest a rendez-vous while you’re in a grand hotel.

Oprah’s in-house therapist has addressed this situation — where you feel very close to someone you work with all the time. And, in a shocking turn of events, she recommends that you don’t act on it. (For you pragmatists, the increase in workplace performance you get from feeling very close to a co-worker dissolves when you start swapping spit.)

Of course people ignore this advice in droves, and forty percent of workers actually have an on-going relationship with someone at work. (Considering that? Here are some tips to do it without killing your career.)

Based on my experience and my research, I am declaring that it’s normal to think about having a one-night stand with a co-worker, and it’s normal for your mind to travel to fantasy land on a business trip. I used to think it wasn’t. But it is. I think if we all admit this, we can all get good at having the feelings and not considering the option of acting on them – which would not only help save marriages but also help stop sex harassment at work.

/22 Comments

Recognize when you’re being a nutcase

, ,

One of my best friends, Sharon, is a hairdresser. She is not a normal hairdresser. She’s a big-shot hairdresser in Los Angeles. And one of the most important moments in my financial life was when I moved from client to friend — I started saving $100 on a haircut and $150 on color because she did it for free.

Sharon has two or three clients going at any one time, and it’s amazing to watch her make everyone feel like they are the only one. After all, that’s a lot of what they are paying for. To listen to their problems. Sharon says that everyone comes to her to solve a problem. They say they are coming for their hair, but it’s her job to figure out what their real problem is.

As the self-proclaimed queen of delegation, I sat down in Sharon’s chair for years and told her to do whatever she wanted. I always had the kind of hair people comment on. I figured that she’s the expert, not me, so why should I tell her what looks best?

Besides, she knew me well enough to know that the problem I always wanted to solve was how to be less boring. Left to my own devices, I would wear the same thing every day and never take my hair out of a pony tail.

Sharon specializes in the nutcase client, and people actually send theirs to her. Sharon tells great stories about the people who come back three days later and say, “I think you cut one of the hairs in my bangs too short. Can you fix it?”

Sharon is great at dealing with these clients because she knows it’s not the hair that’s the problem. It’s always that other thing.

This was always interesting to me until the day that I became the problem client. It was when I had just closed a round of funding from a prominent venture capital firm, and I had spent weeks being the youngest and the only woman in the room. I was feeling like maybe I was somewhere I shouldn’t be. Maybe they’d wake up and say, “What about her? What’s she doing here?”

So I told Sharon I didn’t like my hair and she had to do it over. “I need it to be more conservative,” I said.

She said, “You can make up for that with your fifteen pairs of black loafers.”

“No, really,” I said, “Can you take out the red highlights?” And then, it happened: I pulled out three hairs and told her, “If you could just fix these three hairs. That would be okay.”

So now I’m going to tell you about being a nut case. Watch yourself. Because some people get migraines when they are under too much pressure. And some people become other peoples’ migraines.

There is no point in being a pain just because you’re stressed and nervous. Recognize that you’re under pressure and misplacing your anxiety. Give the people around you a break. Anyone can be fun to work with when life is going along perfectly. The best people to work with are consistent, even when they are a wreck – that’s the real test of how well you manage your stress.

If you work with someone who is a terror under stress, pretend you’re a hairdresser, and look for the underlying cause. And remember that Sharon calms those nutcases down by being a good listener. Don’t underestimate listening as a tool for keeping the nuts in their shells.

/17 Comments

How to make ladder-climbing a positive experience

, ,

The work world offers a continuum of means to stability. Huge risk takers might choose to pay off the Russian mob and try to corner to oil market in Siberia. If you’re looking for stability, you might try climbing a corporate ladder in a large, publicly traded company.

Climbing, of course, could lead to instability. The less valuable you are to the company, the more likely you are to be laid off, given mind-numbing work, or given positions that offer little flexibility. And those situations often lead to big instability.

But there are a few things you can do to make ladder-climbing easier. So here are three ideas, and one general tip: Pay attention to employment litigation – where the courts are systematically documenting what helps and hinders ladder-climbers as a way to protect minorities from discrimination.

1. Start somewhere good.
There are companies that are known for being respectful of employees and there are companies known for being embroiled in litigation from bitter employees.

Stay away from the latter. Daniel Gilbert shows that if the last girl liked the guy you’re dating than you’ll probably like him, too. It is not a big leap to apply this research to the workplace. If other people love working at the company, then you will too.

So talk to former employees and find out if they liked the company. (Current employees often have too much invested in their job to tell you the company stinks.) LinkedIn is actually a great way to find former employees of a given company. And most people will be happy to tell you if they loved their former match.

2. Get a sponsor.
In order to move up in a large company you need someone to guide you. A sponsor is someone who is a mentor, but it’s a specific type of mentor. This person is well-connected in the company, who will not only make you known to the right people, but will help you steer yourself within the company.

You find a sponsor the same way you would find a mentor. By networking, by approaching the person directly, or by asking your human resources department if there’s a company program you can join.

It is well documented that a sponsor works to get an employee up the ladder. And because of this, when a large company gets in trouble for not promoting enough minorities into senior management, one way they can remedy the problem (reg. req.) in a way that satisfies the courts is to establish a sponsor program for minorities.

This should be enough evidence for you to set up your own little program, for yourself.

3. Get into a line management position.
Corporations are set up to favor ladder climbing from line management rather than from support roles.

What does this mean? Line managers are directly responsible for generating money for the company (think product management or sales). Support staff, on the other hand, is responsible for making things run smoothly so the line managers can generate money (think human resources, public relations, or customer service).

Support managers generally do not have the profit-and-loss experience necessary for a top management position. Of all the CEOs who worked their way up the ladder, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with someone who made their mark on the company in a support role. And discrimination lawsuits have identified placing minorities in human resources and public relations departments as inherently career-limiting moves.

One of the most important pieces of climbing a ladder is creating a situation where you have enough clout to create a furtively flexible work life. (For example, a last-minute decision to go to a basketball game does not raise any eyebrows.) This is what will make ladder climbing palatable over an extended period of time.

Take a job that allows you to adding directly to the company’s bottom line, because if you can take responsibility for profits then you will get more leeway to create the kind of work life you want. And, that, after all, is the key to making a climb up the ladder a positive experience.

/13 Comments

How to sidestep office hierarchy to get the job you want

, ,

A lot of you know you’d like to be doing something more significant for your company, but no one is giving you the chance. This is your wake up call. You don’t need to wait for someone to bestow a title on you — you can take on a bigger role right now.

The key to taking on a bigger role is to have your current job under control. If you can’t handle your current job and another one, then you have to wait until you can change jobs. But if you get great at time management then you can do your current job and start doing another one without waiting for an invitation to climb up a rung on the corporate ladder.

Once you’re ready to take on other, more interesting work, you can use this three-step process to sidestep hierarchy.

1. Find a problem area in the company that no one is dealing with.
When I was in charge of online marketing at a software company. I knew that I wanted broader, operational experience, but it wasn’t part of my job description. So I got my marketing workload under control and then looked around for a trouble spot in the organization that no one was paying attention to.

I found tech support. The people were poorly trained, it was a huge cost center, and the company was growing at a rate that meant this problem would increase by 300% over the next year.

2. Come up with a solution you think you can execute.
I wrote a report that showed the problem and I outlined a detailed solution, with a timeline. I had no idea how to manage tech support. I outlined the solution by listing best practices that I got out of a management textbook, and my schedule was as broad as possible.

My boss was happy to give me responsibility for tech support because no other managers wanted it and he didn’t have budget to hire a new manager. But he didn’t change my title. He just said, “Okay, you can do that. Thanks.” No formal announcement.

3. Convince a team to help you.
I gathered up the three tech support people and explained to them that I understood their problems – being overworked, having no supplies, having constantly breaking products to support, etc. I told them I would help them fix these problems. They liked that, so they got on board to help me.

Then, before they could start doubting my ability to manage tech support, I asked each of them what they wanted from their job. Each had different answers. One wanted more money to support his daughter, one wanted management experience, one wanted less stress on the job. I made a plan to show how each of them could meet those goals.

The outcome: By the end of six months, I had done such a good job turning around tech support, that my boss gave me seed money to start my own company.

This last part is very important. When you are looking around your company for something new to do, don’t look for the perfect, dream job. Look for a job that will let you grow and show people how talented you are. This is the kind of situation that leads to huge opportunity.

/5 Comments

Office politics is about being nice

,

Here is a message for people who say office politics don’t matter: You will die a slow, painful career death. This is because there’s no getting around office politics, and mastering them is essential to being able to steer your own career. Don’t take that as bad news, though, because mastering office politics is good for your soul. Really.

Office politics is inescapable because it’s about dealing with the people. A small percentage of people are mentally unable to understand office politics. The rest of you need to get with the program. Because where there is a group of people — anywhere, even on the playground – there is politics.

Let’s say you pack up your bags and go work in a national park, with trees and rivers and no cubicles. There will be politics about who has to take care of hikers when it’s raining and who gets to stay dry, and if you are bad at politics, you will be wet every time.

Politics is part of society. And my guess is that you want to participate in society (at least) so that you can support yourself. But people who are good at politics are generally empathetic (they understand who needs what) and they have good self-discipline (they can moderate themselves so they are pleasant to be with.)

Most people who hate politics think they have to change who they are to succeed. Really, though, anyone who is being their best self — kind, considerate, expressive, interested in others — will do fine in office politics.

So get to know yourself. Saying you just can’t do politics is giving up on being your best self. And wait, there’s more good news about office politics. If you really take a look at what’s going on over there at the water cooler, people are not jockeying for power, they are hobnobbing for projects. That’s right. For most people in today’s workplace, office politics is about getting the best opportunities to learn and grow; the best projects, the best training, the assignments that build skills the market values.

Office chatter with the vapid goal of getting power over other people is, frankly, a little offensive. But it is hard to fault people for wanting to grow and learn. In fact, I find more fault with people who care so little about personal growth that they won’t spend the extra energy politicking to get themselves on good projects.

Maybe you are convinced, but you are feeling at a loss to get started. Here are four things that people who are good at office politics do:

1. Make time for it — both in terms of face time, and time alone to analyze the face time.

2. Listen. How can you learn anything when you’re talking about what you already know?

3. Have genuine interest in other people. Each person is interesting if you are interested enough to ask the right question.

4. Practice empathy. This means putting yourself in other peoples’ shoes all the time. And not judging them.

Maybe you’re still thinking of being the person at the office who abstains from office politics. Realize that you won’t last long – in the office, that is. Putting your head down and doing your work is a good way to ensure that you don’t connect with anyone. This situation is deadly in a world where people are hired for what they know and fired for who they are. People need to get to know you in order to like you.

The act of making yourself likeable is office politicking. You shouldn’t have to be fake if you are a genuinely nice and interested person. If office politics requires you to do something that feels fake, consider that you were not likeable in the first place. For you, office politics is training ground to teach yourself to be likeable, and, as a side benefit, you will save your job. For others, office politics is the time at work when you get to be your best, true, self in search of more learning opportunities and more human connections.

/53 Comments