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Depends of position. If dealing with peer or higher-level "politicians" - I refuse to play their game, even if beneficiary to me at the time. While I simultane
by DuncanIdaho 16y ago
Depends of position.
If dealing with peer or higher-level "politicians" - I refuse to play their game, even if beneficiary to me at the time. While I simultaneously point out any transgressions of theirs. Sooner than later they screw up - since focusing on politics instead of your work is actually pretty hard work.
If dealing with subordinates. I perform "face thy accusor" ritual. It also helps not to get engaged into any of their schemes - thus preserving one's integrity.
Oh and both approaches require that you be valuable to the team - else you will get ground and ejected :)
- hga 16y agoWRT to "be valuable to the team", it also matters how good/non-political your superiors are. I've been the key employee at a couple of small companies where political games at peer or above levels resulted in my getting purged ... and the company then having an hard and ugly death in pretty short order. And there are zillions of well sourced accounts where the key technical people at companies big and not so big lost political battles and then their jobs or ability to accomplish anything and the company then suffering or worse. A lot of this comes down to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: "In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely." I'm really bad at even detecting these games until it's too late, and of course it's hard for anyone who's focused on the goals of the company to fight those who are focused on their position within it.