Kicking Ass @Work: How to Tell Who’s Aligned With Whom
So without further ado, here’s how to accomplish one of the most critical tasks at work: finding out who’s aligned with whom…
Why should I care about this?
Being successful means building alliances. In Viking times, leaders did this by sharing treasure hauls from one of their raids on the unsuspecting English countryside. But in today’s typical office setting, you don’t have treasure hoards to share, so what’s the next best thing? In my experience, one of the most important (and critically rare!) currencies that you have is honesty. More specifically, honest information about what’s going on and what you think, especially if you’re pretty sure you’re right. Some examples:
I think XYZ product launch will fail unless ABC happens
Person PDQ isn’t trustworthy, be sure to document stuff
If you can work with Manager X, do it. They are awesome.
But being honest is a risk; suppose the other person has the opposite point of view? Now they’ll tell everyone that you hate PDQ, and that could make you enemies. But life is all about calculated risks, IMHO, so here are some things to take into consideration before deciding whether to trust or confide in someone.
Map out Power Structures in Your Organization
People typically sort themselves into tribes. Hey, we may have fancy office settings and cool clothes, but at the heart of things, we’re still hunter-gatherers, sorting ourselves into small groups around a leader. So, watch who has a title, what they say and—most importantly—how they say it. For example, let’s say the CFO in your company sends out a series of emails about watching expenses, and their big mantra is ‘the little things mean a lot.’ Knowing that, you’ll want to watch:
Who talks about cutting costs in meetings
If they do cover the topic, do they use the same language as the leader in question? Watch especially closely for catch phrases. For example, if someone uses the same language ‘little things mean a lot,’ then they are even more closely aligned
For obvious stuff, like if this person spends hours hanging with the CFO in their office or chatting by the water cooler
That will tell you if Person A is aligned with Leader B. Sure, you could check the org chart, but that won’t tell you much. Most often, at least a few subordinates are out to get their boss. If someone isn’t aligned to a particular leader, then you’ll notice that:
They may make snarky comments in meetings about ‘being obsessed with cutting costs at the expense of revenue.’
They mock the catch phrase. ‘Little things mean a-nothing’, for example
Obvious stuff like chilly encounters in meetings
When I first join an organization, I like to watch and listen until I create a kind of heat map of who’s aligned with whom. Folks with titles are the easiest to map first. If someone has balls and an opinion, then they’ll make friends and enemies. Once you know that, you can make informed decisions about whether you want to be aligned with them or not.
But what if I don’t want to be aligned with anyone?
This is a valid coping strategy, and a popular one. Personally, I can’t use it because it goes against my nature too much. That said, it’s super common, especially in large companies: do just enough work to get by, trying not to align or distance yourself from anyone. The positive side of this approach is that you can stay in the same job for a long time with relative stasis and security. The negative comes if you ever need to get something done and you don’t have any alliances to help you…Or if your company goes out of business and you’re ‘getting shizz done’ skills are rusty.
Now, assuming you want at least some alliances in case of trouble, then people who are alliance-neutral aren’t typically worth your time to invest in, one way or another. That said, if they have a good personality, they may be fun to have lunch with.
Finding hidden power
In virtually every organization, shit gets done at the worker-bee level. Then, within any group-o-bees, there are a handful who get 80% of stuff done for everybody. These folks are what I call ‘hidden power.’ They don’t have a title, but they still run the show. Sure, they’re a little harder to find, but once you detect them, they make for awesome friends and allies. Here’s what you do. Use the same steps as above, mapping out what the rank-and-file folks think and how they express those opinions. After that, track who’s parroting whom. If someone has enough followers, then they’re power in an organization, even if they don’t have a title.
What do I get out of a good alliance?
A lot of stuff, actually. A good alliance means that someone will:
Share information back with you
Someone who’ll go the extra mile to help you meet your goals (and vice versa)
Support your points of view in a meeting or outside it
Provide you with honest feedback on your ideas
All in all, building good alliances comes down to doing your homework: mapping out who’s aligned where, and then making smart decisions about investing your time, honesty and insight. It’s not necessarily glamorous stuff, but it is how ass gets kicked.
ALSO IN THIS SERIES:
3 Strikes and I Call Your Manager
Rule of the 3 Ps
Get anyone to back to fuck off
Work means never having to say ‘I’m sorry’
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